Cryptocurrency is a secure and sometimes even anonymous currency that relies upon blockchain technology, essentially a ledger that everyone can see.  This ledger lists all the transactions that are happening in the cryptocurrency system.  But it is not a physical, paper ledger.  Instead it is run through computer code on thousands of networked computers around the world.  Together, these computers are confirming who owns what amount of a cryptocurrency, for example Bitcoin.

The code is designed to release new currency, ie Bitcoins, on a schedule.  To get them, a cryptographic puzzle must be solved.  ‘Mining’ of the currency takes place by computers trying repeatedly to solve the puzzle until they succeed.  The computer that ‘wins’ then publishes its solution to all the other computers on the network and receives the coin.  Anyone can become a ‘miner’ by downloading the software.

It starts to become clear that all of these computers and servers engaged in cryptocurrency mining use energy that will increase CO2 emissions.  The energy used to power the computer network behind these currencies should not be underestimated.  It’s a significant amount, right at a time when we are trying to wean ourselves away from fossil fuels. We know we are years or maybe decades behind in tackling our global challenge of climate change and that we must evaluate every new development upon its likely impact on the environment.  Ironically, given that cryptocurrency is seen as the ultra-modern, liberating financial trend, it could be failing our environmental agenda.

The Digiconomist Index tells us that one Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to powering nine US homes for a day and miners are constantly installing faster computers in their pursuit of the currency.  This index also tells us that the number of British people who could be powered by Bitcoin mining is a staggering 6.1 million (more than the population of Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Bradford, Liverpool, Bristol, Croydon, Coventry, Leicester & Nottingham combined).

At cryptocurrency’s current growth rate, the demand would soon outstrip the electricity available, requiring new energy-generating plants, just at a time when we are trying to be climate conscious.  The trajectory of this new strain on the electricity grid is not sustainable.

What can we do about it? There are some technological efforts underway to minimise the volume of energy required to mine Bitcoin.  In addition, some early movers are trying to build in green credentials from the start.  They include GENERcoin, a cryptocoin which can be redeemed for a specific solid biofuel, or traded like Bitcoins. The EnergyCoin is more of a local or community currency. Producers can earn SolarCoins, a Bitcoin with a twist, by presenting their solar renewable-energy certificates.  But these new initiatives have not received that much attention.  Other examples include Climatecoin, an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency, which teamed up with a carbon credit exchange in an effort to help in the fight against climate change. They aim to create the world’s first blockchain-based platform for carbon credits trading.  CarbonCoin literally plants trees and they explain that they use low energy methods, claiming that their mining takes lightbulb levels of energy, rather than the equivalent of entire countries.  BitSeeds is collaborating with the Rainforest Foundation to help stop deforestation and plant 1 billion trees through the creation and use of its cryptocurrency.

We all need to educate ourselves so that it is widely understood that cryptocurrencies demand energy that is more often than not met through fossil fuel energy sources.  In addition to polluting our air and water, they are contributing to greenhouse gases that cause the climate change we so urgently need to counter.  Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been marketed to us as creating some kind of utopia where we no longer have to deal with banks and we can rely on the block-chain community to ensure our payments are valid.  That is all very well but not when the Bitcoin system itself is based upon environmental damage.  Serious policies and innovation need to be directed to ensuring that environmentally responsible currencies are the norm and not a novelty.

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It is going to be a fascinating time.  We have seen huge change in financial institutions in the past few years. This transformation is definitely set to continue this year and beyond.  One of the most noticeable trends is that the sector is becoming ever more focused on making the customer experience as easy and seamless as possible.  This is where a lot of resources are being directed.  The sector will have to go even further in innovating around this and how they deploy their staff.  In a sense the world is broadening for the financial sector.  They will have to develop new and perhaps unusual partnerships outside the sector to forge ahead on the technology that this customer service will require.  We will see more and more cases where offerings from multiple vendors will need to be integrated in one platform, which will be a challenge for some institutions to cope with internally.

