In Defense of Millennials

Years ago, in a training session on how to manage Millennials, the instructor described to us an orientation she had run for newly hired graduates fresh from university. She asked them what word their older coworkers most often used to label them as a generation, and she gave them the hint that it began with the letter “E.” With the confidence of youth, they called out adjectives like “Energetic!” and “Eager!” and “Enthusiastic!” As she told the story to us, she recounted how stunned they looked when she declared, “Entitled.”

The common conviction states that Millennials have been indulged by parents who want to be friends rather than disciplinarians, coddled by schools that care more about self-esteem than self-possession, and emboldened by a breakdown in societal norms that now value individuality over civility. The confluence of these phenomena, so the theory goes, has produced a generation that confounds managers from older generations, with testimonials indicating that Millennials approach work more casually than previous cohorts, are overly sensitive to criticism, and require too much feedback. Although sagacity putatively accrues with age, perhaps those of us comparing Millennials to historical standards and finding them lacking should be critically assessing the benchmarks instead.

Americans tend to believe that the founding of our nation was facilitated by “the Puritan work ethic” – often invoked when defending our country’s lack of guaranteed paid time off (an anomaly amongst the rich countries of the world) or when proudly declaring that hardly anybody takes their fully allotted vacation time. The Puritans are also the people who indiscriminately displaced native tribes, executed 20 people on the say-so of a gaggle of hysterical tweens, and used bloodletting to treat many medical maladies. Since the 1600s, we have advanced enough to recognize that human rights extend beyond skin color, we no longer accept witchcraft as a plausible explanation for disease or hard times, and, thankfully, we know that antibiotics are more effective than leeches. However, we still proudly proclaim that working hard is the epitome of virtue.

Part of this is indubitably due to the triumph of capitalism. With its emphasis on the symbiosis of production and consumption, it purports that work is a duty not only to oneself but to the system itself, an assertion seemingly upheld by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The allure of capitalism rests largely with the incentive mechanism that supposedly rewards hard work more handsomely than laziness. However, factors that are largely determined by biology rather than choice – such as personality and physical beauty – have a substantial impact on incomes. Additionally, evidence suggests that relative income is more important to happiness than absolute income, which focuses attention on the fact that social mobility in the United States is lower than in other developed countries.

Millennials don’t remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. They do, however, remember their parents working long hours at dissatisfying jobs. Perhaps the Millennials’ perceived resistance to working more without near-term tangible rewards is a sensible response to a flawed system that continues to pretend it is a meritocracy.

The concomitant assertion that Millennials are a generation of fragile “snowflakes” similarly needs assessment. It is true that this is a generation that is accustomed to receiving awards for participation and hearing, “Everyone’s a winner!” Many people seem to believe that this has bred an inability to accept failure and criticism. Perhaps, though, the problem is the way disappointments are imparted.

By the time they get to the workforce, Millennials know a thing or two about stress. Helicopter parenting may have minimized the generation’s familiarity with – and therefore skills for dealing with – failure, but that is not the same thing as growing up without anxiety and a drive to achieve. Mounting economic inequality – at least as measured by income and wealth – has increased the pressure on young people to excel in school, trounce their peers on standardized tests, and secure spots at prestigious colleges. John F. Kennedy’s Harvard entrance essay – including such gems as, “I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer.” – would barely get him into community college in the 2000s.

Consequently, it is perhaps that Millennials have been too driven rather than too coddled that results in their impatience with criticism. A well-publicized study and subsequent 2009 book purported to show that this generation is more narcissistic than previous cohorts. However, one question on the survey used to divine this asks participants to answer “yes” or “no” to, “I like to take responsibility for my actions.” Millennials respond “yes” at a greater percentage than past generations, but a sense of personal responsibility seems like something we should be proud to encourage, not something we should decry. A generation that purports to feel personal responsibility more keenly – and thus presumably is more personally attached to the products of its efforts – is likely to want criticism delivered differently than was deemed acceptable by past generations. Boomers and Gen-Xers might benefit from considering the manner in which they dispense critiques, remembering the much-vaunted civility that many seem to treasure from a hallowed, if misremembered, past.

That older generations simultaneously complain about Millennials’ seeming inability to accept criticism AND their avid requests for frequent feedback is another indication that the problem is one of communication style and not of substance. Additionally, HR consultants agree that more regular assessment – including praise as well as criticism – benefits worker productivity. The Millennials’ penchant for continuous comment on their work product isn’t (just) a result of unceasing encouragement from their parents – it’s based in a desire for efficiency. Since the traditional performance review process is a notorious time sink, adapting to a steadier stream of mini-appraisals would benefit not only Millennial workers but also their managers.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan proclaimed, “I believe the best social program is a productive job for anyone who’s willing to work.” A lot of people seem to believe that a proclamation from almost forty years ago is just as apt today and therefore feel justified in assessing others based on their putative “willingness to work,” as measured by the slide-rule of the past. However, automation already has snatched a large portion of manufacturing jobs and is poised to displace knowledge workers as well, as discussed in an earlier post. Millennials, with their life-long intimacy with technology, grasp this more readily than their older peers. Consequently, it is completely rational if they place less weight on the absolute number of hours worked, since they see the long-term reward as highly tentative.

With their greater involvement in volunteerism, responsiveness to peer-inspired generosity, and focus on life beyond work, Millennials are likely to be at the vanguard of designing the social fabric of the future. One example is Roam, a Millennial-founded company that offers communal living and working space in a handful of locations around the globe, allowing people to combine their desire to explore the world with the practicalities of holding down a job (as long as the job allows remote access).

The weakness of Millennials is their detachment from civic engagement, a trend that has increased with each successive generation. Nevertheless, they are more optimistic about the future than previous cohorts were at their age, and the rest of us should be glad that they are. While we may see their disinterest in traditional institutions as disrespect, they are creating their own networks in response to a world where equality and privacy are illusions. They are adapting their values to a rapidly changing world, and those of us who have spent our lives concentrating so closely on jobs that are going to disappear might do better to encourage them. They are, after all, the future, and they just might have figured something out.

* Thanks to Sadie, Carl, Andy, Kenton, Kelton (yes, those are two different people…from two different countries), Patrick, Morgan, Abdulla, Ngoc, Alaura, Yuying, Nermis, Theo, Erik, Ruthie, Miami, Brady, Ryan, Paul, Diana, Francesca, Michael G, Vanshree, and the myriad other Millennials with whom I have had either the pleasure of working or (more recently) taking classes – you inspired this post.