IF YOU ARE A MILLENIAL, What’s the millenial QUESTION?

Millennial, apparently millenials as a generation is a group of people who were born approximately 1984 and after are tough to manage and they are accused to being entitled and narcissistic, self-interested, unfocused, lazy. But entitled is the big one and because they confound leadership so much, what happening is leaders are asking the millennials : WHAT DO YOU WANT ?

And Millennials are saying: “We want to work in a place with purpose! “ We want to make an impact” “We want free food and bean bags” . Somebody articulates that and figure it out that there is lots of free food and bean bags to relax and work but still the Millennials are not happy. And that’s because there is a missing piece. We could break it down into 4 pieces rather 4 characteristics :

1- PARENTING

2- TECHNOLOGY

3- IMPATIENCE

4- ENVIRONMENT

The generation that we call the Millenials, too many of them grew up subject to not the words but to the failed parenting strategies. Where for example, they were told that they were special all the time, they were told that they can achieve anything they want in the life, just because they want it. Some of them got into economics classes not because they deserved it but because their parents complained and some of them got A’s not because they earned them but because the teachers didn’t want to deal with the parents. Some kids get participation medals, they got medal for coming in last. Which the science, we know is pretty clear which is “it devalues the medal and the reward for those who actually work hard”, and that actually makes the person who comes in last feel embarrassed because they know they didn’t deserve it so it actually makes them feel worse. So you take this group of people and they graduate school and they get a job and they are thrust into the real world. And in an instant they find out they are not special, their moms can’t get them a promotion; that you actually get nothing for coming in last and by the way you can’t just have it because you want it. And in instant their entire self-image is shattered. And so you have an entire generation that is growing up as lower self-esteem than previous generation.

The other problem to compound it is: we are growing up in a Facebook-instagram world. In other words, we are good at putting filters on things to beautify them or rather make them look which they are not supposed to look like. We are good at showing people that life is amazing even though i am depressed. And so everybody sounds tough, and everybody sounds like they have all figured it out but the reality is very little toughness and most people don’t have it figured out. And so when the more senior people say: “Well, What should we do?” they sound like “this is what you gotta do!” and they have no clue. So the generation is growing up like this and through no fault on their own, they were dealt a bad hand.

Now let’s add in 'technology'. PHEWW!!

We know that engagement with social media and our cell phones releases a chemical called "dopamine". That’s what when you get a text you feels good. And we have all experienced it you are sitting down not much to do sending out text to your 10 friends saying HI HI HI HI sup sup sup WASup WASupp !! Cause if feels good when you get a response. It’s why we count the likes and shares of the upload we made over internet. It’s exactly why we go back 10-15 times in 15 min since we posted something to see if it’s going correctly or not. Rather questioning the instagram, FB about "is it really growing slower", "Did i do something wrong?","Do they not like me anymore? Right? ". The trauma for young kids to be unfriended right? Because we know when you get it, you hit the dopamine and which results in feel good factor. Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we Smoke, when we Drink and when we Gamble. In other words, its highly, highly addictive. We have age restrictions on Smoking, Gambling and Alcohol and we have no age restrictions on social model and cell phones. Which is the equivalent of opening up the liquor cabinet and saying to our teenangers “ Hey by the way, this adolescence thing, if it gets you down ..”

WE have an entire generation access to an addictive numbing chemical called dopamine through social media and cell phone as they are going through the high stress of adolescence.  Why is this important ?. Almost every alcoholic discovered alcohol when were teenagers ,when we are very very young, the only approval we need is the approval of our parents and as we go through our adolescence we make this transition where we now need the approval of our peers, Very frustrating for our parents and very important for us that allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the broader tribe. It is highly highly anxious and stressful period of our lives and we are supposed to learn to rely on our friends. Some people quite by accident, discover alcohol and numbing effects of dopamine to help them cope with stress and anxieties of adolescence. Unfortunately, that becomes hardwired in their brains and, for the rest of their lives whenever they are in stress they will rather turn up to the bottle than approaching a person or family member. Social stress, financial stress, career stress or peer stress are the primary reasons why alcoholic drinks. Resulting in too many kids don’t know exactly how to form deep meaningful relationship. Words from kid: “many of their friendships are superficial , they will admit that their friends that they don’t count on their friends, don't rely on them but they have fun with them and they also know that their friends will cancel them out when something better comes along. Deep meaningful  relationships are not there because they never practice the skill set and worse they don’t have the coping mechanism to deal with stress. So when stress strikes, they are not turning up to a person but rather to a device or to social media which gives them temporary relief. We know it has been seen, listened many times the people spending more time of Facebook deals with higher stress than the people who spends less time on Facebook. These things balances, Alcohol is not bad, too much is bad. Gambling is fun, too much gambling is dangerous. . There is nothing wrong with social media and cell phone , its the imbalance. If you sitting with dinner with your friends and you are continuously texting someone who is not there. That’s a problem , that’s an addiction . If you are sitting in a meeting with the people you are supposed to be listening to and speaking and you put your phone on the table, face up or face down, that sends the subconscious message to the room that “you are just not that important to me right now” . If we are waking up in the morning rather still not awake completely and checking our phone clearly states yes we are addicted. And in time, it will destroy the trust in the relationships, it will cost time, and it will cost a lot of money and it will make our life worse.

