Intergenerational harmony: Building bridges for across generations for productive collaboration podcast

Transcript

Intergenerational harmony: Building bridges for across generations for productive collaboration

Tom Shiels (TS): Welcome to the Emerald Podcast series. I'm your host, Tom Shiels, Communications Manager at Emerald Publishing. Today, I'm joined by Dr Arpan Yagnik, an acclaimed speaker and associate professor at Penn State University with a PhD in media and communications from Bowling Green State University. Arpan's research spans creativity, advertising and marketing. His mantra, action inspired by creativity, and his popular TEDx talk, creative aerobics have inspired many. He believes our understanding of life has become increasingly narrow and he urges us to break free from these confines through his philosophy of simple living and high thinking. Arpan’s new book Intergenerational Harmony looks at the strategic power of generational synergy through the lens of multi-generationality. It's a big topic, so I ask Arpan to start at the beginning by explaining what multi-generationality is all about.

Arpan Yagnik (AY): Multi-generationality is a blade of the 21st century. It can cut deep, it can cut hard, and it can cut both ways. So it is something that we all have to be very careful about. Multi-generationality is the convergence and the coming together of multiple generations which are age based, demographic based, mindset based, interest based with distinctly unique identities. And this is what makes multi-generationality a double-sided blade. We have to be very careful of utilising the powers that multi-generationality can bring, because if not handled well, it can cut us and our society and our enterprises in the worst possible manner. Multi-generationality is one of the most ignored realities of the 21st century, because it is so blatantly out there, we do not pay much attention to how we interact with it, how it impacts us. How it’s slowly and surely changing the dynamics and one of the biggest things that it leads to is generational isolation. And once again, every time I talk about multi-generationality, keep in mind that it is not just the different ages. It is different mindsets, different interests, different psychological profiles, different demographics, so on and so forth. So the generational isolation and the generational friction, could, you know, just put us back and not let us proceed at the pace of progress and development that is needed for the 21st century.

TS: It's fascinating. And so with all that in mind, that's a fairly heavy topic to get stuck into. What was it that inspired you to write the book Arpan? 

AY: This goes back to three years or so ago, I was affiliated with multiple corporations, and some not for profit organisations, as well as some religious organisations. And when I would sit in the meetings with the leaders of this organisation, I kept hearing the same thing in all the organisations, be it religious, be it a hardcore corporate profit making enterprise or a not for profit. And that was, where are the youth? Why are the youth not here? Where are the members of other generations? So this was a recurring theme if I was doing consulting or if I was doing some advising or mentoring. This was the constant theme. So I realised that this seems to be a little bit of an issue, and then I spoke to my mentor about having done a three day workshop for an organisation with the theme of intergenerational harmony. This was one of the first experiments that I did. And my mentor, Professor Jagdish Sheth, I was speaking with him, telling him about the experience, how it was designed, what were some of the outcomes of it, so on and so forth. And that is when he said that Arpan, this is very important. You have to work on this and get this knowledge out as soon as possible. So, I mean, he said it. And when your mentor says something, you just have to do it. You don't have to question it, you don't have to doubt it. You just do it and make it happen. So I then started going further, getting into the whole dynamic of the convergence of multi-generationality and the aspects of intergenerational harmony. And I started putting my thoughts, my experiments, my experiences, my ideas on paper, and with the wonderful support from the Emerald team, I got to bring this to life. So this is the little bit of a backstory of how it came about. It was extremely gratifying and fulfilling, and to work with an efficient team was also pretty amazing, who kept pace and were interested in seeing and making this see the light of the day. 

TS: Let's go back to the book's title, Intergenerational Harmony. Can you talk us through that concept and maybe explain a little bit about the ERTH model that’s mentioned in the book?

