Simon says Millennials - Now lose your mind

Simon Sinek — yes the same guy who made everyone want to have a "why" — has done it again in his viral hit on millennials:

I really recommend you take 15 minutes to watch the video if you haven't. But in short:

Millennials are a major headache for modern workplaces.

They don't work hard, they crave meaningful work (unlike their parents who were apparently fine just making money) and they're impossible to lead. And it's all basically due to bad parenting and social media. Now they'll be unhappy for the rest of their life. 

The first time I saw this, I admit I was struck. Hell yeah Simon, tell them about social media. Bad parenting — high five bro, I also remember getting a participation medal! But the more I thought about it, the more it feels like overhyped bull with sprinkles of truth in it. 

Why?

First of all, I absolutely hate the term millennials. It now covers — depending on definition — around 1,5 BILLION people worldwide. So every time you're saying something about them, you're basically putting 20% of everyone into the same bucket. If we did that with muslims or asians, you'd rightly be called out for racism. But because it's an age group, it's somehow ok? Bah. 

Second: Millenials are hard to motivate and feel special they say.

I say — where are you looking? I'm a millennial and I hire millenials. They are serious, driven, sacrifice too much of their spare time and generally want to learn new skills. In my experience they are motivated by learning, making an impact and by positive feedback. Like... pretty much everyone else. Here's some data from Harvard Business Review:

Oh that 2% difference between Millennials and Baby Boomers means it's ok to talk about this generation as a lost cause? Bah. 

Finally, social media and our corrupted youth.

Simon has many funny points here on the distractive power of social media and the potentially bad long term effects. However, I fail to see how this only applies to millenials. We just happened to grow up with it — and my mother is probably more on Facebook than myself at this point. And hey, I know it's funny to compare it to heroin, but heroin ruins your life or kills you. In the grand scheme of things I consider a bit of time wasted on self-centered Instagram posts a minor offense. And the idea that we'll never have fulfilling lives because we got participation medals and do selfies? Huh?

But wait – what does it all mean for brands?!

What a great question. Nothing:

Maybe Goldman Sachs who did the article read the above data differently than me when they created this headline. I read it as brand loyalty being or less the same, with differences of a couple % between generations probably more related to simple age and people moving from "don't know" into other categories.

In essence...

It's a great narrative, but that doesn't make it anymore true. Some young people are hard to motivate, some are super focused powerhouses. Some like brands, some hate them. Putting them all into the same bucket will accomplish exactly nothing. Yes, motivating people is hard. Just like parenting, growing up, staying focused and running a company is. Always has been. Attributing things to an entire generation is just a lazy excuse and we should completely stop it.