What should we know about this interface between finance and technology.

This is a dynamic field.  Fintech is luring customers away from their traditional institutions.  We are going to see a speedy uptake of application programming interfaces (APIs).  In simple terms, this is technology that connects apps, including on your mobile, to the IT of the bank’s back office.  This is not new, but we are going to see institutions and consumers embrace this much more rapidly in the near future.  Banks are going to need to pair up with fintech companies to deliver this.  

We will also see institutions choosing cloud-based storage over private-data centres.  Mobile banking will also be on the rise and will really be the norm, as it becomes ever more convenient for customers and more safe and secure.  Identifying customers through biometrics such their faces, voices and fingerprints will become more prevalent.   

Should we be as excited by artificial intelligence (AI) as the media tells us to be?

AI as a technology will have a big impact in the next years.  Already it is helping banks further automate their processes and I think customers will feel the benefit from that in terms of efficiency.   We are seeing more and more that banks can automate decisions based data gathered and machine-learning.  Chatbots are another area where we can expect rapid progress, where a computer programme can essentially chat to a customer to resolves tasks and queries.  I think we’ll even see the wealth management, data analysis and fraud departments of institutions embracing this technology more.

What can we expect for blockchain technology in banking? 

We have already seen quite a bit of progress in terms of blockchain being adopted in the financial sector. I’ll be very interested to see how many of the applications in development become actual working products in the months ahead.  Good contenders for success in this field are probably blockchain solutions for payment and so we will have to see how that impacts the old school wire transfers and SWIFT.  

And cryptocurrencies?

There were so many different views about crypto currency last year within in our sector.  We saw bitcoin soar.  Some senior figures remain averse to the trend but we are seeing others setting up cryptocurrency trading desks.  As that starts to happen, this obviously boosts the legitimacy of cryptocurrency and my feeling is that more banks might start to come around to the idea.   

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To be deeply committed to a sport builds the skills that are crucial for entrepreneurial success.  In both the sporting and business worlds, one must be goal-orientated.  Both realms require you to be dedicated to your training and self-improvement.  Both will require a strong self-belief.  Both will require you to make mistakes and learn from them.  Both worlds require that you trust your own intuition.  And both disciplines require you to be open to new challenges and experiences.

My own sporting journey began in my childhood in Turkmenistan.  My father was a well-known fencing coach and international fencing judge.  But like many kids in the Soviet Union at that time, I first experimented with swimming, judo, martial arts, and courtyard football.  I enjoyed them enough but none of these sports lit a flame for me.

Ironically, given that it was my Dad who was the fencing professional, it was actually my mother who got me hooked on this sport.  She insisted that I give fencing a go.  I complained that the fencing training centre was at the other side of town, more than an hour away by bus.  But she insisted, saying: “Go on! Just give it a try.  If it’s not for you, then no big deal.   But at least you’ll be able to tell the other boys you fought with a real sword, just like d’Artagnan!”  This was clearly a question of a mother knowing her son much better than he knew himself.  Because of course, once I tried it,  I was instantly hooked.

A lifetime of training began.  Weeks spent in special pre-tournament training camps, where hours were spent in relentless practice.    I felt the frisson of truly competing, the moment where all attention is focused on you.  That moment when the coach, the judges, the other participants and the audience are all watching to see what you are capable of.  And then the thrill of lifting a trophy.  First the second place trophy and then eventually the first place.  With the exhilaration of lifting it comes the satisfaction of knowing you earned it, that the hours and hours in the gym paid off, that you really did it.

Despite my teenage years being quite dominated by fencing, I still studied well at school and then university.  The fact that my time was limited due to sports training meant that I used the time that was left to me wisely.  And it wasn’t all work, work, work.  It wasn’t just fencing followed by study followed by fencing followed by study.  Even at the pre-competition training camps, we would sneak out at night to go to a disco.  There was a balance in life!  But it was conscious and considered and the sporting discipline helped me achieve that.

