Millennials Are Lazy?

Here's a rare post on the subject of generations in the workplace.

Recent readers of this blog may not be aware that I cut my blogging teeth on the subject when I hosted (with Jamie Notter) The Hourglass Blog from 2009 to 2012. There, the focus was primarily on Generation X, and our investigative question was primarily on whether and how members of that generation would step into positions of leadership in our society and its organizations as the swelled ranks of Boomers began leaving the workplace.

The Hourglass Blog came to an end for a variety of reasons, but one was clearly how, even in 2012, the focus of all generational conversations in the workplace was increasingly on the Millennials. Indeed, as an Xer myself, I have to admit that I grew a bit frustrated with the never-ending focus on the new slacker generation, especially when questions of leadership of organizations came up. How to deal with those crazy (and lazy) Millennials in the workplace was fair game (to my way of thinking, at least), since they were infiltrating the workforce in greater and greater numbers. But even when questions of leadership came up, the popular conversation seemed to center on whether or not Millenials had (or would ever have) the chops to fill the shoes of all those departing Boomers. As if there wasn't another generation standing between the Boomers and the Millennials that was, in fact, ready to lead -- albeit in a slightly different direction.

Enough. I put that hobby horse to bed in 2012, but now, in 2018, it seems that not much has changed. In a recent business book I read the subject was explored, and again, when it came to searching for people to lead our organizations into the future, the author chose to focus almost entirely on the Millennial generation.

And whenever Millennials are talked about, one particular adjective seems to always be correlated. Lazy. Millennials are lazy.

Are they? I have several Millennials on my small staff of eleven people, and they are far from lazy. In fact, they are among the hardest working people on my team. I have found them to be not just hard-working, but creative, self-starting, ambitious professionals. They want to make a difference for themselves and for the organization they work for. I find myself pulling them back much more frequently than pushing them forward.

So why does this myth of laziness persist? Do older generations still think of Xers as slackers (assuming they think of Xers at all)? That was how Generation X got branded when we first entered the workforce, but I can't imagine that we're still thought of that way. At some point, probably when we starting moving into leadership positions -- that is, when we became bosses instead of an older boss's employee -- the myth of Xers being slackers went away.

Is that what it's going to take for Millennials to lose the reflexive association with laziness? On The Hourglass Blog I wrote a lot about how Generation X was different from Baby Boomers and how those differences would lead to differences in our organizations and our society as Xers moved into leadership positions. I see something similar happening with Millennials.

Are they different from Xers and Boomers? Of course they are. They have a different set of life experiences, and therefore look at things differently and may even define success as something different than their older colleagues. And as they move into positions of leadership, those differences will become more and more normalized. Our organizations will stop viewing Millennials and their sensibilities as the lazy outliers, but rather as the status quo.

And then I personally can't wait to hear what the Millenials think of Generation Z.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

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Tell True Stories About Your Members

I've been doing site visits for as long as I've been in association management--23 years at last count. If you're not familiar with the term, a site visit is when you visit a destination and/or conference site to help determine if you would like to book a conference in said destination and/or conference site. I just completed another one, and I was asked a question I'm often asked on these trips.

So, what are your members like?

Generally, the sales manager asking this question wants some insight into the preferred activities and habits of the people attending the conference I'm booking. And lately, when asked this question, I find myself telling the following story.

"Well, I'll tell you, their habits are really changing. When I started with this association, nine years ago, the five people on the Executive Committee who hired me were all men near the end of their careers. Indeed, the first three Board chairs I worked with all retired from the industry within a year of their serving as chair. That was our average member at the time, men in their sixties, with their spouses tagging along, enjoying fine food and fine wine, playing golf and going shopping.

"Today, the situation is very different. The five people on my Executive Committee are all in the middle of their careers, men and women, in their forties and fifties, with kids in high school or college. Our past chairs stay very much engaged in the industry and our association. The average member that they reflect sometimes brings a spouse and sometimes doesn't (depending on the demands of professional careers, youth sports leagues and child care), and with their spouse they sometimes bring the kids for a family vacation and sometimes don't for a romantic getaway. They still enjoy fine food and fine wine, but they are less into golf and shopping and more into mountain biking and spa visits."

I've probably told that story a dozen or more times to a dozen or more sales managers. I told it again on this latest trip. And each time I tell it, I can't help but wonder.

Is it true?

Leadership is passing from one generation to the next. That's an obvious fact. In my industry, that generational shift means Boomers are giving way to Xers. The Millennials are there, but not yet in positions of leadership and influence.

