Bhaskar Parichha
“A Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, has become the poster girl for the Climate Change and Sustainability movement across the world. All of 16 years, she has been nominated for the Nobel prize and has been on the cover of Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Greta personifies and symbolizes zeners, who are nothing like any previous generation the world has ever seen. These pre-teens & teens are unique, world changers and perhaps the only hope for this planet. Yet, if not nurtured, they are at the risk of being lost due to the ignorance of institutions and individuals”, reads the blurb of the book.
Authored by Debashish Sengupta,’The Life of Z – Understanding the Digital Pre-teen and Adolescent Generation’ is a wholesome book for the reason that it has real-life narratives and thought-provoking analysis to help us understand the generation born in 2000 and after. The basic idea of the book is to engage with Greta’s generation. How we can, as parents and concerned world citizens, ensure a better future for them is the object of this 250-page book.
Dr. Sengupta is the Asia Editor of a London-based leading global business magazine The Future of Earth: Environment, Economy and Society. He is a much-sought-after speaker, trainer and business consultant to various Indian and multinational companies. His strategic and practical insights guide leaders of large and small organizations worldwide, through his teaching, writing and direct consultation to major corporations and governments. He is certified in ‘Improving Business through a Culture of Health’ from Harvard Business School, ‘Social Psychology’ from Wesleyan University, the US and ‘Leadership Development’ from, and Japan Management Association. Sengupta presently teaches human resources and strategy at the Royal University for Women Bahrain. He has teaching experience spanning nearly two decades and has taught students from India, the USA, Europe, and the Far East.
In little than a dozen painstaking chapters – The New Zeneration, Boats in the Ocean, How Did the Zebra Get the Stripes, The Digital Dilemma, Trouble in Paradise, Devil in Disguise, Lighthouse on the Beach, Learning to Live with Paradoxes – Sengupta has come out with some excellent analysis of the neo-millennials.In the last chapter, the author characterizes Generation Z.
Why the book is an indispensable read can be known from the way he has dealt with the subject with tens of examples. How the Zeners think, behave and act is what we figure out in this book. It is a path-breaking book on the youngest generation—the pre-teens and teens. Surely, no one has understood them the way Dr. Sengupta has. He has deciphered their way of thinking, their point of view and their demeanor. What’s more, the author has unraveled some very undeniable truths of their lives. Reading this book will, without doubt, help us nurture a generation for the future. ‘The Life of Z’ is a must-read for everyone who wants to understand the post-2000 born.
His earlier book ‘The Life of Y: Engaging Millennials as Employees and Consumers’ (also by SAGE Publications)has won the first prize at the DMA-NTPC Management Book Awards and has become a bestseller. It has also been featured in the library collections by Stanford University. Hopefully, The Life of Z too will have its secured place in the list of books written for the adolescents.
The Life of Z
Debashish Sengupta
SAGE Publications India/SELECT
BI-1/I, Mohan Cooperative Industrial area
Mathura Road
New Delhi 110044