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MILLENNIALS DEFINED

“The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.

—Apple Inc.

Millennials, Generation Y, Generation Me, Echo Boomers, Net Generation, and Trophy Generation. Your generation has quite a few terms of endearment, and you rightfully deserve a lot of attention. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2015, there will be more millennials than boomers in the workplace. Watch out, the millennials are coming!

Undoubtedly, as a manager, you will oversee fellow millennials at some point in your career. First, this chapter will help you understand the driving forces, assets, and liabilities of millennials so you can better manage them. Second, it will give you great insight on how other generations view your generation and how you can successfully bridge the gap between the hierarchal management style of senior executives and the more casual, collaborative approach of your peers.

The millennial generation is comprised of more than 75 million Americans born between 1981 and 2000. As said earlier, it is hard to speak on behalf of more than 75 million people. Certainly, there will be exceptions. If you already are a millennial manager, then you may be on the “older” end of the generation. You are what we call a “cusper”—an individual on the edge of two different generations. You may find that you relate to some attributes of millennials and some characteristics of Xers. If you’re a cusper, you probably are mad that the Lady Gaga song is stuck in your head!

Neil Howe and William Strauss, authors of Millennials Rising, use seven distinct terms to describe your generation—“conventional, sheltered, team-oriented, achieving, pressured, confident, and special.”¹ Let’s take a closer look at each adjective because they all shape how you manage and lead. It’s important to know what you’re all about, and it’s important to know what drives the millennials you manage.

NIRVANA VS. BACKSTREET BOYS

This characteristic surprises older generations. “No way! They’re defiant little punks always looking to buck the system!,” they protest. However, if you think about it, your generation is quite conventional²—especially when compared to other generations at the same age. Music can help tell the story.

In the early 1990s, gen X—my generation—influenced musical popularity and taste. What type of music became popular? Grunge. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, and scores of others that burst onto the scene. Let’s think about Grunge as a genre. Was that a “conventional” form of music? No way. First of all, the word is a dirty word. Just think about what grunge means.

Now picture the band members. Are you convinced those band members even showered every day? Doubtful. And what were they singing about? If you could understand the words, you would learn that the world was horrible, unfair, and desolate. Here are a few words found in the lyrics of grunge music, brought to you by the letter D: die, destructive, defaced, disgraced, dead, dusty, drowning, and doomsday. Just take a look at some of the song titles from this era:

Downer, Nirvana

Doomsday Clock, Smashing Pumpkins

The Man Who Sold the World,

Nirvana March of the Pigs,

Nine Inch Nails Sea of Sorrow,

Alice In Chains Black, Pearl Jam

The Day the World Went Away, Nine Inch Nails

We Die Young, Alice in Chains

My word: depressing.

Fast forward ten years. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, millennials start to define musical taste. What type of music becomes popular? What were you listening to in those days? Pop! And especially, BOY BANDS! ’NSync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, Boyz II Men, New Kids on the Block! Now let’s think about boy bands for a second. You had four or five boys, all dressed alike or each with his own unique style—the preppy one, the cool one, the sporty one, and the rough one. They all had coordinated dance moves and gestured in-sync as they belted out tunes of falling in love and finding that perfect girl. All of the songs basically follow the line of “Girl, I love you so, Girl, you are so sweet.”

It’s all about falling in love, treating a girl right, and going anywhere for her. Basically, these boys would do anything for just one simple kiss. What’s more, girlfriends aren’t the only special ones; moms also receive a few serenades. In the Backstreet Boys song, Perfect Fan, and Boyz II Men, Mama, these boys give a shot out to the greatest woman in their life—MOM! Let’s take a quick look at the song titles from this era:

Anywhere for You, Backstreet Boys

God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You, ’NSync

A Song for Mama, Boyz II Men

As Long as You Love Me, Backstreet Boys

I Do, 98 Degrees

I’ll Be Loving You Forever, New Kids on the Block I’ll Never Break Your Heart, Backstreet Boys

Can you imagine Nirvana putting out a holiday album? Are millennials more conventional? Nirvana vs. Backstreet Boys! I think that says it all.

Furthermore, millennials are more likely to follow the rules, and they say family and values are important to them. In the millennial generation, violent crime and drug-related crime are all down. Older generations tend to take your casual and inquisitive nature as defiance. It’s not that you want to break the rules or cause trouble; you simply want to know the reasoning behind the rules.

LAWNMOWER PARENTS

You have led a very sheltered³ life thanks to your helicopter parents. Helicopter parents are moms and dads who hover over their children and are ready to swoop in if anything goes wrong. While that’s a popular term to define millennial parents, I actually don’t like it. Why? Because it’s not strong enough! I like to say the parents of millennials are more like lawnmower parents. Instead of hovering, they are right there on the ground in the weeds with the kids. If anything gets in their kid’s way, they will mow it right over. Parents tried to protect their kids from everything while growing up.