Fencing also quite literally opened up the world to me.  I dreamed of seeing like beyond my ‘Iron curtain’ and my passion for sport enabled me to do just that.  In order to go to international competitions, you had to show good results and get into your country’s national team.  So when I reached 10^th grade, I did just that and I got the opportunity to participate in international competitions.

My passion for fencing has stayed with me, from my childhood in Turkmenistan, to my adult life in Moscow and now my business life in London.  When I fence today, the sport puts me into a kind of meditative state.  When you are in a duel and you face an opponent, you have to act in that very moment, without thinking about anything else.  Therefore, for the two hours that I play this sport my brain essentially gets ‘switched’ and this is very important for me in maintaining my life balance.

The greatest gifts that fencing has given me in my business life are the following seven skills.  The first is to just keep moving forwards towards your goal.  To do that, you have to know your goal clearly, in this very moment, time and place.  You need to be very aware of this goal.  Moving forward just for the sake of it is a waste of time and energy.  The second skill is persistence: never give up.  You have to gather all your strength and fight.  The third is to train and keep training.

Champions train twice as hard as runners up. To maintain a leadership position is even more difficult than achieving it in the first place.  The fourth transferable skill is self-belief.  Just remember the rule: Nothing is impossible.  The fifth transferable skill is to simply make mistakes.  If Michael Jordan can talk about the shots he missed and the games he lost, then so can we all.  As he said, he succeeded because he failed, over and over.  The sixth golden rule is to listen to yourself.  Trust your intuition.  Hear the vice inside you that will give you that small advantage that helps you win. And last of all, be open to something new.  Try something different, take a different approach and don’t be afraid to experiment.

It is clear to me that my business mindset was formed long before I actually grew up and entered the business world.  It was created in the gymnasiums and competition halls of my teenage years and the spirit that it forged is what helps me throughout all other aspects of my life.

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Mr Moscovici presented a very positive picture as he described how Europe’s economy has entered 2018 in robust health, enjoying growth rates not seen since before the financial crisis.

He also remarked upon a meaningful rise in investment. The European Commission also welcomed strong demand, high capacity utilisation and supportive financing conditions that are set to favour investment over the forecast horizon. Mr Moscovici added: “Economic growth is also more balanced than it was a decade ago – and provided we pursue smart structural reforms and responsible fiscal policies – it can also be more durable. This window of opportunity to reform will not remain open forever: the moment to take the necessary ambitious decisions to strengthen the Economic and Monetary Union is now. »

In 2018, the Eurozone economy grew by 2.4 percent, which is 0.2 percent more than had been expected. It is clear that the European Commission expects this pace of growth to continue. The European Commission is now even more optimistic for 2018 and 2019. Their forecasts show that they expect the Eurozone economy to grow at the fastest pace for a decade. The European Commission’s expectation for 2018 is now growth of 2.3 percent for 2018 and 2 percent for 2019. This is a more favourable forecast than was made even just a few months ago in November.

Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, also in charge of Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, also welcomed the forecasts, saying: « The European economy is outperforming expectations and the robust growth is set to continue into next year. We should continue our work on ensuring that the benefits of this growth are felt by all Europeans. We should use this time to make our economies more resilient and deepen the Economic and Monetary Union. »

Several countries, in particular, were singled out for having strong growth prospects in the next two years. The European Commission expects that Germany will have continued good growth, with 2018 likely seeing 2.3 percent in 2018 (a 0.2 percent improvement on a previous prediction) and 2.1 percent in 2019. They expect France to hit 2 percent growth, which would be the first time that has happened since 2011. Spain is also singled out for 2.6 percent growth despite the potential instability the country faces over the bid for Catalan independence.

However, despite this rosy picture, even the European Commission themselves do not want us to get too carried away with our optimism. In their forecasts, the European Commission has explained that they believe we could be entering a period where there are more pronounced risks, and they mentioned the potential for a sharp correction in the financial markets. They also outlined fears that asset prices may be vulnerable to a reassessment of fundamentals and risks that could expose fragilities related to debt overhang in a number of member states.

