Millennials matter, but not because they're different.
Warning.
This is a rant. An unscientific rant, at that.
To my friends in the learning community that like to discredit anything short of a plenary and credentialed review of global learning practices, I’m serving you a softball.
The upside is that you won’t be able to say I misrepresented a study.
Soapbox placed. Stepping up.
Millennials. Look at any learning or human resource conference and you’re likely to find at least one expert presentation about them. Often, the speaker is an expert-that-is-clearly-not-one-of-them. Which is proof of… well, it’s proof of something, but I’d have to do a study to figure out what. I probably violated some HR rule just by admitting I noticed.
I could be a Millennials expert. After all, I raised a couple of them. It’s true that they’re interesting. It’s true that they grew up in a different world than the one I grew up in. It’s true that they learned different things in school than I did. It’s true that they have different expectations of work than I did when I graduated longer-ago-than-I’d-like-to-admit. It’s true that this list could go on endlessly.
Just like it could for you. And for me.
Millennials matter because soon they will be the veterans. Soon, they will be hiring their own successors. All too soon, they will succeed or fail based on their own, individual efforts, hard work, and good-or-bad fortune. Or, because another human being cared for them as an individual.
Millennials matter. But not because they’re collectively different. Their success does not depend on the mature generation being able to create the right programs for the immature generation. So, stop hiring Millennials. Instead, hire a Millennial. You'll find her to have amazing potential. You'll discover that he is a great employee.
Millennials are individuals. That’s why Millennials matter.
Rant over.
Chief Executive Officer at Fiber Industries LLC
6 年Each individual is unique regardless of what "box" (gender, ethnicity, demographic, etc) we want to put them in. As a Leader my role is to maximize their individual unique potential - if I start with them in a stereotyped box I will likely limit that potential.
Strategic Account Coordinator at Irby Utilities
6 年Each generation is unique! For some reason, the older generation tends to think the way they did things was better than the way the next generation is doing them. Interestingly, that trait is passed on from one generation to the next.
Dianne Schanhaar Consulting
6 年Spot on! Boomers were ‘different’ too, bucking the system yet bringing rise to Civil Rights. Let’s see what great change Millennials can bring in our companies and in our world.