AY: Absolutely. So intergenerational harmony is a very carefully thought out concept, and there was a lot of debate on this within me, as well as with the people that I was in conversation with about this. Why should it be harmony, and why not collaboration or action, or something that you know brought instantly people together? But intergenerational harmony is a condition where different generational stakeholders within any enterprise are working in synergy to elevate and capitalise on the strengths of one another. Intergenerational harmony is a state of being. It is not where you are, like, you know, just coming together to accomplish something. No, it is like being a fertile soil, if you want to plant a seed of action, definitely a tree, which is fruit bearing, will come out of it. But there doesn't need to be action and collaboration and project driven understanding all the time between people. So intergenerational harmony is a state of being that should pervade and persist amidst all human enterprises, because if that pervades and persists many, many unimaginable things can be achieved and the ERTH that you mentioned, ERTH is the thermometer that I was talking about earlier. If a child has, you know, fever or high temperature, you use the thermometer to measure the exact temperature. ERTH is also like that. It's a device. It's a tool that will tell you the level of intergenerational harmony within a unit. So ERTH is made up of four dimensions. These four dimensions are empathy, respect trust and honesty. When these four are there, empathy, respect trust and honesty we can claim that intergenerational harmony exists and persists, because these are not about whether there is some joint project or joint collaboration or something, but it means that there is fertility. The soil is fertile. If there is a reason to come together, to converge further between the generations, they will do wholeheartedly, peacefully, respectfully, with a lot of trust and honesty. So ERTH is a, firstly, a tool to measure. Once the measurement is done, it gets a little more sophisticated because it tells you exactly where this unit is lacking. So that once you identify, oh, this particular unit is lacking, or this particular department in a corporation is lacking in respect, or this one is lacking in honesty, then we can come up with very specific surgical interventions and ensure that whatever is lacking is elevated and enhanced to the desired levels. So it is a very effective tool that corporations, academic environments, families can put to use and then identify. And it's very it's simple, and it's very effectively data driven, so you know where you were earlier, and then you can measure how much progress you have made, what more is needed. So the ERTH approach to intergenerational harmony is a very simple, easy, effective way to restore intergenerational harmony between the generations.

TS: Brilliant, and you kind of alluded to these sectors there a second ago, Arpan, but the book does talk about the crisis of multi-generationality and its impact on society, especially within five macro sectors. Can you walk us through these sectors and how multi-generationality affects each one? I know it's a huge question.