The European Commission also explained that Eurozone area growth could also be limited by supply-side constraints such as skilled labour shortages hitting the economy earlier than expected. In summary, the European Commission believes that risks to this growth forecast remain broadly balanced, saying: “Economic growth could exceed expectations in the short term as indicated by the high level of sentiment. In the medium term, high global asset prices could be vulnerable to a re-assessment of risks and fundamentals. Downside risks related to the uncertain outcome of the Brexit negotiations remain, as do those associated with geopolitical tensions and a shift towards more inward-looking and protectionist policies.”

We also know of course that this exact period being discussed involves Brexit and all the unknown upheaval that could bring with it. There are always other uncertainties globally to be considered at this time, including tensions with North Korea. We should also remember that the forecasts were prepared by the European Commission before we saw the big global market swings of this week and that shock would not have been taken into account as the European Commission prepared these forecasts. Other risks to consider are political factors such as the German coalition talks and the Italian elections, which could impact the economic situation in those countries and beyond.

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An annual gathering of the powerful elite, each year it proves a barometer of the economic mood and outlook. It seems likely that the mood will be quite positive this year, given the positive economic indicators.

Last year, the gathering felt a little tense. Many were still reeling from the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The French elections were provoking anxiety, President Trump was about to be inaugurated, and many feared the worst about the possible fallout of this for the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Nato and the Paris climate agreement.

Fast forward a year to the present day, and we have a very different picture. The IMF just released their forecasts which are very positive. The IMF says we will see in 2018 “the broadest synchronised growth upswing since 2010” and so forecasts have been upgraded. The world economy is predicted to grow 3.9%, and The UK was the only country to see a downgrade in its forecast, but that was somewhat predictable given there is still uncertainty over Brexit negotiations. Asia was top of the class regarding the fastest growing region, with special mention given to China and India.

Where has all this optimism come from? Part of it seems to be a sentiment that the worst did not happen. The WTO and Nato appeared to have survived a year of the Trump presidency. We have not yet seen a trade war between the US and China. France did not embrace Madame Le Pen. The Spanish, who had been so worried about lack of employment prospects for their young, have seen economic improvements, even in the face of the Catalan bid for independence. Neither have the worst fears over potential Chinese slowdowns, depression in Brazil or NAFTA woes for Mexico been realised.

The US has seen cuts in regulations which have likely pleased the business community. Wealthier American households have seen tax cuts. This on top of the fact that the US is essentially still gaining from the Obama stimulus, even after President Obama’s term in office ended, means that the mood is positive among the economic elite in the US.

Europe’s economic situation also improved. President Macron’s polling is improving, and he appears to have successfully navigated the treacherous path of achieving enough changes to labour laws to satisfy business and preserve enough of workers’ rights to suit his French landscape. Macron said in China: “France is back, Europe is back”. He clearly wants an ambitious Europe, with France at the heart of it, a message that is in stark contrast to President Trump’s pulling the US back from its traditional role of global leader. Macron has been actively pursuing reciprocity regarding access to Chinese and European markets.

But it won’t all be rosy optimism at Davos. We are still far from stabilising the stand-off between President Trump and his North Korean counterpart. And fears about a possible trade war between China and the US have not gone away. In fact, North Korea plays a part in tensions in the Chinese-US relationship as the US remains irritated by China’s reluctance to refuse fuel to North Korea.

The NAFTA situation between the US, Canada and Mexico remains an issue. Germany’s politics have not fully stabilized, which weakens Macron’s grand visions for the continent.

Brexit is still a worry, especially with where it will leave trade and financial services. There is a lot to resolve if we would like Davos
2019 to be as jolly as 2018 will likely be this week.

