GENERATIONAL CONVERSATION
MAKING
SENSE OF THE
GENERATIONAL
CONVERSATION
By Ronnie Osumba
M
r. Ronnie Osumba,
Chairman, Youth Enterprise
Development Fund,
and Head of Public Sector, Oracle,
graced the 1st Mombasa Quiznite
2016 Series as the key note speaker
on Using Generation Z To Bring
Innovation and Creativity To Business.
Marketing Africa captured the
deliberations and brings you the story.
The generational conversation has been
going on for decades and will probably
never be settled. Generations have gaps
and therefore different points of views
in many things be it business, family or
politics. Everybody is grappling with
the generational challenge.
In the general elections of 2013, our
political arena ended up focusing on
the youth question. We saw all sorts
of people declaring they are youth.
It is a challenge for a lot of people
because there has not been sufficient
generational conversation among
ourselves so that we can contextualize
why generations have different
perspectives.
This evening I will attempt to stir
our thinking so that we can begin
to understand why generational
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differences bring serious and
significant challenges at the workplace.
In trying to understand generations
I will focus on the people I imagine
are still alive. The oldest I know of is
about 96 to 116 years, meaning th ey
would have been born around 1900 to
1920. That’s the first generation there
is around currently who are probably
not productive nor as active but they
are significant. They are only about
0.05 percent of Kenyans so they are
very few.
They are the veterans, very
conservative, born and brought
up when there was no schooling
or civilization. They are highly
and efficiently tribal and ethnic in
viewpoint. Any logic with these people
is based on one viewpoint - ethnic
conservatism. Any other viewpoint is
not tolerated.
The next generation, born between
1920 and 1940, was born when the
colonialist had come, built the railway
and colonial rule had begun in the
country. They are colonial in their
thinking. They are educated but very
submissive because they were forced to
go to school by the colonialists.
Today they form the larger majority
of true and devout Christians because
that’s what they were taught by the
colonialists - and their thinking reflects
how they were brought up.
The Independence Generations
The third generation is the preindependence generation born
between 1940 and 1960. They saw the
struggle and the agitation for self-rule.
They are free in their thinking, are
agitators and they saw the emergency
period so they know the steel hand of
the colonialist. They faced oppression
and have a certain sense of entitlement
as those who fought for the country’s
freedom – our uhuru.
There’s nothing anyone can tell this
group. Today they are the owners of
capital, businesses, banks, buildings
and are probably your landlord. That’s
their state of mind – they cannot be
told anything by anybody because
they fought for the land on which the
country stands. They love blue collar
jobs but they are also the chairmen and
directors of many boards.
Then there’s the independence
generation who are those that were