The Life And (Working) Times Of Millennials

You can’t flick a screen these days without reading something about Millennials and the workplace.

As a professional speaker, I get to see the types of topics that corporations are trying to tackle. You would be hard pressed to not see a conference or corporate event without some time allotted to Millennials, and how they’re changing the face of work today. Who are they? What do they want? What do they believe in? Are they so different from adults of generations past? With that, this generation (and, by way of definition, most would agree that Millennials are people who are from the early-1980s as starting birth years and ending birth years ranging from the mid-1990s to early-2000s). It’s a pretty broad timeframe, but that’s what we’re working with.

So, what makes them so different? It depends on who you ask.

Simon Sinek is a deep thinker and brilliant orator. Simon is the author of three best selling books, Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and his latest book, Together Is Better – A Little Book of Inspiration. His main fascination is how leaders and companies can make the greatest impact in the world. He looks for those with the capacity to inspire. Simon is also best known for popularizing the concept of “Why” with his first Ted Talk in 2009 (just his spoken words and a simple flip-chart). That talk (Simon Sinek – How great leaders inspire action) has become the third most watched talk of all time on TED.com. It has close to 30 million views. With that, Sinek took part in Inside Quest, which is a great content marketing platform created by Quest Nutrition that features the company’s Co-founder and President, Tom Bilyeu, as the host. In the clip below, Simon defines Millennials, their challenge and how it affects the work that we do today.

This is staggeringly smart stuff from Simon Sinek. Watch this: Simon Sinek on Millennials In The Workplace – Inside Quest.

So, are Millennials that much different or have the rules of our society and work changed that much?

Most business professionals will watch this clip, and think that Simon has his pulse on who Millennials are and what they’re looking for. He does, but that was not my main takeaway. My main takeaway is this: this is not about how a certain generation was brought up, and what their expectations are. This is – one hundred percent – about how the rules of society and work have changed. It’s about how the expectations of our society has shifted. How will public markets keep pushing on, when the workforce doesn’t see revenue and pure wealth as the main reason to do something? Simon is most widely known for helping individuals and corporations to find their “Why”? After viewing this clip, it became abundantly clear that, perhaps, our society has yet to tackle this one question, and all of the complexities that it may imply.

Regardless of a new generation coming into the workplace, what is the “why” of our society today… and moving forward?