The "Millennials question"
Daniel Martin Eckhart
?? Storyteller with #rewilding at heart, publisher of Rewilder Weekly ????????
Are millennials the salvation? The ones who bring about a better world? Or are they a bunch of entitled, narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused, lazy young people who really don't know what they want and confound companies because leadership doesn't know how to deal with them?
Simon Sinek is one heck of a brain - he is, no if or buts about it. He's not just a far-reaching thinker, he also has the gift of sharing his conclusions with great clarity, a simplicity that's often startling it's so clear. If you're interested in learning, leadership, engagement - there's no way you haven't come across Sinek before. His TED Talk on "How great leaders inspire action" (all about the Golden Circle, the Why/How/What) always ranks among the most popular of all times. I mused about that here - and when he pondered "Why good leaders make you feel safe", I couldn't help but reflect on that, too. What can I say, the man and his thoughts are literally urging you to look around, to reflect, to think, to challenge. Yep, the man inspires.
But that doesn't mean he's always right. He was asked about millennials in the workforce and the difficulty companies have in making sense of this generation. What he shares is as meaningful and layered and thought-provoking as always ... it's just that, at the core, I have more faith in millennials. The below illustrated version of his talk is twelve minutes well spent, I can assure you. You'll learn a lot and it'll definitely make you think - about millennials in general, about leadership, about what we do at Swiss Re, about ourselves, about our children, etc.
According to Sinek, Millennials are struggling in today's workforce (and in turn companies with them) because of 4 things: Parenting, Technology, Impatience and Environment. With Parenting he basically argues that failed parenting strategies have brought about a whole generation with lower self-esteem. With Technology he says that the advent of social media created an addicted and thus numbed generation (dopamine - again, just watch the clip and you'll understand - whether you agree with his conclusions is another matter, but it undoubtedly WILL make you think). The way he looks at it is that social media circumvents the discomfort of adolescence and so new generations don't learn how to form deep meaningful relationships and how to deal with stress. Impatience is very much tied to technology as we're used to instant gratification thanks to Amazon, Netflix, Tinder, etc. - but what we don't get that way, instantly, is job satisfaction and strong relationships - those require the investment of significant time, a great deal of trial and error, learning and experiencing and growing. And finally there's Environment - taking these parenting-technology-impatience-afflicted millennials and tossing them into the corporate environment.
Sinek says that the corporate environment cares about numbers, not about these kids - and about short-term gains, not long-term life of people. Sure, granted, there is, across the board, a lot of truth to that way of looking at the corporate environment from traditional ways of industry thinking to the way Gen X lived it all with their work-hard-play-hard attitude. But Sinek then says to companies: "Hey, sucks to be you, deal with it. You now have these millennials, wonderful people who were dealt a bad hand and it is your responsibility to help them discover and learn what they didn't learn up to this point in their life (balance, patience, listening, persistence, stamina, discipline, etc.)." Again, lots and lots of valuable food for thought. - but I don't see all that responsibility with companies, I also see it with millennials - and I give millennials far more credit to take charge and create their own future.
On the company side - first of all I think, at least when it comes to my employer Swiss Re, that we really do try and do a great deal to create the right environment for all generations. Also, when it comes to leadership, we put a lot of emphasis on EQ and emotional maturity of our leaders - I see them growing, I see them learning and listening and becoming better leaders. And then there are the millennials! YES, there may have been parental failures. YES, there is that technology and the new normal of instant gratification. It IS a different world in many ways. In some ways, things have become easier in this world. In other ways, things have become a lot more difficult for new generations. But we're human beings, we learn, we adapt, and millennials and every coming generation will discover their own ways in this world just as we have before them.
To companies I say - heed the above and do everything you can to create, offer and live that fertile environment. To millennials I simply say this: Struggle, muse, rebel, meander, discover, fail, love, laugh, cry and try again. I have complete faith in you - we will create the future together - and it will be better because of you ... yes, You.
Senior Public Affairs Advisor
7 年Thanks for sharing the video and your thoughts, Daniel! Most insightful and I believe a realistic analysis of the challenges ahead for both the Millenials and the corporations that will receive / employ them. The best case scenario described in the video is an appalling one indeed - essentially a prospect of never being really happy and satisfied for a lifetime - which, as we no, is growing longer, too. So my hope is that, by working really hard with the incoming millenial generation, we in the older generations bracket will jointly find ways that lead to job satisfaction - and thus to overall better life satisfaction by our new colleagues. As a personal experience, I see at team meetings - where I'd basically expect everyone to focus on what's presented and discussed - that colleagues are on their smartphones actually several times during a 45 minute meeting. This indicates that, even among non-Millenials, obsessive mobile device checking is on the march... What's my recommendation? Start by reading Sten Nadolny's "The Discovery of Slowness" and then look for ways to "de-mobilize", practice slowness and invest the time that you'd spend checking your device into a good talk with a person. Commit to leaving your device in your pocket for the duration of the chat - or if you don't think you can, leave it at home. If your opposite is a Millenial too, then the exercise may in fact be mutually beneficial! (And for those with a knack for competition - introduce a challenge: I can do it! Can you?) I would assume that the personal experience and the satisfaction from such exchanges would sink in over time and would thus hopefully help re-wire the wrong-gone hard-wiring the video mentions.
Shopkeeper.
7 年Hey Daniel - it's go great to read you again. My view is let's stop talking about a group of people defined by their age. It's not a productive enterprise. There are better ways. Or if we do, let's talk about all those aged over 50 who cling on to the lame, outdated, out-of-vogue, ridiculous practices which prevent all the good things which Millennials believe in from happening as fast as they should! Millennials are rebels with a cause and their cause is good - it's just more genteel than rebellious.
Chief Underwriter at Ethos, FALU, FLMI, AIRC, ARA, ACS
7 年This video is really incredible. Thank you so much for posting. It's very insightful and has some broadly applicable insights (Such as addiction to technology not limited to a single generation.) The corporations role in this is complicated and deserves to be fully unpacked. We can tell our younger compatriots to be patient, but the truth corporations don't 'live' the ideal that success comes with time.