Choose Your Enemies Carefully
April 13, 2008 by Ron Shevlin
In a great post on his blog, Jeff Larche wrote:
I tell the students how fortunate they are to be born in a time when other revolutionary technologies are emerging (which, together, become a sort of digital connectedness). They, and I, are part of a exciting adventure.”
Jeff goes on to quote Gord Hotchkiss, who wrote on MediaPost’s Search Insider column:
We’re building a new world up as we go. At any given moment, hundreds of millions of us are making it up as we go along. It’s a Darwinian experiment on a grand, grand scale.”
Excellent quotes. But I can’t help but feel that there’s a short-sightedness lurking in those statements. A short-sightedness that doesn’t recognize that practically every generation that came before the one they speak of felt the same adventure, optimism, and desire for change:
- In the early 80s, it was the promise of how personal computing technology would democratize the world and change the way we worked.
- In the Sixties, it was the hippies who revolted against the robotic homogeneity of the 50s, the Vietnam War, and fought for how we viewed racial, gender, and um, sexual relations.
- In the mid-Forties, it was the optimism of rebuilding the country after WWII.
- In the 1800s, it was the adventure of rebuilding the country after the Civil War.
- And in the late 1700s, it was building a new country in the first place.
Each step of the way, each generation faced it’s own adventures, and made it up as they went along. The technologies and tools each generation have to work with are different, but the adventure, the optimism, and the desire for change is there, nonetheless. To insinuate that today’s young people are facing an adventure that other generations didn’t is short-sighted.
But what I’m interested to find out is not just what Gen Yers will do with their adventure, but who they’ll choose as their enemies. Because every revolution chooses — and needs — an enemy.
This is what worries me about Obama. He’s aligned with the Rev. Wright, who seems to believe that the government and white people are the enemy. And with Bill Ayres, who, in the 70s, decided it was our own government who was the enemy, and bombed the Pentagon.
There’s a saying “keep you friends close and your enemies closer.” There’s a corollary: “Choose your friends wisely, but choose your enemies even more carefully.” Who you choose as your enemies defines you. And your friends’ enemies can be construed to be your enemies.
And so I’ll be watching to see who today’s Gen Yers choose as their enemies. If they decide it’s us Boomers, they’ll be making a huge mistake. The social consciousness that so many Gen Yers believe defines their generation is borne of the seeds planted by today’s Boomers (double entendre intended). We are not the enemy. We want many of the same changes they want — we just failed in making those changes come about.
But this isn’t just a rant about Obama and Gen Yers. There’s an important business message here as well: A company (or association, or even an industry) needs to choose its enemy carefully, as well.
Who you choose as your enemy doesn’t just define you — it defines your strategy and tactics.
A few years back, during the dot com boom, I worked for Forrester Research. Our battle cry was: “Beat Jupiter.” (Jupiter Research). It was a good enemy, because Jupiter was successful and growing, and it focused us on the right things. But when the dot com boom ended, Jupiter was no longer the right enemy (they were still a competitor, but not the enemy).
Today, in the financial services industry, I fear that many credit unions (and the affiliated associations) have not decided which enemy (or enemies) they want to fight, or have picked the wrong enemy.
The “little guy” persona that the credit union industry takes on is indicative of this. It implies that the “big bad banks” are the enemy. Well, I’m not so sure about that. When I look at the performance of the retail lines of business of the big banks, I don’t see healthy, thriving organizations.
A “good” enemy is one worth fighting against. The US could decide to declare war on Costa Rica, and fight and win (maybe). But what would good what that do? It’s the same in business. You want to fight against the “right enemy” — the one worth fighting against.
Now, I can just hear some credit union execs saying “You’re right, it’s not the big banks we need to fight against. We need to fight against become irrelevant. Irrelevance is our enemy.”
Sorry. That’s not good either. How will you know when you win? How will you know when “they’ve” lost? Your enemy needs to be something tangible, not conceptual.
I don’t know the right answer here. If I did, I could probably make millions selling the answer to credit unions. But today’s financial services firms — not just credit unions — need to better understand who their enemy is. As do today’s Gen Yers.
Technorati Tags: Banking, Financial Services
Highly thought-provoking post, Ron. I want to mull this one over more before I leave a more substantive reply, but this may one of your best yet.
Interesting post. Based on what I have experienced with the Gen Y crowd, I don’t see them making the boomers their enemy. I think when most reach the workforce, they begin to understand they can learn a lot from the boomers. Most of the Gen Yers I have worked with are sponges and are often surprised at how much they can learn from those “older” co-workers (at least the ones that are willing to share).
Thanks for the mention, Ron.
As for whether Gen Y will choose Boomers as the enemy, I suspect they will, to the same extent that Boomers resented their parents. Remember “Don’t trust anyone over 30?” Or Pete Townsend of The Who, singing, in the song “My Generation,” “Hope I die before I get old?”
You better believe we’ll be in Gen Y’s cross-hairs. Especially when all the bills come due, and it’s clear that we’ve botched things royally for their futures. Hell, I’d be furious.
As for Credit Unions, I agree that irrelevance is to nebulous to be an enemy. But my answer is related to it, and has little to do with a business or business category. I would say the enemy is mediocre, impersonalized service and products. I’m reminded of the quote that I’m sure didn’t originate with Stephen Covey, but that he uses often: “The good is the enemy of the great.” The enemy is the good. The salvation is the great.
Ron,
I like how you started off by stating *what* previous generations railed against, but I think you strayed from that opening premise when you wondered *who* Gen Y will make their enemy. As you said, the hippies “revolted against the robotic homogeneity of the 50s.” They didn’t decide to hate people older than themselves; rather, the traits they saw, which you describe, were just typically engendered in the previous generation.
I think had you stuck to that, you’d have found that Gen Y has no problem with any particular group of people. I think their enemy will be spin and fatuousness. I believe that where Gen X sees the world through cynical eyes, Gen Y sees it through hopeful eyes since they’re conditioned to ignore advertising bullshit and political rhetoric rather than become infuriated by it. I think this hopefulness actually makes them more inclined to get along with boomers than with Gen Xers. I know, I know, these are broad comments about each generation, but I see enough examples every day at work to suggest they’re fairly accurate.
I agree with your central premise and your descriptions of previous generations. I just think you’re listening for the wrong kind of rallying cry from Gen Y.
Oh, and a quick note to Mr. Larche: Roger Daltrey was the singer for The Who, not Pete Townsend. The music geek in me just couldn’t let that go.
I love this post. Part of my company’s goals are to “persuade bank customers to become credit union members.” Does this make the banks the enemy? No. Lack of knowledge about credit unions is more the enemy in this case.
In Canada there’s a regional body that promotes the credit union industry (as best as a committee-based body can.) They educate about the credit union differences they feel matter to the masses. Do we see an influx of new credit union members? No. I think because banking is such a commodity that “good” service is good enough.
So, my boomer friends (says this Gen Xer) how do you start a revolution?
We must first know who we are before we can select a competitor or an enemy. If we fail to see our strengths, what we believe in and our reason for being, then no one is our competitor.
And that is what I believe makes us and companies irrelevant.
Thanks for another interesting post Ron.