Entrepreneurs in Our Midst
They’re taking classes, strengthening their finances, dreaming up business concepts, and waiting for the day they will pack up. They are members of what those of us in the U.S. call “Generation X,” the French call “Génération Bof” (meaning “whatever”), and Iranians call the “Burnt Generation.” A group largely in their thirties today (officially 27 to 42), recognized in most parts of the world, X’ers pose a significant challenge to corporations who hope to retain and engage them.
Let me go back one more time to the discussion of our teenage experiences. X’ers came of age in the ’80’s and ’90’s, times of economic uncertainty and domestic social change. Latin American economies were experiencing persistent financial crises (in fact, the generation there is often referred to as the “Crisis Generation”) and the economy in the U.S. and much of Europe was in the doldrums.
On the home front, many X’ers lived through a significant shift in the social fabric. In the U.S., for the first time since war efforts, women entered the workforce in major numbers – Mom was home for many X’ers when they were small and went to work during their teen years. Some of the impetus for women working outside the home came from rising divorce rates – during X’ers’ teen years, divorce rates in the U.S. rose from 20 percent to 50 percent. They were the first generation labeled “latchkey kids” – home alone in the afternoons, leaning on their friends for companionship and support.
Even more significant in terms of their relationship with work, X’ers’ teen years were a time of major corporate restructuring. The psychological contracts between employers and employees, established through the ’60’s and ’70’s, were being ripped apart as large scale layoffs accompanied the re-engineering and downsizing initiatives of the ’80’s. It’s a safe assumption that there is no one in their 30’s today who, as a teen, did not know some adult who was laid off from a corporation that he or she had planned to spend their entire career with. The sense of unease around corporate commitments is an almost universally shared view among Generation X.
As a result, X’ers today tend to be very wary of putting all their eggs in one corporate basket. They don’t like to be pigeonholed or pushed out on a limb of specialization – with the inherent danger of a whimsical corporation sawing that limb off behind them during the next restructuring. In our research, they are the generation that is most likely to fear being laid off and most likely to feel at a dead end in their corporate careers. One of their highest priorities is keeping their options open and their skills diverse – to be as self-reliant as possible.
I believe the X’ers’ fundamental mistrust of institutions will cause many of them to leave corporate life over the next five years. The classes they are taking today – the fastest growing programs in MBA curricula, in fact – are classes in entrepreneurship. Many X’ers are studying today, to leave their current corporate jobs tomorrow.
On the positive side, I anticipate good things for our innovation economy, as new venture formation picks up steam. On the other, the challenge of finding tomorrow’s corporate leaders will be exacerbated if many of our best and brightest strike out on their own.
What are your ideas of the best ways to make corporate life more attractive to Generation X?
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Entrepreneurs in Our Midst
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