Baby boomers’ fate in millennial hands, and we’re darned lucky

As the oldest of them approach 40 and enter leadership ranks, forget the so-called stereotypes

By some definitions the eldest millennials will start turning 40 as of Jan. 1. Thank the stars. Maybe then we can put an end to the so-called stereotypes allegedly embraced by their elders. You know: that millennials are entitled, lazy, disloyal. All that malarkey.

Allow me to get personal: I birthed a few of those millennial people. I opened my refrigerator to hordes of millennial people. My nieces and nephews are millennial people. I have taught millennial people. I have worked and continue to work with millennial people. I like them very much.

Perhaps my years in the business trenches caused me to gaze upon these broad stereotypes circa the 1990s with a jaundiced eye. Old-time corporations get skittish when they imagine that workers cannot be moulded per order. You can imagine how scared they were in 1968.

Naturally, the “popular press” seized on soft features that could attempt to describe the millennial generation in terms not of progress — free thinking, work-life balance — but how these deemed characteristics might negatively upend how young workers have conventionally been socialized into a postwar idea of how the working world worked.

This was great fodder for feature writers and weekly magazines.

Consumer products manufacturers predictably became obsessed with how to “sell” to this self-assured generational cohort who appeared more discerning and less compliant. Was this an unheard of challenge? Nope — comes with the territory.

Empirical, peer-reviewed studies? Those were a longer time coming.

And what did those studies reveal? That millennials like to be kept in the loop. They dislike secrecy. They favour transparency. They are opinionated. They challenge authority.

They are global in outlook. They want to be valued in their work. They value altruism.

And they are making their way into the C-Suite. If we accept 1980 as the generational launch date, Mark Zuckerberg, 32, emerges as the most high-profile of the group.

What kinds of companies will the developing leaders of the millennial generation be?

The elder generation can hope for positive change. When the IBM Institute for Business Value examined the myth of the millennials, three “uncomfortable truths” were documented. Did these reinforce the fallacious stereotypes? No. The institute’s research revealed a first truth: that millennials don’t fully understand their company’s business strategy and managers and customers’ expectations. In this, they were almost as frustrated as baby boomers. (More than 60 per cent of boomers said they didn’t understand their company’s brand. Fifty per cent of surveyed millennials felt similarly.)

Uncomfortable truth number two: 60 per cent of millennials felt that the customer experience is poor. Seventy per cent of boomers felt similarly.

Number three: boomers and millennials alike cited the same obsta- cles to technological advancement with their organization, including a lack of technological savvy at the top, and an inability on the part of top executives to envision future needs.

Where does the cohort end? With those born in 1995? With those born in 2000? Do 16-year-olds “tend” to be a touch self-absorbed? Experience says yes, which makes the millennial cohort no different from any other. What is different, as we all know, is that it’s darned tough to be 25 today. University is expensive, a BA is a ticket to nothing, the job market is bleak and the prospect of owning a home in Toronto is wildly out of reach. Heck, renting an apart- ment is wildly out of reach.

As my sister-in-law apologized to her late-20s son on the weekend: “We really f----ed it up for you guys.”

The research worth doing now is how the millennial generation will positively affect the world of work. As we flush the 70-year-old white male out of the office of the CEO — now there’s a stereotype — we will usher in technologically savvy, globally aware smart folk.

That’s the way I see the millennial generation. Our fate is in their hands. I think we’re darned lucky. Those hoary stereotypes from a decade ago? Well we can flush those out of the system too. jenwells@thestar.ca