MILLENNIALS IN THE WORKPLACES - SIMON SINEK
Apparently, Millennials as a generation which is a group of people who were born approximately 1984 and after are tough to manage. But entitled is the big one. Because they confound the leadership so much, what’s happening is leaders are asking the Millennials “What do you want?” And Millennials are saying: “We want to work in a place with purpose.” love that. “We want to make an impact” You know, whatever that means. “We want free food and bean bags” Somebody articulates some sort of purpose. There’s lots of free food and there’s bean bags and yet for some reason. They are still not happy. And that’s because there’s a missing piece. What I’ve learned is I can break it down into four pieces, right?
- Parenting
- Technology
- Impatience
- Environment
1. PARENTING
The generation that we called the Millennials, too many of them grew up subject to, not my words, “failed parenting strategies.” Where, for example, they were told that they're special all the time, they're told they can have anything they want in life, just because they want it. Some of them got into honors classes, not because they deserved it but because their parents complained. 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 got participation medals, they got a medal for coming in last, Right?
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. Right? So you take this group of people and they graduate school, and they get a job and they’re thrust into the real world. And in an instant they find out they’re not special, their moms can’t get them a promotion that you get nothing for coming in last and by the way you can’t just have it because you want it. And in an instant, their entire self-image is shattered. And so you've an entire generation that’s growing up with lower self-esteem than previous generations.
2. TECHNOLOGY
The other problem to compound it is we’re growing up in a Facebook-Instagram world. We’re good at showing people that life is amazing even though I’m depressed. We know that engagement with social media and our cell phones release a chemical called dopamine, that’s why when you get a text feels good, Right? It’s why we count the likes. It’s why we go back ten times to see if the trauma for young kids to be unfriend, right? Because you know when you get it, you get a hit a dopamine which feels good. It’s why we like it. It’s why we keep going back to it. Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke, when we drink, and when we gamble. In other words, it’s highly, highly addictive. Right?
We have age restrictions on smoking, gambling and alcohol. And we have no age restrictions on social media and cell phones. Why is this important? Almost every alcoholic discovered alcohol when they were teenagers. When we’re very very young the only approval we need is the approval of our parents. And as we go through adolescence we make this transition where we now need the approval of our peers. Very frustrating for our parents, very important for us. That allows us to acculturate outside of our immediate families into the broader tribe. Right? It’s a highly, highly stressful and anxious period of our lives and we’re 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 the stresses and anxieties of adolescence. Unfortunately that becomes hard wired in their brains and for the rest of their lives, when they suffer significant stress, they will not turn to a person, they will turn to the bottle. Social stress, financial stress, career stress, that’s pretty much the primary reasons why an alcoholic drinks, right? What happening is because we’re allowing unfettered access to these dopamine-producing devices and media. Basically, it’s becoming hardwired and what we’re seeing is as they grow older.to many kids, don’t know how to form deep meaningful relationships. Their words, not mine.
They will admit that many of their relationships are superficial, they will admit that their friends that they don’t count on their friends, they don’t rely on their friends. They have fun with their friends. But they also know that their friends will cancel on them when something better comes along. Deep meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skillset and worse, they don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress. So when significant stress starts to show up in their lives, they’re not turning to a person, they’re turning to a device, they’re turning to social media, they’re turning to these things which offer temporary relief.
Gambling is fun, too much gambling is dangerous. There is nothing wrong with social media and cellphones, it’s the imbalance. If you’re sitting at dinner with your friends, and you’re texting somebody who’s not there. That’s a problem. That’s an addiction. If you’re sitting in a meeting, with people you’re supposed to be listening to and speaking, and you put your phone on the table, face up or face down. I don’t care that sends a subconscious message to the room that “you’re just not that important to me right now.” And the fact that you can’t put it away is because you are addicted. Right?
If you wake up and you check your phone before you say good morning to your girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse, you have an addiction. And like all addictions, in time, it will destroy relationships, it will cost time, it will cost money and it will make your life worse.
