My friend Andrue maintains that you can learn everything you really need to know about life from either a Broadway show or a TV sitcom. Andrue can be very persuasive in making his case. Trust me on this one.
Given all of the chatter I hear from baby-boomer bosses about the twenty-somethings that they are managing, the lyrics of this song from Bye Bye Birdie popped into my head:
“Kids! What’s the matter with kids today? ¦ Why can’t they be like we were, happy in every way. What’s the matter with kids today?
Those lyrics sum up the message that many baby-boomer bosses are trying to give the youngest generation in the work force. “If you would just get rid of your body piercings, cover your tattoos, and do exactly what we tell you to do, things between us would be much better. “Things being much better, means life would be easier for me, the baby-boomer – not necessarily you the twenty-something. What I think a lot of baby-boomers forget is that when we began our careers, our bosses commented on the “generation gap , the difference between how people who grew up during the depression and lived through Word War II saw the world and how the post World War II generation viewed things.
Twenty-somethings are not aliens. The prevalence of technology and the “instant access to information, the educational philosophy of only providing positive feedback, and the violence of our world are only a few of events that have shaped this generation’s world-view. Trying to understand the point of view of the twenty-somethings is much more constructive than demanding that they be more like the baby-boomers.