Generations, Legacy & All That Jazz

Offloading my own generational baggage

Ok, I’ll admit it: In my stand-up comedy, I’ve made my fair share of Gen-Z jokes. (Example below).

I do it because it gets easy laughs. Particularly, interestingly enough, among Gen Zs themselves in the audience.

I’ll also admit that I’ve had my own occasional frustrations from Gen Z interactions, particularly in the workplace. And, as a parent, with the two Gen Alphas in my own household. (So I’m that sense, perhaps I’m using comedy as a form of therapy, building on my last post).

But this week, speaking at the Ashoka Summit in Hamburg, really made me question my thinking. There, I heard four amazing Gen Z changemakers explain eloquently why they were so keen to do things differently.

It wasn’t for the sake of difference, they explained,

It was because they didn’t want to undermine or roll-back any of the progress that my generation had made - in everything from diversity to work flexibility.

It was that desire to build further that made them go back to first principles. For example, why does life and work need to be dog-eat-dog, hyper stressful - and so de-energising?

Why indeed? I asked myself.

Archaeologist Brendon Wilkins recently alerted me to the work of Silicon Valley investor Mike Maples. Maples makes a fascinating claim: to reinvent the world, we must find people already living in the future. And help them connect with other people who see their identity in that future, and who can back their dreams.

Maybe I’d been watching too many “Succession” episodes. Because like Logan Roy, I’d been framing the world from the past - from the vantage of Legacy: How can Gen Z - and yes, also my kids - benefit from all my accumulated wisdom? How can they avoid making all those painful mistakes I’d made?

When perhaps the real question is: What can I do to help them feel free of all that unhelpful baggage that my generation also brings?

How can I help them to start with a light, perhaps virtually empty, backpack?

I won’t deny my generation’s role in screwing up the world. And I feel guilty that I contributed to that screwing-up. But hey, that’s life for you.

I made my career change from leader/doer to advisor because I felt I’d done my share of doing. That it was time to help and support a new generation of leaders to rise.

But in allowing that, I have to let them do that leading on their own terms.

My experience can be useful - something of a cautionary (and hopefully, at times, optimistic) tale.

But if I over-index on Legacy, I might let resentment filter. For example, how is it fair that they’re able to enjoy all this new opportunity and flexibility when I couldn’t? And when I had to make all those sacrifices. (Simple answer: It’s not. But hey, that’s also life for you).

I’ve been reading two stunning inter-generational novels recently - “Pachinko” and “Mongrel”. At at the core, both stories are about how each generation can store their own trauma and (unwittingly) pass it onto the next. I get the point; I don’t want to be equally unwitting.

In that context, that insight about Gen Z wanting to build on our generation’s march, felt strangely liberating. Because it suggests possibility: We aren’t marching against each other. Nor are we trying to prove which one of us is “right”. We can march together to ensure future generations have it better than us both.

So yes, I’ll stop doing as many Gen Z jokes. (Though like any self-respecting comedian, I reserve to right to draw on one at a particularly tough gig!).

Perhaps I’ll replace them with new jokes about my generation instead. And, by extension, jokes about me.

PS - Many thanks to the Bill Murray Comedy Club and to Ryan Denham for the film clip. Just be warned - some parts contain comedy club style humour :)