When I was growing up, I could jump around the backseat of the car or sleep on the floor during road trips. Now, kids are strapped into car seats with a dozen buckles and safety straps—sometimes until they’re ten years old. Kids can’t play in the dirt because there are too many germs, and parents face the bully, the tough teacher, or the coach at school. Forget about drinking from the hose, riding a skateboard without a helmet, or heaven forbid, eating a sandwich made by someone not wearing plastic gloves! I’m certainly not advocating reckless behavior. It’s just that the definition of what’s considered reckless has changed dramatically for millennials.

If boomers received a poor grade in school, their parents punished them and blamed them, not the teacher. If Xers faced a bully at school, they stood up to him, got beat up, or figured out a solution; mom swooping into help wasn’t an option. Your generation grew up being protected from difficult situations, so you entered the workplace a little sheltered. Of course, these are generalizations, and there are always exceptions and people who were raised differently. A refrain that I will repeat time and time again is: It’s not better; it’s not worse; it’s just different. It’s also up to us to mind those differences.

LET’S GET TOGETHER

You are all about working in teams and being collaborative.⁴ Millennials have played on more sports teams, been involved in more activities, and worked on more school group projects. As described in the introduction, when you ask millennials if they had a leader of a group project, the majority say that they all worked together without any real leader. You enjoy the social experience of connecting and working in groups. For millennials, it’s very much about teams, working together, and collaboration. This can be a great asset for you as you begin leading a team and I will talk more about collaboration in future chapters.

LOOKS GOOD ON YOUR RESUME

You are part of a high-achieving⁵ generation. The prevalence of As in grade schools and colleges has gone up. It’s not that kids are smarter; there is just more and more pressure on students, teachers, and schools to give As. As a result, you’re used to doing well, succeeding, and getting good grades.

Millennials are also pressured.⁶ It may sound crazy, but some of you had to interview to get into nursery school! By the way, you better get into the best nursery school, because otherwise, you may be doomed to that mediocre kindergarten, which won’t get you into the best grade school, so you’ll be stuck with the average high school, forever losing hopes of landing the Ivy League education and hot-shot job.

In our workshops, I ask millennials when people started talking to them about college. As in, “Katy, it might not be a bad idea to learn Mandarin now, it will help you with college,” or “Why don’t you start that service project now, it will look good on your college application.” The answer we typically receive is that parents begin talking about college when their children are in middle school. You’re being pressured about college eight years before you go. In my day, most of us started thinking about college junior or senior year of high school.

You have taken on leaderships roles, volunteered on the weekends, and studied Latin all in the name of building a great resume. When millennials get to the workplace, they want to do well from day one. You are accustomed to excelling.

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING

Your entire lives, you have been told how special you are. You can be anything you want to be. Your parents told you, your family told you, and your teachers, coaches, tutors, and mentors too. As mentioned, even Lady Gaga told you how great you are. These messages were all around you.

A couple of years ago The New York Times sent a reporter to listen to college commencement addresses to gauge what advice graduates were getting before entering the workforce. Here are a few phrases gleaned from these speeches:

“You can be anything you want to be”

“March to the beat of your own drummer.”

“Chart your own course.”

“Follow your dreams and find yourself.”

“Follow your passions.”⁷

Let’s think about this for a moment. Think about the new hires at your company. Do you really want them “marching to the beat of their own drummer”? I’m sure many of you are shaking your heads no. These are very hopeful messages, but they also all center on—YOU! Just look at how many times “you” or “your” were mentioned.

Your generation is “conventional, sheltered, team oriented, achieving, pressured, confident, and special.”⁸ Maybe you don’t identify with all of these adjectives, but some of them may hit home for you or the millennials you manage. If there are any negative references in these assessments, I am sure you are starting to see whom you can blame—your parents!

To highlight some of the main points, here is a quick look at the assets and liabilities of your generation. It’s important to know the “perception” of you as a manager, and it’s also significant as you manage other millennials.

Assets	Liabilities9
Goal oriented	Distaste for menial work
Positive attitude	Lack skills for dealing with difficult people
Tech-savvy	Lack of experience
Collaborative	Confidence beyond ability
Multicultural awareness	Impatient

With a better understanding of what makes everyone tick, you can work more effectively with your bosses, colleagues, and direct reports. As your generation enters management roles, you undoubtedly will shake up the way business is done and how managers manage. You will bring your personality and strengths to the role. Having a firm foundation of understanding on all of the generations—including yours—gives you the leg up when it comes to building a strong and cohesive team.