3. IMPATIENCE
So you have a generation growing up with lower self-esteem that doesn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Now you add in the sense of impatience. They’ve grown up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something, you go on Amazon, it arrives the next day. You want to watch a movie, Log on and watch a movie. You don’t check movie times. You want to watch a TV show, Binge. You don’t even have to wait week to week to week.
Everything you want you can have instantaneously. Everything you want, instant gratification. Except, job satisfaction and strength of relationships - there ain’t no app for that. They are slow, meandering, uncomfortable, messy processes. And so I keep meeting these wonderful, fantastic, idealistic, hard-working smart kids. They’ve just graduated school. They’re in their entry-level job. I sit down with them when I go, “How’s it going?” they go “I think I’m gonna quite” I’m like “Why?” They’re like, “I’m not making an impact.” I’m like “you’ve been here eight months.” It’s as if they’re standing at the foot of the mountain,
And they have this abstract concept called impact that they want to have in the world, which is the summit. What they don’t see is the mountain. I don’t care if you go up the mountain quickly or slowly, but there’s still a mountain. And so what this young generation needs to learn is patience. That some things that really, really matter, like love or job fulfillment, joy, love of life, self-confidence, a skill set, any of these things, all of these things take time. Sometimes you can expedite pieces of it, but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult and if you don’t ask for help and learn that skill set, you will fall off the mountain or you will the worst case scenario, we’re already seeing it, we’re seeing increase in suicide rates in this generation, we’re seeing an increase in accidental deaths due to drug overdoses, we’re seeing more and more kids drop out of school or take a leave of absence due to depression. Like that’s the best case scenario.
4. ENVIRONMENT
Which is we’re taking this, amazing group of young fantastic kids who were just dealt a bad hand, it’s no fault of their own. And we put them in corporate environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids. They care more about the short-term gains than the long-term life of this life of this young human being. We care more about the year than the lifetime. Right? And so we are putting them in corporate environments that are not helping them build their confidence. That aren’t helping them learn the skills of cooperation. That aren’t helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and finding more balance. That isn’t helping them overcome the need to have instant gratification and teach them the joys and impact and the fulfillment you get from working hard over on on something for a long time that cannot be done in a month or even in a year.
And so we’re thrusting to them in corporate environments and the worst part about it is they think it’s them. They blame themselves. They think it’s them who can’t deal. And so it makes it all worse. It’s not. I’m here to tell them, it’s not them. It’s the corporations, it’s the corporate environment, it’s the total lack of good leadership in our world today. That is making them feel the way they do. They were dealt a bad hand and it’s the company’s responsibility to be you like we have no choice. Right? This is what we got I wish that society and their parents did a better job, they didn’t. So we’re gonna we’re getting them in our companies and we now have to pick up the slack, the social; skills that they’re missing out.
There should be no cell phones in conference rooms. None, zero. And I don’t mean the kind of like sitting outside waiting to text. I mean like. When you’re sitting and waiting for a meeting to start nobody go. This is what we all do. We all sit here and wait for the meeting to start. Meeting’s starting? Okay. We start the meeting. No, that’s not how relationship are formed. Remember we talked about it’s the little things? Relationship are formed this way. We’re waiting for a meeting to start, we go, “How’s your dad? I heard he was in the hospital.” “Oh he’s really good. Thanks for asking. He’s actually at home now.” “Oh I’m really glad it was really amazing.” “I know, it was really scared for.” -- That’s how you form relationships. “Hey did you ever get that report done?” “No, I totally forgot.” “Hey, I can help you out. Let me help you.” “Really?” -- That’s how trust forms.
Trust doesn’t form at an event in a day. Even bad times don’t form trust immediately. It’s the slow, steady consistency and we have to create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to happen. But when we allow cell phones in conference rooms, we just look around the restaurant for a minute and a half. But if you don’t have the phone, you just kind of enjoy the world. And that’s where ideas happen. The constant, constant, constant engagement is not where you have innovation and ideas. Ideas happen when our minds wonder and we go, and you see something and I go. “I bet they could do that” That's called innovation.
Make sure you are happy in real life not just on social media