“Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.” How ironically apropos that in a world led by a reality-show president, where facts are subjective and everything from our energy sources to our economic policies to our pop culture are the antiquated vestiges of a previous century, that a lyric by a fictitious rock star from a remake of a remake of a remake of a movie from 1937 should emerge as the perfect, hopeful mantra of an impending (if belated) new millennial era. I propose officially adopting it as such; it might make what comes next a little easier to accept for those of us still clinging nostalgically to the 1950s (Baby boomers) and the 1980s (Gen X).
If you belong to one of those analog generations—I’m an Xer myself—and you’ve ever had the frustrating experience of working with a Millennial, you know their nonlinear minds interpret the world in an entirely different manner than those that came before them. The first wave arrived in the workforce a decade ago, expecting a seat at the table before they’d earned one, demanding their voices be heard before their opinions were informed by practical experience. Their operating philosophy seemed to be: Yeah, but just because we’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try it… this way. In their view, the arduous, incremental, straight-line path of our institutionalized practices and protocols didn’t square with their hyperlinked grasp of our new Digital Age reality. Thusly, conventional (read: linear) thinking was to be openly challenged, not obediently emulated.
Like many of my fellow Xers that came up the hard way—those of us that knew our place, paid our dues (there’s that pesky sense of linearity again), never assumed we had all the answers—that worldview has often left me bewildered at best, infuriated at worst. And the sense of entitlement so endemic to Millennials is only compounded by their corresponding characteristic of impatience:
“They’ve grown up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something—you go on Amazon, it arrives the next day. You want to watch a movie? Log on and watch a movie—you don’t check movie times. You want to watch a TV show? Binge! You don’t even have to wait week to week to week. Right? I know people who skip seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season. Right? Instant gratification.”
Simon Sinek, “Simon Sinek,” Inside Quest with Tom Bilyeu, August 7, 2016
Now, to a middle-aged generation still trying (without success) to take the seat at the head of the table from the unyielding occupancy of the Boomers, the Millennials’ impulse—their self-ordained imperative—to grab the wheel and make “meaningful impact” is their most vexing attribute.
And—Christ help me for saying this—it just might change everything for the better.
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