They are smarter, more efficient, more technologically oriented, and while baby boomers are still trying to figure out the blinking clock on their VCR, millennials can work out any gadget or device in just a few minutes of their spare time without having to read the instructions.
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"You're the worst group we've ever had"
-Susie Rush, Pre-College program director at the all-programs meeting last week.
This is a quote I have heard way too many times in my life. Our generation, for some reason, just can't seem to excel at everything, always managing to louse it up in some way or the other, leading to the You're the worst chat. This article, however, seems to take the opposite stance, saying that millennials are better, faster, and stronger than any prior generation. By using the tools presented in the article and becoming a de facto leader, we might be able to live up to these large standards, but the majority of our effort ends up being devoted to overcoming the stigmata of our generation. We can't excel until we are given a fair shot to be just okay.
Millennials aren’t a new, super genius species. The new generation simply had more time to grow as technology developed, slowly working out the functions of newer technologies as they grew and developed themselves. Just as children from the 80’s understood more about rock and roll than their parents, Generation Y understands more about technology largely due to popular culture and exposure. Changing leadership techniques in the workplace may not necessarily be the most beneficial to the millennials, but incorporating technology would probably work the best to keep them invested and diligent. Being exceptional at manipulating technology will help work processes increase drastically in productivity and efficiency, as long as the workforce remains invested. Motivation is a significant factor, however it is no more important than the motivation required for the effectiveness of any other generation. The claim that Generation Y holds more divergent thinkers is a stretch, though not entirely implausible. Simpler ways to communicate and discover have materialized, and at the swipe of a finger anyone can go from deserts to icebergs in a 10th of a second. With more versatile exploration comes more versatile ways of thinking, which will hopefully bode well for millennial leaders in the future.
Our generation should not be characterized as a super genius species. And, conversely, we shouldn't be characterized as a bunch of lazy no-gooders obsessed with the latest gadgets.
The issue isn't with our generation, or the generation before ours, or even with what society has progressed to. The issue lies within how we react to anything new. With a generation entering the workforce, there is a desire to pin them down and observe them, to figure out what attributes exactly can be assigned to them and how to best exploit them.
A new generation may cause discomfort to an older generation. That's normal and nothing to be angry about. The question is, where does this attitude come from and how can we fix it? Not just by trying to understand the millennial generation as a group, but by trying to understand how Generation Y can make sense in the pre-existing context of Generation X. We're all part of the same alphabet, aren't we?
Interesting article to read with altogether the wrong idea. Generation Y is not one of our "gadgets" that comes with an instruction manual and can be programmed, but a living, breathing group of people finding their place in the world.
Will you help pave the way to a more understanding world?
As a member of the millennial generation, I personally disagree with how this article highlights us. While some may take this as a compliment, calling us the best workers a company could find, it has many underlying insults. When I read, “Keeping a millennial employee challenged is probably the best way to pique the interest of one who could become the company’s most valuable asset,” I read we are easily bored and shiftless workers. In the real world, as an employee you have your own personal responsibility to motivate yourself to do your work. I feel telling people that in the following years, an employer who hires me will have to spend time to motivate me is a nice way of calling me lazy. Furthermore, saying allowing “the free flow of ideas” in order to keep “employees focused on the problem at hand rather than submerged in the latest app they have downloaded to their phone” again only solidifies that this article is one disguised insult. Lastly, saying, “There is nothing more attractive to millennials than the latest technology,” makes me feel like a dog whose owner bought them a new bone. To pass judgment on such a vastly large and different group of people is aggravating. Every generation has been criticized by previous ones, but now with this “latest technology” this judgment will be permanently out there for others to read.
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