jen briggs

During a meeting break, two young men are having an animated debate about the starting point for the millennial generation. Each is desperately trying to squeeze himself into generation X. As with all mediocre debates, Google makes the call. Alas, they are both millennials and both equally dismayed at their box.

In another conversation, a woman in her 20’s working in education, asserts in frustration, “you won’t believe what they say about us!” Some derogatory messaging happened in a management training with the objective of learning how to work with the “millennial generation”. This young pro tells me it felt as if they are circus animals in need of a trained leader to translate millennial-speak and attitude to boomers. She later tells me that the only truth was her affinity for yoga wear in the professional environment. Let’s just admit it … the more contemporary yoga wear IS awesome. The point that this fashion choice is a generational distinction is completely debatable. (Side note: I was in a meeting recently where two men, presumably both over 50, declared their love for Prana men’s wear for work!)

With the current overuse (misuse?) of millennial, I often feel like I’m in a drinking game. It is used so often, the meaning has been corrupted. Certainly, from a sociological perspective, generational differences have meaning. I fit into generation X and events during my formative years have been very impactful to my worldview. The cold war, the fall of the Berlin Wall, watching war live for the first time on television, our world being reimagined into an online caricature, marketing as an ever-present force in our brain, Mandela and the fight for equality, and the Enjole commercial. Also Nirvana, Prince, U2, Madonna, and many other major artists carrying the torch to help break tired stereotypes and imposed conformity. Like each generation, the millennial generation will have their formative events including 9/11 and being the first digital natives. While these generationally shared experiences help form perspective, it does not define the person.

But, that’s sociology and it is often misapplied to corporate culture. We just need to stop superficially applying the term. A framework helps us to learn, but the application needs to move beyond the box. A framework may build knowledge, but it does not represent wisdom.

I hear that the millennials love the purpose-based-organization. But, in my experience, I have yet to find anyone who doesn’t appreciate this way of constructing the corporation. The primary exceptions being the Jack Welchian trained cut-the-bottom type mental model (read: The End of Loyalty by Rick Wartzman). The corporate construct divide usually happens based on exposure to a limited view on corporations. One C-level leader told me that people who lead in values-based, purpose-centered companies are naïve to how business works. But, as we peeled her mental onion apart, she had such an entrenched experience that she could not imagine how something could be different and more meaningful. This was not a generational belief; it was her engrained educational and experiential background.

Being called a millennial is now a pejorative because of the way we have used it. It has been misapplied and wrongly emphasized. Anytime we try to generalize an entire group of people we risk subrogating the importance of the individuals. The better answer is to leave the generational baggage at the door. Design and operate a healthy culture that integrates the wisdom of people. Create organizational habits that support high performance through an educated, informed community. Stop thinking of people as employees, but think of them as constituents who care about the success of the many and have a dogmatic passion for your marketplace. If an organization is rigid, hierarchical, and not embracing the paradox of purpose and evolution, the idea of that organization needs to be rethought. Adaptive organizations that have a sense of purpose will win the race in today’s consumer culture. This is not millennial, gen X, or boomer. It is the effects of communication speed, information transparency, and the tech-brain fusion.

They say millennials want more feedback (attention, accolades?). They say millennials are too dependent on their parents. They say millennials are entitled and haven’t paid their dues. But, as one third-grader told me at a recent elementary school visit, “I wish they [adults] would give us harder problems.”  The lesson? Maybe some of these management trainings are driving the wrong beliefs and hence the wrong responsive behaviors? Maybe one-size-fits-all-millennials training is missing the truth of one-size-fits-none?

I don’t think the things like flexibility and fairness are only what millennials want; it is what many humans want. Humans are meaning-making beings.  Between low unemployment, an insurgence of the gig-labor marketplace, and the sheer headcount of millennials, the corporation will be forced to change. According to the World Economic Forum, fifty percent of the world’s population is under the age of 30. The millennials may just have the benefit of size and labor-market forces with the support of their rogue, defiant generation X friends to break the old corporate structures that won’t work in a world where a few tweets can break-the-internet with anything from the superficiality of a celebrity overexposed to the depth an emerging democracy.

Every time I hear an elder utter a passive-aggressive statement about the trophy-me centered millennial generation, I wonder who created this? Was it the narcissistic boomers who focused on hyper-capitalism and hypocritical loyalty with layoffs? Was it the silent generation who valued hard work, but failed to teach their boomer kids about the value of community? Was it the X-ers whose cynicism and rebel nature against the companies who used layoffs as a business practice drove a dystopian, cynical, complex tech-world? Or, is it just the hyper-connectivity and our brain’s current inability to cope in a healthy way to being wired?

But, then, in another meeting with a group of boomers they declare … “we are all millennials”. In their eyes, the term millennial is proxy for seeing change as a driver for the potential of the future for people. This company is embracing change, even the unknown, as a way to bring opportunity and hopefully prosperity to their employees (an ESOP owned company). It isn’t about generations; it is about building shared value for the future by embracing agility with a core high-road ethos for corporate behavior.

Overemphasis on the term millennial? Perhaps it is a lazy way to blame the unwanted change on anything but ourselves. Why not just shift from feeling that change is unwanted to being ready to shape our future together?