Mental agility, life design, and cultural literacy.
Happy Libra season, friends.
Something I’ve been thinking about recently has been how mentally agile and resilient kids have been to a sudden change in their routine, learning environment, and tools. Witnessing my nieces adapt to online learning has not only been eye opening, but fueling my curiosity. They handled the change with such grace and resilience, that at times I thought that they were better at it than I was.
Bridging generational and cultural gaps is something that I’ve lived through my entire life, given that I’m first generation Turkish-American. So naturally, I’m very curious about the contextual nuances of the disparities that lay between different generations and cultural backgrounds—how they shape us, our life design and our culture.
Every generation is shaped by the technology introduced during their upbringing. For example, Baby Boomers were shaped by the introduction of TV, Gen X was shaped by being able to take music with them places in CDs, Millennials were shaped by the emergence of the Internet, and Gen Z was shaped by social media and having access to a world with ubiquitous technology.
It is no doubt that we shape our tools, and our tools shape us. We shape our business processes, and our processes shape our business dialogues, relationships, and possibilities.
Zooming out on my thinking, this made me reflect on:
(A) influences of life design on a child’s cognitive abilities
(B) the advancement in technology and its influence on our source of motivation, communication style, and worldview; thus, our culture (= work view + life view)
(C) generational differences in the workforce (= passion economy + gig economy)
(D) the intersection of all of the above
This thinking makes me question:
How can we better respond to A,B,C, and D in order to generate the kinds of outcome we want?
How do parents and teachers need to adjust their pedagogy for younger generations to learn how to have a healthier relationship with technology and with themselves?
What disparities are being created now as a result of inequity across our national education system, especially with hybrid learning (at-home and in school)? Or, how do the possibilities available to us determine the boundaries of what we do and who we become?
How are people in positions of power across different industries managing these changes, and setting up a system-logic that is conducive to future leaders and a world that will not know a life without cutting-edge technology?
What risks does ignoring generational differences in customers and workforce pose on a business or institution?
What if:
Our education system adapts a more holistic pedagogy that promotes design thinking, self awareness, consciousness, and teaches students how to have a healthier relationship with technology.
Corporate America embeds more junior talent and views into their system logic, as opposed to the MD/SVP-centric logic we’ve grown accustomed to (bottom-up vs. top-down).
If I haven't lost you yet, here are the fruits of my thoughts:
Parents must understand how their relationship with technology influences their children’s relationship with technology
Teachers need to teach a new way
I believe a strong leader:
has the curiosity to understand the differences of their worldview vs. another’s
is not afraid to express vulnerability of changing times and younger generations being more advanced humans (advanced in certain ways)
knows when to relinquinish control to benefit the future of the business, and not their ego
Basically, the evolution of our culture depends on the tools and technologies we build, how we use them, and what kind of incentive landscape it creates.
✨
Aylin Leyla
Inspiring Voices
Life by Design Series
Profile: Serge is Co-Founder and CEO of Kulture Hub, a community platform designed to provide opportunities for the next generation of creators through content and real-life experiences. He is also CEO of Ambrose, a growth marketing agency. Prior to starting his own ventures, Serge was a founding member of Elite Daily.
During our Life by Design conversation, Serge talks to me about his day to day, finding his peak flow state, information consumption, his way-finding from Elite Daily to Kulture Hub, and more!