AY: Yeah, no, absolutely, but it's a very important question. Multi-generationality is here to stay, and I earlier alluded that it leads to generational isolation and generational friction, but that was very like a bird's eye view. It impacts five macro sectors, and these are family, education, government, religion and businesses and corporations. These are the five areas of human enterprise where humans come together and have to cohabit, they have to go inside. They have to cooperate and ensure that things move further, so family, the different aspects of multi-generationality are now impacting family life, the food habits, the entertainment consumption habits, the tourism habits, they are so divided. And because of the multi-generationality, there is polarisation. Also in the language, there is so much censoring of the different forms of language between generations and frictions. I have a student that came to me that said that we have not celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas in the last four years together as a family, and that is because of different generational interests. They just cannot come together to do this one thing. When you think of Education, Professor Albert Einstein, if he were 65 or 70 years old, there would be standing room only to listen to his, you know, talk, because he was at the peak of his wisdom. But then now imagine the same Professor Albert Einstein, who is 65 or 70 years old, and is struggling with PowerPoint and learning management systems and so on and so forth, it is impossible for even Professor Albert Einstein to retain and keep the audience engaged, because they are so much used to the fast and heavy stimulus that new forms of media and technology throw at them. Government. When we talk of government this election 2024 is a big election year, because 64 nations held their elections, and almost 50% of the population was going to cast their vote. So it's a very big year for democracy, but a huge generation that occupies the seats of policy making, of setting the agenda is now going to be out of the equation. There is a newer generation that is going to step into the politics and those seats of power, their approaches to achieving the same are very different. We have seen ample examples of within party clashes because of generational preferences within party, they both want to achieve the same goal, but the ideology, the approach, differs so drastically that they just keep going at one another, which is very counterproductive for not just the party, but people and the nation in general. So the constitution of the people that make up the seats of power, that constitution is changing. The generationality over there is changing. And earlier things were like, you know, experience meant expertise, but now with technology, suddenly experience and expertise, the dynamics have changed. So you may be experienced in age, you may have seen a lot more, but you have no understanding of the technology, and therefore you are no expert, and somebody is not going to think twice before casting you out. So this shift in experience and expertise is a major aspect of the impact of multi generationality on many different aspects. Let me talk a little bit about religion. The understanding of who God is and where God is keeps changing with generations. It's like it follows the mass laws hierarchy. There is a mass exodus. There are so many people, especially youngsters, that are leaving organised religion, and they are all moving towards spirituality. Why is that? Well, religion provides an organised way of reaching a particular destination or a goal, whereas generationally now, we all are seeking experiences, and spirituality does not provide a template. So spirituality allows for the flourishing of creativity and creative pursuits. These are shifts that are happening. And there are generational elements, which are, you know, creating little blips here and there in all of these things. Lastly, corporations, family run businesses is one way. The different generations, they have different approaches to running a family. Usually, the youngster of the family will come and say why don't we have an Instagram presence of our business? But then the patriarch or the matriarch will say, well, that's never how I got the customers. My clients came through going and meeting and talking to people, but now an entire generation is even scared of answering the phone. They just like, you know, start visibly shaking if someone calls them and they have to pick up and answer the phone. So it's an entire different way of cultivating relations, maintaining relations, on the business side, but also on the family side, how you meet your partner is now very different from how someone would meet their partner maybe 25 years ago. So in businesses, in corporations and startup culture again generation is not age based. So in corporation and startup, there are different ways. So one way we can look at a generation is the proximity to the founder. The founder has a vision and way, and then the second generation is the one who has worked with those founders, and they will become the preservers of the way of life and working of the founder. The third generation has only heard stories about the founder, by the time we get to the fourth and fifth generation, they are merely contractors. They don't care about the founder’s vision or the way of life, they only think about what I can get of this and move on. And of course, they are also kept at a distance. They are never involved in decision making. So there is insensitivity on both the extreme ends. Whether it is right or wrong that is not for me to say, but my role over here is to identify that this is missing, and that is not in the best advantage of the corporate or the business. 

TS: Thank you, Arpan, you say in the book that you know, in the context of intergenerational harmony, education and technology could be a book on its own, so we'll barely make a dent on it in a podcast, but that said, would you be able to tell us a bit more about the role technology plays in education when it comes to fostering intergenerational harmony?