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2018 is the year in which we will see a major increase in the engagement of CEOs with social issues.  The conditions are ripe for this.  We have a millennial workforce that is very socially conscious.  CEOs know they need to boost public trust in the corporate world.  Some people are calling this trend “CEO Statesmanship”.  Essentially this is activism and philanthropy being harnessed to achieve business goals.  We are no longer talking about mere corporate social responsibility as a sort of obligatory internal sideshow within a company.  This trend goes far beyond that.  It’s a much deeper social engagement on the part of CEOs that we will be seeing this year and beyond.

Cryptocurrency embraced by major players

2017 might have been the year that we all marvelled at the price of Bitcoin exceeding all expectations.  2018 will be the year that we see major players embracing cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.  There is still a sense that they feel they missed the boat on social media and they won’t want to miss it again with cryptocurrency.   We saw Accenture appoint Iliana Oris Valiente as managing director and global blockchain innovation lead for the company’s emerging technology group.  Big players like Accenture are clearly developing blockchain practices.  We also see that IBM announced a blockchain collaboration with food giants including Nestle, Unilever and Walmart, explaining that blockchain would enable food businesses to trace the source of contaminated produce in mere seconds.  Blockchain technology will no longer be something on the fringe that we marvel at.

The spark between Generation Z and the Millennials

Generation Z, as we call young people born in 1995 or later, will be entering the workforce or higher education.  In the workforce they will encounter that other “generation”, the Millennials.  The Millennials are reaching their mid-thirties  and could even be in management positions supervising their new Generation Z colleagues.  It will be fascinating to watch what this dynamic between the two generations brings to the business world.  

Positive change for women in the workplace

2017 was the year of #MeToo, a wave of women speaking up about abuse and discrimination, not least in the workplace.  I hope and believe that 2018 will be the year that the business world in particular responds to that campaign with real and tangible positive change in the workplace.  We have begun the year with a high profile dispute between the BBC’s China Editor Carrie Gracie who resigned over unequal pay in comparison with her male BBC colleagues.  As Marianna Fotaki, professor of business ethics at Warwick Business School said to the New York Times: “She’s a competent woman, she’s highly qualified.  It gives courage to other, less prominent women to come forward.” As the battle moves from hashtags on social media to specific, high profile cases such as this one, there is a strong hope that the benefits will filter down into society and the business world.  Unfortunately, as Ms Gracie’s case shows, this positive change will still be hard-won.

A more challenging year for the financial markets?

It could be said that investors had it pretty good in 2017.  Strong growth and low inflation meant that 2017 was something of a bumper year and global stocks gave their best yearly performance since the post-crisis recovery.  The question many people are asking is whether 2018 can possibly be such a good year for investors? The truth is that is does look more challenging.  We could see a change in the investment cycle.  There are concerns about global growth.  We hear worries about rising US valuations.  Key players say they will be closely monitoring China in 2018, with particular concerns about how the Chinese government will keep up growth while dealing with a large debt.

The rise of open banking?

In the UK, ‘open banking’ services launched on 13 January.  Open banking will force UK banks to open up their data.  This is accomplished by a set of secure “application programming interfaces” (APIs). This will transform personal banking and banking for small businesses.  No longer will the bank be the exclusive platform for their financial services.  Instead we will start to see open platforms where consumers can take a modular approach to banking.  This is because open banking will allow verified third-parties direct access to their data.  I predict we will see a period of great innovation, with secure apps being developed meaning banking customers can get personalised services.  All their financial requirements will be in one place, and make it easy for people to find out what bank account is best for them.  It will be fascinating to see the apps that are developed and the impact on the sector.

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You could be forgiven for asking what exactly cryptocurrency is.  It has crept up on us so fast that many people are just catching up with it.  Essentially, it is a digital currency designed to be secure, and in some cases, it is even designed to be anonymous.  It relies on blockchain technology and actually has its roots in the cryptography that many of us associate with the codes and secure communication developed in World War II.  To understand this blockchain technology , you have to visualise a ledger that everyone can see.  This ledger essentially lists all the transactions that are happening in the cryptocurrency system.  But it is not a physical, paper ledger.  Instead it is run through computer code on thousands of networked computers around the world.  Together, these computers are confirming who owns what amount of a cryptocurrency, for example Bitcoin.

