Lady Gaga and the Greatest Generation: Two Peas in a Pod

What do Lady Gaga and the soldiers who stormed Normandy Beach have in common? It’s something that will change the way you look at your workforce.

Twelve years ago, the book “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe hit the streets. Written by two generational analysts, the book will change the way you look at the future.

The vast majority of people view time as kind of marching on with no rhyme or reason, just at the whims of random events. This may not be the case.

The premise of “The Fourth Turning” is that time moves in a circular fashion...in other words, “it repeats itself.”

Strauss and Howe, after studying history back to the 1500s, identified four generational archetypes each lasting between 20 and 25 years. These archetypes repeat in order each cycle and have different characteristics. The latest examples, in order, are as follows (including birth date range and cycle nickname):

Hero (1901-1924) — soldiers of World War II (G.I)

Artist (1925-1942) — country re-constructionists (Silent)

Profit (1943-1960) — protesters of Vietnam War (Baby Boomers)

Nomad (1961-1981) — the outcasts (Generation X)

Hero (1982-2004) — the Internet generation (Millennials/Generation Y)

I repeated the Hero generation for a reason.

The first group of Heroes, the boys of Normandy Beach, were born around 1922. Their generational archetypes is all about cooperation and teamwork. Being a rogue like their predecessors—the Nomads—is not their mindset. That’s why we won the war.

The Vietnam War featured the Boomers (the Profit archetype). Their generational archetype is known for...well you know. Can you say high divorce rate, the self-reflection movement, excessive consumption, etc. This type doesn’t work well on a battlefield.

Now to Lady Gaga...her birthdate is 1986, thus making her a Hero.

Now to my point. I cut my teeth in business promoting music in the ’70s and ’80s. The industry is wildly different today than it was back then. Did you ever see Led Zeppelin collaborate with the Who? Or the Stones and the Kinks record together? No, they didn't. Examples of professional collaboration within the music industry were few and far between.