AY: If it is not dealt properly, technology can become the big divider. It can keep people apart, and the value of technologically being savvy is disproportional in the market food chain. That's something one should note if you can code or work at this moment, with artificial intelligence, prompt engineering, then your demand and value is very high. There are members of certain generations that will obviously not have so much interest in that. So if education wise, if you are not in a field that is technology friendly, your employability is at stake. So this is narrowing and funnelling everyone towards that. So it doesn't matter whether you are studying history, but you have to incorporate technology’s aspect in history, you might be studying philosophy, but you still have to integrate technology’s aspect into philosophy. Otherwise, without that, the market food chain is not very cohesive for you. So think of something like an encyclopaedia. I know that people would be so proud if they even had two or three volumes, not the entire set, just the volumes of an encyclopaedia. Technology came in, and now, if you have the full set, or even one or two, people are going to laugh at you, like, what are you crazy? Why are you wasting so much space? Similarly, many universities have even removed their computer labs because everyone has their own laptops, so they just don't have any more computer labs. Now, imagine going to a university that does not have books, that does not have computer labs. It's a very different experience, but it is something that is very normal and natural for the people of this era. Say, Generation Z, generation alpha, which are basically digital natives for them, like you go to any household and you look at a child eating their food, there is invariably a screen in front of them. They will not eat food if that screen and whatever cartoon that is playing is in front of them now that same child is going to go to a school or a college, it is so difficult for them to pay attention to certain forms of media. They have massive attention span. They have attention span because this is the same generation that can watch binge watch shows for eight or nine hours straight while they are sacrificing their sleep, but if they have to focus for a 15 minute class, boy, oh boy, that's so challenging and difficult because it does not have the same roller coaster experience that technology and media can provide. Learning wise, it changes a lot. The paradigms of learning have changed with technology, where remembering has become obsolete. There is no need to remember anything, because due to the efficiency and accuracy of technology, we can fully depend on it. I don't have to remember when the Civil War was fought. I can Google it. It is better if you remember it, but you can Google it and still come up with the correct answer. So remembering has become obsolete. The bigger problem now with technology, and especially in education, is retrieval. How are you going to effectively retrieve the information? If you keep an open book examination, which mostly now it is kids find it hard to retrieve because they don't know where this information was. If it is online, then you can do a Control F or a command F and find that relevant information. But if you have to retrieve information from a book, there is no way you can retrieve that. So remembering has become obsolete. Retrieval has become the key, and also a very different nature of ignorance is once again becoming bliss. There are programs and applications for everything. So why would you want to be knowledgeable? What's the merit of being knowledgeable in this age and day? And now, of course, there is another entity called artificial intelligence and the different large language models and artificial intelligence, so your need and requirement of cognitive superiority is just so little. You want to write a cover letter, chat GPT will do it. You want to write an essay, chat GPT will do it. You provide the prompts, you be specific, and things work out. So how are you going to train these children? What is it that you can offer them in a classroom? What we have to now learn is that this whole paradigm of learning spaces, learning environment and teaching has to undergo a drastic change. How are you going to teach or help someone learn? The World Economic Forum has brought out taxonomy 4.0 for education and if you look at it, I don't know how you can work things out and provide all those skills, because students generationally are so averse, and teachers generationally are also equally averse to teaching and providing some of those things. So I think it's a challenging dynamic with a lot of moving pieces, and we have to juggle it together. We cannot juggle it separately and independently, because if I do it independently, without the generational input of the other generations, I'm just creating a recipe for disaster. Education is very, very important for sort of a stable life, not for earning money. Education is not the only prerequisite. You can earn money if you are illiterate, you can earn money if you have not gone to school, or you have dropped out of school, and this whole technology enabled professions such as content creator, blogger. There is little, very little, technological education also that is required, because you can learn it as you go. So this is the age and era that we are living, and without intergenerational harmony, we cannot reconcile all these differences and find a path, otherwise, whatever solution or way ahead we find it will be rejected by one or the other generations, and then again, you are back to the drawing board. So everyone has to come together. I always say that for a circle to remain a circle it has to become a tighter circle, everyone has to take a step forward, even if one person does not take a step forward, then it will not be a circle.

TS: Arpan here comes to the final question now, which is, you know, we've covered a lot of hefty stuff over the last half hour or so, and this might be the toughest question of all, actually, for you to answer. If readers could take away just one lesson from your book, what would you want that lesson to be?
AY: That lesson will be, that intergenerational harmony is the future, and without ERTH, this future is blurry, so the ERTH approach, empathy, respect, trust, honesty, without proper application of the ERTH you have no basis to stand. You know just how like we stand and create everything on ERTH for intergenerational harmony, so for family, for education, for religion, for government, for businesses and corporations, without ERTH, their future is bleak without harmony, there is not going to be solidarity and there is not going to be a way forward. So it is in their best interest to start investing in intergenerational harmony for success, for profitability, for sustainability and for a peaceful survival and existence on the planet.

TS: Thanks for listening to today's episode. For more information on today's guest and for a transcript of the show, please visit our website. I'd like to thank Dr Arpan Yagnik and the studio, This is Distorted.