Qual geração irá mudar o mundo?

Cada vez mais tenho visto uma discussão sobre conflitos das gerações que estão no comando das organizações (sejam governos, empresas ou Ong's) do mundo atual e como suas visões particulares influenciam seu jeito de agir no mundo.

A discussão mais comum nos apresenta as 3 gerações dominantes do mundo Ocidental:
Baby Boomers, nascidos após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Ainda hoje ocupam grandes posições de liderança e comando na sociedade, embora uma parte esteja começando a se aposentar. Foram criados em um mundo recém saído de uma grande guerra mundial, por pais que lutaram neste conflito (ou sofreram suas conseqüências). Foram a geração do Paz e Amor e as revoluções dos anos 60, mas acabaram criando um mundo bem diferente do que idealizaram, com super problemas, como o aquecimento Global e pobreza ainda persistente na maior parte do globo. Valores: materialismo (não querem correr o risco de enfrentar dificuldades materiais e financeiras como a que seus pais sofreram), respeito à hierarquia e tradições (família, religião, compromissos); Geração X, nascidos entre os anos 60 e 70. Foram a geração da entrada definitiva da mulher no mercado de trabalho e a que pôde usufruir do Capitalismo de forte crescimento econômico criado por seus pais e avós. Valores: consumismo, igualdade entre os sexos, tradições (em menor grau que os Baby Boomers, mas ainda muito presente); Geração Y, nascidos a partir do final dos anos 70 e início dos 80. Criados sob a ausência de suas mães que já estavam no mercado de trabalho e sob forte influência da televisão e internet. Valores: qualidade de vida, equilíbrio entre trabalho e outros papéis (não querem se tornar os mesmos pais ausentes que tiveram), igualdade (desrespeito à hierarquias de qualquer tipo).

O grande problema desta discussão usual e plana, reside na forte caracterização das gerações à partir de seu momento histórico. Embora isso faça sentido do ponto de vista das influências que cada geração sofreu, podemos ter vários indivíduos que fogem à regra e agem de maneira completamente diferente do panorama descrito acima.

Outro aspecto preocupante desta análise está no fato de que ela pode conduzir a uma guerra de egos, para se definir qual a melhor geração, a que mais fez bem e a que errou mais, quando na verdade, cada geração faz aquilo que lhe é permitido em termos de sua base educacional/cultural e dos desafios que o mundo lhe impõe.

Diante deste quadro, apresento uma visão bem particular e mais profunda dessa questão, postada por um pesquisador de Harvard.

Desculpem pelo inglês. Diante dos péssimos tradutores eletrônicos que temos por aí, preferi manter a versão original. 

The Generation M Manifesto

8:01 AM Wednesday July 8, 2009

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

You wanted big, fat, lazy "business." We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.

You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs.We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.

You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today's markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn't care which communities were capsized, or whichlives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff thatmatters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We're not for sale: we're learning to once again do what is meaningful.

There's a tectonic shift rocking the social, political, and economic landscape. The last two points above are what express it most concisely. I hate labels, but I'm going to employ a flawed, imperfect one: Generation "M."

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doingmeaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, andFlickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, andFindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Gen M isn't just kind of awesome — it's vitally necessary. If you think the "M"s sound idealistic, think again.

The great crisis isn't going away, changing, or "morphing." It's the same old crisis — and it's growing.

You've failed to recognize it for what it really is. It is, as I've repeatedly pointed out, in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized.

But they're your institutions, not ours. You made them — and they're broken. Here's what I mean:

"... For example, the auto industry has cut back production so far that inventories have begun to shrink — even in the face of historically weak demand for motor vehicles. As the economy stabilizes, just slowing the pace of this inventory shrinkage will boost gross domestic product, or GDP, which is the nation's total output of goods and services."

Clearing the backlog of SUVs built on 30-year-old technology is going to pump up GDP? So what? There couldn't be a clearer example of why GDP is a totally flawed concept, an obsolete institution. We don't need more land yachts clogging our roads: we need a 21st Century auto industry.

I was (kind of) kidding about seceding before. Here's what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday's profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born. So the question is this: do you still belong to the 20th century - or the 21st?

Love,

Umair* and the Edge Economy Community

*Umair Haque is Director of the Havas Media Lab. He also founded Bubblegeneration, an agenda-setting advisory boutique that shaped strategies across media and consumer industries.