The code is designed to release new currency, ie Bitcoins, on a schedule.  To get them, a cryptographic puzzle must be solved.  ‘Mining’ of the currency takes place by computers trying repeatedly to solve the puzzle until they succeed.  The computer that ‘wins’ then publishes its solution to all the other computers on the network and receives the coin.  Anyone can become a ‘miner’ by downloading the software.

There is no question that cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly common and that there is a market for it.  We are even seeing Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs, the digital take on an IPO).

What is the average person to make of all this?  Should we all be rushing to get in on the act?  Or is this all some bizarre pyramid scheme?  Will the emperor turn out to have no clothes?  The advantages of  cryptocurrencies is that they are secure payments. You can’t fake a transaction or reverse it. Fees are generally low.  They are decentralised and essentially available to everyone, with none of the hoops to jump through that a traditional bank would demand to allow an account to be opened.  As we have just seen today, markets tend to take off, meaning the value of just a small investment could increase overnight.

But isn’t this all a bit volatile?  Should we be nervous of a bubble that could burst? The soaring price of bitcoin is certainly jangling some nerves.  The currency has grown by a staggering 850% since January this year, breaking through the $10,000 barrier.  IG Group, the world’s largest online trading platform told the Financial Times that it is suspending trading on some of its bitcoin derivatives yesterday as they felt the huge demand left them facing a high security risk.  Plus500, another online marketplace, have raised the fees they charge in dollars to hold an open position in bitcoin.  There is definitely a nervousness around the volume and risks of trading cryptocurrency. Another concern is that it isn’t physically based anywhere and so is not subject to reassuring regulation.

What does it mean if the bubble does in fact burst?  David Shrier, academic and CEO of Distilled Analytics, told CNBC that he does accept there is feverish speculation going on with cryptocurrencies but that he believes this in itself is not a bad thing: « There is enough utility and utilisation of bitcoin that it will retain some kind of value, even if the price settles down a bit. Amazon didn’t go to $0 when the dotcom bubble burst, but other frothy stocks with no reality behind them did. Similarly, bitcoin won’t go to zero, but I do believe a number of these other cryptocurrencies will fail, » said Mr Shrier.

It will be fascinating to watch.  There are many who believe that bitcoin has a lot further to rise. The man who successfully predicted that bitcoin could hit the $10,000 mark, fund manager Michael Novogratz, has over 20 percent of his net worth in cryptocurrencies and he told CNBC that he sees the possibility of it reaching $40,000 by the end of next year.  That seems hard to resist.

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Generation Z (or the generation of ‘social individualists’, as the media sometimes refers to them) are young people born between 1995 and 2015.  The oldest of them are now starting work and they bring with them a new set of abilities and challenges.  The first huge strength that this set of young people has is the fact that for them, the availability of information and the development of digital technologies is a common and natural thing.  For a 22 year-old today, they do not see this as a fourth industrial revolution.  It has always been their reality.  They are adept at assessing and sorting a large volume of information and quickly extracting what is of value.  The same applies to all of the modern devices they use to explore the world and communicate with each other.

Our generation, who has to learn to manage Generation Z, and get the best from them, can sometimes react from a default position of fear.  Even with my own son, I catch myself wanting to say: “That’s enough time on your devices – do something useful!”  Like many parents, I have worried about ‘device-dependence’  What really goes to the heart of this issue is that the older generation can have difficulty in realising and accepting the fact that Generation Z perceives information and the world in a different way. Moreover, they do everything faster: they process large amounts of data and quickly identify the « grains ».  They think, react, evaluate and make decisions in a different way to us.  This is facilitated by so-called « clip-on » thinking, which is inherent to their generation and allows them to speedily orientate (they need only ten seconds to make a decision) and  take proper decisions in a crisis or non-standard situation.  Given that for the past ten years, our world has been facing constant crisis situations, this ability is invaluable.

