The Millenials: Lost in our old-fashioned organizations?

14 Septembre 2017
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After having worked for years in a company’s office, I am now working in a coworking space in Brussels (Silversquare Louise). I arrive there with my computer and go sit where I want, in a crowded space if I want some life around me or in a very quiet space if I want to concentrate on something. It has several advantages for me. First, I am not the most disciplined person, so I need a certain rhythm and space to be efficient, especially since I don’t have many deadlines yet. I would be far too distracted at home. Then, I like having people around me to share ideas or conversations. I am an extravert, so I find my energy in my relationship with others. It is very beautiful and I have all the infrastructure there necessary for my company (a reception, meeting rooms, printers…). Lastly, there is a special mood in that place. I am surrounded by entrepreneurs; from someone organizing a storytelling festival, to Tricount (an app I often use during weekends with friends), to home chefs, to facilitators of collaboration, … This is a big change for me compared to my previous life where I had a big office and many colleagues. I really love it, especially the different energy or culture that emanates from the place. I am surrounded by millennials. Of course, there are also people from the other generations but the proportion of millennials is far greater than in my previous company.

It is quite ironic because I have had in-depth interviews with CEO’s about the changes they noticed in their companies. One of the trends that regularly came up was the difficulty to manage millennials with the following quotes:

“Work is not a priority for them, their private life comes first. That is an issue because they are not committed enough”.

“They think everything is evolving too slowly, they want to see more change while the rest of the organization has difficulties keeping up with the pace of change. After doing something for 6 months, they already want to move to the next thing”.

“They think they know everything because they have read about it on the internet.”

“They can be very demanding and don’t hesitate to give their opinion even when they just arrived in a team.”

To be fair, not all the CEO’s I interviewed see these attitudes as difficulties, some of them see them as opportunities but half of the CEO’s mentioning the millennials as a big change in the company, see it currently more as a difficulty than an opportunity. “Who do they think they are? They should prove themselves more before making all the demands or giving their opinions”. I have to admit that in my previous job as a CEO, I have been surprised too sometimes by some reactions. We are so used to certain habits like “you only give your point of view when you have reached a certain experience because what you say might be stupid and we want to avoid that at all cost”. While in fact, it has been proven scientifically that for a complex problem, you will find better solutions with a team of experts combined with non-experts.

I want to share now 3 conversations I have had or heard from millennials at the coworking space.

Conversation 1 about the tea

I am a big tea lover. As I was boiling water in the kitchen, another girl was there doing the same. We started a small conversation about our love of tea and I suggested that maybe we could ask the coworking space to provide us different kind of teas. She slightly nodded yes with her head and then told me that we should be grateful that they already offer us tea. Ouch, that hurt a little bit… but of course, she was completely right.

Conversation 2 about the girl hesitating to start her own business or go work for a company

I overheard a conversation between 2 girls. One was an entrepreneur at the coworking and the other girl just graduated and was hesitating about what to do next. “I don’t know what to do yet. Should I start my own company or should I work for a company? I am really hesitating.” says the young graduate. “I would really suggest you to start your own business”, says the young entrepreneur. “It is harder in the beginning because you have to make a living with little revenues but what you build is yours and you have more freedom. If you start working in a company, you get used to a higher salary and another lifestyle and it becomes very difficult then to lower your lifestyle in order to start your own company. You can get trapped.”

Waouh, I find this simple statement very powerful. I see so many people trapped by their good salaries but unhappy or at least not living the life they could live just because it becomes too difficult to abandon a certain financial safety.

Conversation 3 with the pregnant woman

I have a conversation with a beautiful pregnant woman. Her husband works at Silversquare as well. He worked for a Venture Capitalist and left that job to join a startup. She is pregnant of their second child and we started to talk about the challenges of raising two children while working. I remember when my children were still very young, it was very difficult to handle everything well. She told me that it was OK for the moment and she was confident about their future because she and her husband really form a team when it concerns family matters. Again this was a waouh moment for me. So CEO’s complain that millennials have other priorities than work but shouldn’t family and relationship always be our number one priority? Especially since a Harvard study showed that the only thing that distinguishes happy and healthy people from unhappy and unhealthy people is the quality of their relationships. My children have always been my number one priority and that has never stopped me from becoming a CEO or starting my own business. On the contrary, I often think, it has made me a better time and people manager.

So, among these millennials, I see a lot of really committed persons once they have found their purpose or something that motivates them. And yes, they are not ready to compromise their work life balance but they find other ways to reach their goals especially with all the modern technologies. They can travel to Bali and still organize their work through Skype. They are less motivated by money and status and much more by a purpose, by seeing their contribution to something and of course by novelty. We see them as lazy sometimes, but with all the technologies available they have been used to find the fastest and easiest way to reach their goal and can we blame them?

That made me wonder: Are the millennials not just better adapted to our complex and fast-changing world? People are burning out in our traditional companies because they don’t find a good balance for themselves. And who will achieve better results? The balanced person or the exhausted one? So are they a lost-generation or are they lost in our old-fashioned organizations? Because let’s face it, are our traditional organizations coping well with the current pace of change?

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