And the story I tell is a nice little package--something I can easily relay while walking around the grounds of the latest luxury resort, checking off the sizes of ballrooms and the number of sinks in the bathrooms of the standard sleeping room.

And there are certainly people in my membership I could point to that typify the generational archetypes on which my story depends. The golfing Boomer with his shopping wife. The mountain-biking Xer with his spa-visiting spouse and three kids.

But, if you look at our members without the frame I've imposed on them, you quickly realize that very few of these archetypes actually exist. Millennials sign up for the golf tournament. Boomers go mountain biking. Men and women of all generations relax by the pool or get up early to go running or do yoga. They all like to go shopping--sometimes for jewelry and shoes, other times for craft beer and artisan cheese.

Chalking up the preferred activities and habits of our attendees to their generational proclivities oversimplifies and obscures what is really going on. Like all of us, they are much more products of their culture and socioeconomics than of their generation.

Telling that story takes longer, but it better helps you understand who I am talking about.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

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http://callproof.com/2015/01/27/telling-stories-sales-pitch-dos-donts/

Is American Exceptionalism a Generational Thing?

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Not too long ago, I tweeted out a blog post from Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, in which he argues in favor of something that's come to be known as "American Exceptionalism." Despite a number of recent shortcomings, Shapiro seems to be saying, America is still the greatest country in the world. In my tweet, I offered up the following observation:

By which I meant to say, if America is truly exceptional, why does it have so many problems that need fixing?

Now, I've been thinking a lot more about American Exceptionalism since that tweet--and the rhetoric offered at the two recent major party political conventions has given me plenty of grist for that mill. And what I want to do now is not argue for or against the concept, but simply ask, is American Exceptionalism a generational thing?

Shapiro's post links to a much-watched YouTube clip from the HBO series The Newsroom, in which a 57-year-old Jeff Daniels tears apart an actress playing a 20-year-old college student who has the temerity to ask what makes America the greatest country in the world. Now, that's theater, I know. It's designed to call attention to itself and make someone money. But what strikes me as odd about it is that far more often in the reality I live in, it is the 57 and older crowd who seem to be the most vocal defenders of the idea of American Exceptionalism. Indeed, even Daniels's character pivots at about the two-minute mark and begins waxing poetic about how great America used to be, about how it used to stand and fight for things that mattered, about how exceptional it used to be. It's enough to make a Baby Boomer cry.

It seems to me that it is members of the younger generations who have more often than not gotten over this thing called American Exceptionalism, especially its most rabid form, in which a believer must agree that not only is America exceptional, but that it is the most exceptional country in the history of the world. And it's not just us increasingly crotchedy Xers. It's Millennials, too. Both of us, I would say, are more concerned with how we're going to solve the problems our nation faces, and less with whether or not we can continue to think of ourselves as a beacon to the rest of the world.

And that's ultimately the point I want to make. I'm not arguing that America isn't exceptional. There are many aspects of it that I think clearly are. But given the challenges we face, what utility does the idea of American Exceptionalism have? Why does it matter? How will it help us fix what ails us?

The older generation will likely claim that it will inspire us and help us achieve more than we may have thought possible. But I don't think the younger generation believes that. American Exceptionalism inspires Boomers because it reminds them of a time when they seemed to own the world, when the world seemed to revolve around their hopes and dreams. And its decay scares them because it hearkens to a time when they will no longer be in control and when they will no longer matter. But to Xers and Millennials, the idea of American Exceptionalism too often clouds what they see as an essential reality. That the mental frames with which the members of the older generation confront the world no longer serve the interests of those who will be here after they are gone.

Is America the greatest country in the world? Maybe. But I'd rather ask why it is so important for us to think that it is.

Online Privacy and Generational Divides

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Two recent posts about online privacy (one from David Patt and the other from Seth Godin) got me thinking more and more about the subject. Both authors seem to take a "tough toenails" approach to the subject, calling into question why people have an expectation of privacy online in the first place.

And I agree with them. The reality is that the stuff you put on Facebook doesn't belong to you. It belongs to Facebook. Grudgingly, I think, people are now beginning to understand this. Call it the "creeping Facebook realization."

But let's take it one step further. Privacy concerns are often raised when discussions or legislation turns toward the use of electronic medical records. Some people get really incensed over the idea of doctors, employers, insurance companies, or governments accessing their medical records without their permission. I suspect these people have a painful reckoning coming similar to that of the Facebookers who are distressed at discovering that Facebook is using "their" information without their permission.

Who owns your medical record? Today, the consensus opinion probably supports the concept that you do. But I believe we are moving towards a society where that will no longer be the case. In this strange future, the entity that owns your medical record will be the one that owns the data network on which it resides.

People generally have one of two reactions when I propose this concept to them--and they usually break down along clear generational lines.

1. Older generation: "Impossible! What a dark and horrifying view of the future. Such a move would spell the end of the individual. We must fight against it at all costs!"

2. Younger generation: "So what?"

Although I don't necessarily support the change, I think progress is on the side of the younger generation on this one. The older generation will go kicking and screaming, but eventually we will enter a time when the very concept of "online privacy" will lose its political force. No one will care about it enough to ensure that online systems even take it into consideration.

There will certainly be some dystopian elements to that future society, but there will also be some benefits that we currently can't realize. The issue of our medical history and the services we need to access is a thorny one, but imagine a world in which the sharing of information we now consider personal is used to fuel greater discovery and innovation to benefit our human species. Imagine a global network of researchers with access to a new and complete database of human disease and pathology. Imagine any physician, anywhere, anytime, being able to provide an individual patient with the interventions most suited to their personal case history.

Just writing those last two sentences I know that they will terrify some people. Our culture is too laden with images of Big Brother and mistrust of bureaucratic institutions to expect anything else. But our culture is changing, and in many ways I think the creeping Facebook realization is the leading edge of it. Over the next twenty years, we'll see our notion of online privacy change from its current all-consuming fight for individual liberty to a compromise that will be struck between that liberty, the corporate interests of the network owners, and the general benefits that its erosion can deliver to society.

Dear Older Generation: It's Not Just Your America

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The world is not coming to an end. For a while there, it looked like that's all you wanted to focus on, but I think even you have come to realize that that's no more true today that it was when every other generation began to pass into the uncomfortable position of no longer being The Most Important People on Earth.

So that's good. I commend you for that. But now you appear to have taken up a new refrain. Okay, you seem to be saying. So the world is not coming to an end. It'll chug along just fine without me. I don't like it, but I can accept it. But, dammit, America is no longer the America I grew up with. That America, "my America," no longer exists...and we need to get it back!

I'm paraphrasing, I know. But I've been seeing this sentiment popping up more and more in the media you still control. Here's the latest and the one that prompted this post, but it's hardly the only one. You know, some folks have been saying this ever since Obama got elected, but that gives it a partisan slant I'm pretty sure not even you intend. You're just upset and confused. Decisions are beginning to be made that you disagree with, priorities are changing, and it honestly looks to you like the America you grew up with no longer cares what you think.

Really?

This is the America whose economic future is still held hostage by the politics of your generation, right? The one in which any sensible approach to Social Security or Medicare reform is doomed before it can even put a press release together? Doomed because people of your generation, who vote more reliably than any other demographic in the country, go apoplectic every time the political opponents of the reformers start demagoguing on the subject? Even politicians of the younger generation seem insistent on reassuring you. Don't worry, they go out of their way to say. We'll make sure you get the money and benefits you were promised even if we have to bankrupt the country to do it.

But let's put that aside for a second. It's really just one of my pet grievances anyway. Instead, allow me to grant you your fundamental premise. You're right. The America you know, love and understand doesn't exist any more.

So what?

It may trouble you to know that America doesn't belong to just you. It belongs to all of us. And if it's broken, I'd first want to ask you to think carefully about how it got broken in the first place. Then, I'd like to ask you to stop clinging so nostalgically to it so we can take a close look at it and maybe figure out a way to fix the damn thing.

There are some of us, after all, who still have careers to pursue and children to raise and dreams for the future, and we're not ready to give up on America just yet. I'm personally less interested in the political rancor that infects all structures built on the ideal of self-determination, but one of the things I am interested in is exploring a new generation of leadership issues. And that's how I want to approach this subject.

Believe it or not, there's a whole new generation of leaders who are standing ready to tackle the tough problems we're facing. But you won't see them in the crowds on Black Friday and you certainly won't see them in your misty-eyed remembrances of Depression-era patriotism and sacrifice.

We have a different set of life experiences than you do, and that gives us a different perspective on the issues of the day. You must know what that feels like. Surely you can remember how square your parents' generation was?

But perhaps most importantly, and the thing that sets us the most apart from you, is that we've grown up enough to know that we'll be here after you're gone. We have to find ways to make America work again because there will come a day, in the not-to-distant future, when we'll absolutely and irrevocably be in charge, and your perspectives and priorities will be the things our children read about in their history books.

Maybe if you look at things from that perspective you'll get a glimpse of why some of us seem so angry--and why the America we'd create seems so different from the one you grew up with. It's not that we're right and you're wrong. Nothing is ever that simple, and I'm sure that we'll make tons of mistakes. But it is our turn, and I wonder if you could manage to step aside and let us lead while there's still something to work with.

Calling Everyone (Not Just Boomers): Which Battle Are You Fighting?

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Thanks to Elizabeth Weaver Engel for pointing me to this opinion piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy reacting to a recently released study that shows more than 12 million Baby Boomers want to start new nonprofits or socially-oriented for-profits over the next decade to give themselves the opportunity to continue contributing positively to society in their golden years.

I've written about this generational dynamic before--Boomers who, now faced with the prospect of retirement but still flush with health and vitality, not quite financially ready to quit working, and still wanting to contribute to the betterment of others, are moving out of senior positions in the for-profit world and going to work for or starting their own nonprofits.

The author of the opinion piece, has some stark advice for them--don't do it.

More than a million nonprofit groups already exist, and plenty of for-profit ventures are dedicated in part to providing some social benefit. Adding millions more of such entities is not good for this nation.

Such a multiplicity of organizations would move America further away from developing coherent analyses of public problems. And it would lead the country to define and treat social concerns as fragmented individual or local matters. That would make it profoundly more difficult to mount any significant effort to advance the broad-based change needed in our social, political, and economic institutions.

It's an interesting perspective, and I've commented on it before, too. The fragmented approach to solving large, complex problems seldom works. We know that. As association professionals, we are often faced with challenges that we have neither the resources nor the competencies to adequately address. Worse yet, there are often competing associations in our fields, also working on the same problems with inadequate resources and underdeveloped skill sets.

Yet few of us explore what we could accomplish if we pooled our talents and resources and worked together on common issues. Too often, we're too busy protecting our own turf--both the products and services on which the health of our organizations have come to depend and the sense of security that our leadership and employment offer in a turbulent world--to even consider what capacities could be built and new benefits created with a more collaborative approach to problem solving.

In my own experience, such intentions are often stifled by a subtle and unexpressed game of chicken. Two association leaders of two competing associations each recognize the futility of their own attempts and the potential for success that lives within partnership, but neither is willing to blink unless the other blinks first. And each is fearful that the other will pounce and exploit whatever opening they may finally work up the courage to offer.

Is there a better way? Are we all destined to act in the manner of these Boomers in this opinion piece? I have to battle, I have to provide, I have to succeed, or that success will have no meaning in my life or in the lives of the people I serve. What if we convinced ourselves that this kind of self-actualizing success comes not from the individual struggle against the goal, but in the attempt to build the coalition that could best achieve the goal? What could such an approach mean for our community, our profession, and ourselves?

Millennials Are the New Slackers

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What goes around comes around. Here's another one of those fun HBR blog posts where a blogger from one generation pontificates on the failings of a younger generation, and gets taken to task for it in the comments. In this case, the blogger is Andrew McAfee and his target is the "entitlement mentality" of many Millennials.

A paradox is a seemingly contradictory statement that might nonetheless be true. The deepest one I've come across recently goes something like at a time of high unemployment and persistent joblessness, Millennials are asking for more concessions and perks from their employers. I just came across a CNN story about how new hires at marketing agency Euro RSCG told their CEO that they want to come in at 10 or later, have free food and a Pilates room, and get reimbursed for their personal trainers.

It's horrific, McAfee says, and he goes on to detail out how Millennials should be acting in this dismal economy. His five-point plan sounds like every other piece of advice given by the older generation to the younger generation entering to workplace: play by our rules and you'll get ahead when we decide the time is right.

The comments are a fun read--more fun, in fact, than McAfee's post. There are some impassioned and frustrated young people expressing both of those emotions there. One, mocking McAfee's dismissal of the younger generation's use of "e-speak" in business correspondence, says:

Your organization should stop hiring employees who can't write. Then again, I guess you'd be jobless.

Ouch. But there is a larger point to be made here.

Millennials are the new kids on the block when it comes to the workplace. And like the Xers that preceded them, they are coming of age in a time of massive joblessness and economic uncertainty. They have youthful enthusiasm and a fresh way of seeing things, and we're witnessing what happens when ideals like that collide with the powerful status quo, protected ever more preciously by an older generation not quite ready to let go.

Although McAfee never uses the word, reading what he says about Millennials, it was hard for me not to sympathize with them and see their plight as similar to the one GenX fought and is in some measure still fighting. It's not fair to call us "slackers" anymore--us Xers with our mortgages, college savings accounts and flirtations with the alternative minimum tax--but it is such a tempting description, that I fully expect it will be recycled with abandon for these Millennials. After all, they have no true sense of how the real world works.