Five Generations at Work

8Generations Future

So far, we have explored five generations at work in the working world of today. But what about future generations? The challenges and change that we are faced with today, from geopolitical, to climate, to technological, are happening at an unprecedented pace and scale. As volatility and uncertainty become the new normal, adaptability is going to become ever more vital to that agenda, along with the recognition that it is a shared agenda. And that requires greater agility in learning from and with each other, and more collaborative and collective action. It also needs perspective and judgement.

As we explore some of the far-reaching work whose purpose is to encode and protect the lives of future generations, the words of T.S. Eliot seem to be a compelling accompaniment to this chapter, as we reflect on the implications of actions across generations past, present and future. As members of every generation in society today, the generational discourse and our frame of reference tends to focus on time present, informed by time past. If we open the aperture, we afford a different perspective on how we situate ourselves, and on how we choose to act today for the benefit of future generations.

The premise of this chapter is to look at generational trajectories over a longer term. If we are truly to think about why and how businesses and organisations are creating value for the long term, we need to look at how they are evolving in the context of today’s five generational ...