Entitlement isn’t the Problem You are Having with Millennials

You came into the workforce in the 1970s or 80s or 90s. Guess what? The Veteran population (born before 1946) thought you were little know-it-alls just waiting to take their jobs. And you did. There is nothing new about the inconveniences brought about by new generations entering the workforce.

Truly, can we blame Millennials for feeling entitled? Millennials have an entrepreneurial spirit and don’t tend to view corporate life as one big climb up the ladder in a vertical formula. This makes sense: their heroes are themselves Millennials! We didn’t have billionaire, entrepreneurial heroes. (Lee Iacocca wasn’t my hero when I entered the workforce as a secretary in 1982!)

Millennials had more opportunity to learn a wider range of things in college than we even had names for. Millennials do tend to get bored and want to jump ship if they don’t feel challenged. They feel freer to communicate with higher-ups and want to have a voice. They are a loud crowd!

GenXers rose up and flattened out hierarchy, feeling entitled to change reporting structures. This felt like anarchy to Baby Boomers who feel entitled to be respected for their experience and knowledge of how to successfully run a business.

See? Who doesn’t feel entitled to something? What’s wrong here is the fear and bias we are having with the differences in our ages and our cultures. You want to be a role-model for Millennials? Then start remembering what it means to shift your self-image from being a student to becoming a professional. Realize the hardships you had to face and the ways in which humility smacked the feeling of entitlement right out of you. And if this never happened to you, then ask yourself if people would describe you as arrogant and obstinate. Millennials just need time to grow-up; to run up against power threats and failures, and disappoint higher-ups, just like you had to. Meanwhile, stop blaming them for everything that’s making you uncomfortable with the changes that you don’t like.

I coach people of all ages on how to communicate and build interpersonal skills, and the most frequent complaint I hear is dealing with the other generations in the workplace. The answer is really simple. Use the discomfort to learn about your own unconscious biases, the need for confirmation bias (listening for those things you already believe vs. being open to new ideas) and your fears of not being in control. Then, apply TOLERANCE, the desire to UNDERSTAND, to INCLUDE, and to VALUE people who are not replicas of you.

After all, you’re entitled to be at peace.

Humbly yours,

Jackie

Copyright, PointMaker Communications, Inc., 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Kellso and PointMaker Communications, Inc., with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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In the Job Market, 50 is the New 65

As I reminisce about my professional journey, I remember an event that took place in 1986. I was 27, and an aggressive, up-and-coming ad sales person working for a media company. One day I learned that a 50+ year-old colleague had been fired and was leaving our company. He had had the best office of everyone on the team. So, the minute I heard he was leaving, I packed up my desk and ran down the hall to grab his. Well, I hadn’t counted on his not having exited the building, and encountered him when he came to pick up a box. He caught me filling his desk with my stuff. I looked up at him, speechless. He looked down at me and called me a vulture. Yes, a vulture. And looking back now as my (almost) 58 year-old self, he was right. My behavior was reprehensible.

That experience haunts me today.

It’s sad that at 50 years-old (unless one is wealthy and/or comfortable enough for the rest of one’s life, and wants to retire) many of us are aching to remain challenged, active, earning, vital, learning and necessary to our companies, our clients and our industries. We are sharper than ever as we have the wisdom, the experience and a sense of ourselves that make us valuable team-members, mentors and consultants to our younger colleagues and our peers.

Today, 50 has become ‘that age’ where many employers are ready or getting ready to set us free. Perhaps it costs too much with higher salaries and benefits than the younger, incoming Millennial population. Perhaps there’s just the perception that we’re too old, lacking fresh ideas, not up on technology, have less enthusiasm and/or energy. Any or all are possible.

Why so young? What happened to retirement being 65 and how did that number even become the accepted retirement age? According to the Social Security Administration’s website, the decision to make 65 the magic number for retirement was a pragmatic one, and a main reason was that, “Studies showed that using age 65 produced a manageable system that could easily be made self-sustaining with only modest levels of payroll taxation.” There are other factors having to do with systems that were formulating in the 1930s based on even older precedents. (If you’re interested in this subject, there’s a lot more information you can retrieve on the web.)

Today, there is a huge and growing population of 50+ers who take new jobs for less money and many who become consultants because they can’t find jobs. (Some of course voluntarily change careers and are looking for a new, more meaningful chapter.) According to the Washington Post*, from an AARP survey, “…the headline statistics hide a harsher reality: older workers who do lose a job spend longer periods out of work, and if they do find another job, it tends to pay less than the one they left.” And a”…look at long-term unemployment data….show(s) that older people have a harder time landing jobs after losing one.”

Employers, take note: make sure older employees, “…don’t end up out of work involuntarily before they’re ready. While vocational programs and access to higher education are seen as the ticket to a better job for those just starting out, those who’ve already spent decades in the workforce have less to gain from a training course that will only benefit them for the few years it takes to get to retirement. That’s why avoiding job loss in the first place is so important.”

It pains me to see my talented friends and colleagues suffer; either cut out of work, or struggling to hold onto their jobs (with enough of a hint from employers that their time may be up) or that their positions may fold. And, even though I’m not a corporate employee any longer (leaving in my mid 40s voluntarily to be a coach and trainer) I am a solopreneur in a sea of consultants battling for a unique voice on social media and a secure place as a ‘go-to’ consultant in my field — with a dream of having the comfort and ease of enough referrals and gigs to sustain me for many more years of work. But with so much unemployment and so many out of work consultants vying for position, all in my age range, there is little to rest upon.

I can’t say whether the situation is bad or good. I can only say that it is a journey and an unexpected turn that relies on one’s resourcefulness, passion, social media savvy, networking ability and persistence. We want to believe that there’s always enough for everyone to go around. We hope people will have the choice as to when they retire. Our hearts want to explore paths filled with purpose. But these desires ain’t for the faint of heart!

In the meantime, if you are a Generation X employer or a Baby Boomer executive with hiring authority — take responsibility for your 50-somethings. Show your industry that you are not ageist. Grey hair = invaluable grey matter. Take advantage of what Baby Boomers have that no Millennial can reproduce: the benefits of irreplaceable experience.

Resiliently speaking,

Jackie

*Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/30/losing-a-job-is-always-terrible-for-workers-over-50-its-worse/?utm_term=.c25524f7d5a8

Copyright, PointMaker Communications, Inc., 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Kellso and PointMaker Communications, Inc., with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The Entrepreneur’s Fight to Survive As an Army of One

Hello You Army of One.

This morning I found this post on a Business Women’s Facebook page: “Feeling a bit overwhelmed, like I’m an island out in the middle of the ocean all by my self. Trying hard to get some momentum but feel like I’m on a hamster wheel…” –K.

I am relating. I am a savvy, hard-working, devoted entrepreneur using Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, etc…to market myself using social media; promote my unique value proposition, evaluate the results of my marketing, analyze what’s working, what’s not, and reaching out to existing contacts, asking clients for referrals — consistently looking to build a smart, large network of potential connections that will lead to new business.

We ‘Armies of One’ are the CEOs, the executive assistants, the PR people, marketing directors, blog writers, visionaries and designers of products/services; delivering goods to customers in-between all of the other duties that should be delegated to an entire team. And then there’s the networking, networking, networking.

It’s exhausting. Then we see these articles from the rich ‘success’ stories plastered all over the walls of Linked IN with advice on how we too can get rich.  How they did it through passion, belief in themselves, being an expert, having a superior product/service, working and obsessing 30 hours a day 8 days a week.  If only they could tell us what makes us any different. Well, they can’t.

Then we have the specialists for hire who have built their own businesses targeting YOU.  They promise to help you build an audience, generate leads, connect you…people who know how to do all of this better, quicker.  Well, it takes money to hire help. And with so many, whom do you trust with your precious few dollars?

The principles of advertising are to spend in order to generate revenue.  Yeah, take out a second mortgage?  Not eat?  It’s not enough that you are a skilled veteran of knowledge and experience with a phenomenal C.V. and so much value that you can be the go-to-expert of many, if they’d just find you and hire you!

I want proof that I’m on a trajectory that will reach my long-term financial goals and help me see that I am not on a hamster wheel, even if it’s a slow progression.  If only the ebbs were few and the flows were the norm!

An option is to view the bigger picture as a spiritual journey.  We are discovering patience, the limits of our comfort zones and frankly, how much we can tolerate being in a sea of thousands of other entrepreneurs who do what we do, and for those of us who are not Millenials, to progess with technology.   We must still have the courage to believe that abundance is available to all – no one can eclipse us, we will get ours anyway! This isn’t as comforting as we’d like it to feel. We are still overwhelmed, experiencing the agony of possible defeat, isolated and unsure of when the wheel of fortune will bless us because we’ve worked hard enough.

Today I couldn’t think of anything else to write.  I just wanted to talk to you, dear army of one, to say I’m in it too and if in the bigger picture of my life that this moment teaches me that I can get through the day, focus on something productive, breathe, go to the gym, count my blessings, and remain staunchly hopeful, then I am doing what I’ve hired myself to do.

Marching onward,

Jackie

Copyright, PointMaker Communications, Inc., 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jackie Kellso and PointMaker Communications, Inc., with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.