Another distinguishing feature of Generation Z is their hyperactivity and their striving to get a quick result. If they start doing something in the morning, they want to get the result by the evening.  They want to « feel » it and experience it.  This affects their choice: they choose actively developing segments of the market and they need novelty and constant progress, as they are very attracted by progress.

However, at the same time, Generation Z is deeply concerned about their inner world, which they actively protect from an uncoordinated invasion. Their high level of individualization and their ability to concentrate on specific tasks allow them to keep their goals in focus all the time, which they try to keep away from the outside world. Instead, they prefer to act « fast », even impulsively.   So even if managers find this difficult to manage at first, I remind them that these tendencies can make for star power in their workforce.

Another important part of the picture of these young employees is that this generation actively invests time and money in their development and training. They prefer to attend expensive courses and learn from the best trainers (and not always in their own country), rather than plan big purchases, such as cars or apartments.  They feel like ‘world citizens’ and so are comfortable in different countries and love to travel.

I frequently get asked how to ‘control’ Generation Z.  The worry for many is that they are individualists who find it difficult to work in a team. But I tell people they will be pleasantly surprised to see that this generation copes perfectly with a task, sometimes even a difficult one, by himself. Yet he can mess up the simple task that you set for the young team. This is about their individuality – we see that Generation Z uses their individuality to build around themselves an autonomous, safe and controlled world. Therefore, if you want Generation Z to work together as a team, then you need to set a task that will be interesting to all team members, and determine the boundaries of everyone’s responsibility. In addition, you need to show that their borders are slightly contiguous, but do not intersect a lot.

I also emphasis their inner focus.  Comparisons do not work with Generation Z. If you give them examples of how a colleague easily coped with this task before and you expect this young expert to do it even better, then you just shoot in the dark. This generation’s picture of the world is built on the principles of the Self-position, on their own values and principles. If you want to motivate a person from Generation Z, appeal to her uniqueness.

For this generation, personal experience is very important. They do not strongly trust and listen to the experience of others.  They prefer to quickly get their own bumps and, through their own experience, come up with a solution. Therefore, you should be prepared for mistakes and take it for granted.  Refrain from saying: « I warned you ». Let them make mistakes and do not criticize them and you will be pleasantly surprised by their rapid growth and development. Use a constructive approach in the analysis of both failures and victories instead of criticism.

Your dialogue with Generation Z needs to be on an equal footing.  They do not respond well to an assertive or aggressive management style.  It frightens them and they run away from it. A leader, who has authority in the company due to his knowledge and experience (rather than a loud voice and boss status) will find a common language with this generation very quickly.  This generation appreciates it when you hear, listen, communicate and understand them.   They want to be valued just as they are.

They will not respond well to monotony.  Thanks to their « clip-on » thinking and hyperactivity, this generation is eager to respond to the simultaneous fulfillment of diverse and simple tasks in a short period. But, do not overdo it – the optimal number of tasks is in the range of three to five. This way you make their workload seem diverse and not monotonous.

The keywords for this generation, which naturally we take from social media, are: Like. Like. Like.  Generation Z is indeed a wave of social individualists.   As well as on social networks, where they spend a great deal of time, in real life they expect « likes » from you. Find the good reasons to praise them.  Notice their small victories.  Reward them with movie tickets or certificates.  In short, stimulate them for constant development, and you will be pleasantly surprised by their results.

In an article in Forbes magazine, writer Deep Patel was clear about what Generation Z wants to see from their employees.  He details how they are inspired by managers who demonstrate the values that they themselves prize: they want to see self-motivation, curiosity, inclusivity and generosity in their employers, as they are they qualities that they value in themselves and want to develop.

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