Poor Millennials. Never has any other group been written about as much. Of course, that’s just because they have the misfortune of being the first group whose entire lives are online.
They seem to struggle with management, though. Have you ever wondered why? Here’s why they aren’t great managers yet, but will be fantastic in the future. Click here to read more: Why So Many Promising Millennials Suck at Managing–And How They Can Be the Best Bosses Ever.
Thank you for publishing this! I have been saying this very same thing, to anyone who would listen, for the last few years. Millennials are young and making all the same mistakes that I made as a young manager. They will get there if we help them! Like any other generation, they have huge potential and we have the opportunity to foster that.
I agree with all of the above except #4. We are educated in some areas and clueless in others. We all went to college, and now none of us are qualified for blue collar jobs. We don’t know how to change a tire or do our taxes because college doesn’t teach us any of those things. I hate to generalize, but I see this constantly among my friends. We have improved, but we lack so many basic skills!
Although I would agree that these are skills that need to be learned, I don’t know if these need to be learned in school. Most of my basic life-skills were taught in real-life situations while I was growing up. This is how my parents learned these skills from my grandparents, aunts, or uncles.
What I do see my friends doing is going straight to graduate school and then not knowing what to do once they graduate. We are definitely an extremely educated generation, but perhaps in different ways than what you are thinking.
It’s not too late to learn to change a tire or do your own taxes.
Don’t even need school to teach it to you.
I am late GenX and I also don’t know how to do alot of mechanical things and even though I’ve changed a tire I don’t remember how since I’ve only ever had one flat.
I think cars were more prone to have issues before we were driving, I think older generations had to learn how to do more work on cars. My dad used to like to but by the early 2000s he didn’t anymore, he said newer cars were harder to work on, smaller spaces, stuff crammed too tight so you couldn’t fit a screw driver…IDK just paraphrasing him.
And as per millenials being not ready to manage, well, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. The core of the generation is still in their mid to late 20s. The articles on generations make it sound like GenX is all old and millenials are are all approaching middle age, which is so not true, maybe in 10 years. Many people I know from late GenX are just approaching management. Not everyone gets there in their 20s or early 30s.
Jumping on the tire bandwagon – my dad taught me to change a tire, change my oil, and change the fan belts before he would let me get a drivers license.
I have been doing my own taxes my entire life, starting with when I had my first W2 job at 15.
I had to learn to change a tire before I could get my license, but I didn’t have to change the oil.
I did my own taxes until I moved to Switzerland and doing expat taxes is way too complicated for me.
Not long ago, my 18 year old son was out with friends when his car battery died. Neither he nor his friends had ever jump-started a car before, but they all pulled out thei phones and found a YouTube video telling them what to do. Pretty much every basic life skill can be learned through YouTube.