VUCA and Generation Y

As I considered the many topics from Dr. Nat Irving's "Managing in the Future", one stood out to me; technology changes, as do attitudes, opinions and norms.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the motivations that I see in my own children.  Deborah Zabarenko describes the reluctance of many in Generation Y to learn how to drive a car, a phenomenon that I have personally witnessed with my oldest, Kendall, and most of his friends.    He would not agree to complete an online driving class, necessary for obtaining his learners permit, until 9 months after he turned fifteen.  Even then, I had to push him to complete the lessons and nearly drag him to the license branch.   “Generation Y includes an increasing number of people for whom driving is less an American rite of passage than an unnecessary chore” (Zabarenko, 2012). 

 While we talk a lot of applying the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) model to management, I believe the example above demonstrates its criticality in our personal lives as well.  I’m a better parent because I work to understand how my children and their friends perceive and interact with their environment;  this may account for the large number of teens which tend to be at my home on any given weekend.    Yes, my house is not as clean and my pantry is lighter as a result, but I really wouldn’t change it.

Christine

Zabarenko, Deborah (1-July-2012). For Generation Y, Learning to Drive is No Longer a Rite of Passage in Reuters accessed on 23-August-2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/02/generation-y-learning-to-drive_n_1641117.html.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity