apparently this young millennial
generation is unleadable and they
frustrate everyone. They're accused of
being entitled and narcissistic and some
even accused them of being lazy.
I think it's an unfair label and I think
the first thing we do is great leaders
were supposed to demonstrate empathy and
I think we failed the millennial generation
which is we haven't demonstrated empathy
but rather have just accused them and
expressed our frustrations. The funny thing
is so many leaders are so frustrated by
this generation that they've given up trying to lead them
and now just ask them what they want
and they say beanbags and free food and
flexible work hours and open work plans
and we give them all of that and still
nothing changes.
So I've been able to sort of boil it
down to four observations; parenting
technology, impatience and environment.
Many amongst this generation and the
Millennials are defined as a group of
people born around the year 1984 and add
another twenty years so many in this
generation have been subject to what has
been described as a failed parenting
strategy many of them were raised being
told that they were special and that
they can have whatever they want
just because they wanted many of them
got into advanced classes and schools
not because they necessarily deserved it
but because their parents complained and
then may have even gotten better grades
not because they earn them but because
the teachers didn't want to deal with
the parents and then they graduate and
get a job and instantly they discover
they're not special and instantly they
discover that you can't have whatever
you want just because you want it you
get nothing for coming in last and your
parents can't help you get a promotion
I've even heard stories of parents
complaining that their kids didn't get a
promotion of her stories of parents
filling out job applications but in an
instant
many in this generation have their
entire self image completely shattered
immediately and what that resultant is
shakes their self-confidence and so you
have a disproportionately high number of
people of an entire generation
growing up with lower
self-esteem, lower self-confidence than
previous generations and remember also
they've grown up in an Instagram
snapchat Facebook world where they're
exceptionally good at filtering
presenting themselves as they want to be
seen curating their lives even in other
words they're very good at displaying
how they want to be seen
so they sound tough and they sound
confident and they say things like ask
us we know where the reality is they
don't know they're incredibly uncertain
they're incredibly unsure and they don't
want anybody to know now we know when we
engage with cell phones or with social
media we get a hit of a chemical called
dopamine. Dopamine is the same chemical
that makes us feel good when we find
thing we're looking for when you hit the
goal 'yes!' or win the game 'i did it!' right?
That chemical is released when our phones go
bing, buzz, flash or beep. It's why when
we feeling a little bit down feeling a
little bit sorry for ourselves we send
out 10 texts to 10 friends 'hi hi hi hi hi'
hoping to get a response because it
actually makes us feel good. Now dopamine
is the same chemical released in alcohol
nicotine and gambling and almost all
addictions are dopamine based addictions
now we have age restrictions on alcohol
cigarettes and gambling because we know
that a young developing mind is not yet
strong enough to deal with the addictive
qualities of dopamine so we restrict
children from engaging in these things
but we have no such age restrictions on
social media or mobile phones
this is very dangerous when we're very
very young
the only approval we need is the
approval of our parents that's all we
need right and as we go through
adolescence we start to make this
transition we now crave the approval
of our peers. Very frustrating for our parents
very important for us and allows us to a
acculturate outside of our immediate
families into the wider tribe right it's
a time of high anxiety and high stress
and we're supposed to learn to rely on our
friends some people quite by accident
discover alcohol and the numbing effects
of dopamine that help them cope with the
stress
of adolescence. That connection becomes
hardwired and so for the rest of their
lives when they suffer or any kind of
extreme stress social stress career
stress they won't turn into a person
will turn to the bottle now as I said
before social media and mobile phones
also release dopamine and we have no age
restrictions on this open access
it's the equivalent of throwing open the
liquor cabinet and telling our teenagers
try the vodka to help you get through
teenager years and that's what's happening
unfettered access to highly highly
addictive device and like all
addiction in time you waste time waste
resources and destroy relationships in
other words an entire generation not
only growing up with an addiction but
growing up with a lack of coping
mechanisms they haven't learned and
aren't learning the social interactions
that we need to learn to deal with
stress in later life so what happens
later on in their lives when they suffer
stress they're not turning to each other
they're not turning to people they're
turning to devices and turning to social
media and some for some their entire
self-worth comes from how many followers
they have, how many likes they get, it can be
devastating if somebody unfollows them
right and any kind of work stress
they're not they're not going to people
i've talked to lots and lots and lots of
of Millennials and they will admit to me
that they struggle to form deep
meaningful relationships they will
freely admit that they wouldn't be
surprised if their friends cancelled on
them because they got better plans
somewhere else and when that happens
there's no sense of how to deal with
that stress and so you have an insecure
generation that doesn't have the coping
mechanisms how to deal with the stress
we're starting to see increase in
suicide rates we're starting to see
increase in drug addiction and
depression even mass homicide in the
united states with over a hundred twenty
school shootings in the past decade
something like seventy percent of them
were perpetrated kids born after the year
1980