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A Millennial Intervention

Guest post by: Dani Koplik

Article Overview: An intervention for Millennials leaving the "bubble" of college and entering the "boardroom" of career.

A Millennial Intervention

Today is my birthday and while the earth won’t stop spinning, it does present the opportunity to pause and take stock. So, in preparation for this article, I revisited my articles written for various outlets from the last year and realized just how many have been written with Millennials in mind. The first – "Houston, We’ve Got a Problem" – was written in response to an August NY Times Magazine article that discussed the psycho-social reasons why Millennials are experiencing a "failure to launch."

Back then, I said that the intellectual debate could continue but the outcome was immaterial, as "the fact remains that our current crop of 20-somethings is in crisis now." Still true. At the time, my emphasis was on the sad fact that our kids are emerging from college (and our tutelage) without the critical thinking skills they need to contribute and succeed in the 21st Century but with plenty of entitlement and ‘tude. My 20-20 hindsight stock-taking, though, is with the second part of the sentence: "and the real question is how best to support them through these pivotal, impressionable, defining years." Seems innocuous enough, doesn’t it? Ah, but that’s just the point, innocuous. And innocuous doesn’t rise to the task when we’re talking crisis, crunch time, now or never, May day.

So, with the insight, wisdom, reflection…and brass that come with each advancing year, I confess to being too soft on this issue. Not yet ready to ruffle feathers, I took the safer tack and relied on the power of gentle suggestion. No time for that anymore, as the particular manifestations of "failure to launch" are changing in real time: there’s been a profound shift that merits a much more declarative and drastic response. Like an intervention.

But this intervention is not for Millennials. It’s for their parents. Make no mistake, the skill gap issue is epidemic and must be addressed if we’re to remain competitive in a global marketplace and repopulate the vacancies left by an aging-out workforce. In fact, industry and higher education are taking on the challenge, but the issues of missing skills and wanting attitudes are nothing compared to the abject terror and panic I’ve witnessed lately. In some ways, it was always thus, as graduating seniors everywhere have to face the harsh reality of life on the outside. But this is different. Despite an improving economy and the best job forecast in three years, so many graduating seniors are totally paralyzed and unable to marshal even the most fundamental inner resources. It’s okay not to have a firm direction yet – that will come with experience and maturity – but they see graduation as pushing them into freefall without a chute.

So, now for the intervention. Parents, this one’s on you. True, the college experience has not done a great job of preparing them for life outside the bubble, but inner resources and resilience derive from a place more elemental and personal. The fact that our kids grew up in a time of fantastic prosperity and abundance does not absolve us from doing the hard work of often tough parenting. If kids never experience adversity or deprivation or even delayed gratification of any kind, then they can’t possibly learn resilience in the face of difficult circumstances or setbacks. If everything is done for them, they don’t develop initiative or learn to be resourceful. Frankly, they have no reason to.

There’s no substitute for experience and, as parents, we need to step aside, let them go through it. Not over it, not around it but through it, for themselves. While we think we’re expressing our devotion by managing, scheduling, intervening, advocating and negotiating on their behalf, we’re actually doing them a tremendous disservice. Forget about not giving them wings; we’re actually tying their hands.

Please, parents, manage yourselves instead. Release the vice grip you have on your young adult sons and daughters and understand you’ve done your best work when they can separate successfully. That’s the natural order of things and your continued hovering and over-the-top involvement are only serving to seriously incapacitate them.

Our challenge, then, is to tolerate the discomfort that accompanies letting go. We may live in a global community but responsibility and ownership reside within the individual.

Sure, they’ll stumble and maybe even fall but the real learning that results will be theirs. So Millennial parents, this intervention’s for you.

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Article Tags: bubble2boardroom, career success, Generation Y
Referred by: http://www.womenwhowow.com/



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