So we have a generation growing up with lower self esteem that does not have a coping mechanism to deal with stress. Now you add in the sense of impatience on top of it. We are growing up in a world of instant gratification. You wanna buy something? Go to Amazon/Flipkart and you the delivery the same day. You paid little extra for the year to get it the same day being calling yourself PRIME customer. You want to watch a movie log on and watch your movie. You don’t check movie times, you want to watch your TV show? Hotstar, Netflix, PRIME are there at your service. You don't even have to wait for a week to week. I know people who watch the first episode of the season and skip multiple episodes just so they can binge at the end of the season. Want to go on a date? Don’t even have to learn to say “Hey…….”  just open up the app and Swipe right. Bang! I am a stud got the match too. You want anything it's just there.

You just don’t need to learn social coping mechanism, everything you want you can have instantaneously. Everything you want, instant gratification. Except job satisfaction and strength of relationships there is no app for that for now. They are really slow, meandering, uncomfortable , messy processes. Going upto the freshers just joined the job, and asking them how’s it going. Their answer : “ I think i am not making any impact in the world”. “How long have you been here”. Kido: “ it's been long..close to 8 months or so” . It is as if they are standing at the foot of the mountain and they have this abstract idea/concept called impact that they want to have in this world which is the summit but what we don't see is the mountain. What we as a young generation needs to learn is the patience that some things that really matter like love, or job fulfillment job love of live, skill set all of these things take time. But the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult. If we don;t ask for help and learn that skill set we will fall off the mountain. Worst case scenario: increase in suicide rates, accidents due to drug overdoses, , kids dropping off from the school or takes leaves due to depression. This is really Bad. The Millennial generation not able to find the deep fulfillment in work or life.

How's your job: it's fine. The same as yesterday! Nothing great but want to create Impact.

How’s your relationship: It's fine. The same as yesterday! Going with the flow nothing great seems like lacking some trust.

Which takes us to the 4th point : Environment.

We are surely surrounded by the environment rather the corporate environment where we are surrounded by the Numbers, methods to Quantify each and every point to deal with, The people care more about the short- term gains than the long term life of young human being. We are caring more about the year than the life time. Indeed the environment is not helping us build the confidence that we actually require, the skills of cooperation, not helping us to overcome the challenges of digital world and finding more balance. The worst part is they think it’s them who can’t deal so it makes it all worse. It is surely not them it is the corporations, it's the total lack of the good leadership in our world today that is making the millennials feels the way they are. It is really hard to overcome the challenge in front of us seeing the pace but surely we can take some baby steps to make somethings little better. Working little extra hard to just completely avoid the usage of cell phone in the conference rooms/meetings/discussions. Trust does not surely form in an event, it forms slowly, steady, consistency and we have to create mechanism where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to happen. Lets try to be idealist rather than insane by simply reducing the usage of smart phones. It is just same as removing the temptation it actually makes it a lot easier. It triggers and sometimes hurt the ego of the person when you say please don’t use the cellphone. Try Charging your Cell Phone in the living room or on your room study table rather than close to bed. Because even if you are awake in the middle of the night your phone is away from you.

But the point is, we are now in an industry, whether we like or not, we don't get a choice , we now have a responsibility to make up a shortfall and to help this amazing idealistic, fantastic generation build their confidence , learn patience , learn the social skills, find the better balance between life and technology. Making sure we are happy in real life not just on social media.

Inspired by : SIMON SINEK (Founder and Visionary at Start With Why)