Entrepreneur.com recently blogged about biz/tech journo Michael S. Malone’s new book: The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation and What It Means for You.
Malone argues that Gen Y (or the millennials, or whatever you want to call us) isn’t a hard-working or loyal generation, but it’s one that will, as Entrepreneur puts it:
“Accelerate the nation’s evolution form a corporate economy of worker bees to an entrepreneurial one of innovative thinkers and rapid change.”
While that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (sorry “worker bees”), I’m a little miffed about the hard-work/loyalty crack. I don’t think that loyalty and hard work are the point.
First, there is no innovation or rapid change without hard work. Ideas don’t materialize on their own. So maybe it’s not the typical stay-after-5-get-the-report done type of hard work. It’s a different type of hard work that involves less formal work/personal time divides.
It’s my sense that Gen Y is largely time-clock incompatible.
Many companies complain that their Gen Y workers use social media sites for personal interaction during business hours. But we also use social media sites for business interaction during personal hours.
Here’s my anecdotal support: a fellow Gen Y’er and friend of mine who works as a marketer a publishing company (@ebarlean21) called me after work a few days ago to talk social media. Gasp! We were talking business during personal time.
Sure there are some Gen Y’ers who abuse the time-share continuum. So management styles will have to change. You won’t turn Gen Y into a generation of worker-bees, so please, at least try to meet us half way.
Second, loyalty is relative. It’s my belief that Gen Y may be more loyal to a job function than to a particular company. The hierarchal corporate structure turns us off. Our vision of business is much, much flatter the the vision of our predecessors.
Sure the corner office is nice, but so is sitting in a pod where we can connect and quickly share ideas with our peers.
The real theme here is explicit collaboration in a flat structure. I think that’s what’s going to fuel innovation and rapid change.
What do you think? Please tell me if I sound like a rambling idiot. Thanks.
-Andrew
