The latest survey data on the  living preferences of the Millennial generation (born 1982-2003) once again validates the picture of a cohort that, contrary to urban legend, actually prefers the suburbs, even as they prepare to shape the suburbs in their own image. We and others have previously made this data-based point on this website. The results of the survey challenges the often wishful thinking of academics and ideologues who yearn for a more urbanized, denser America. 

Beyoncé’s performance of her song, “Flawless”, at the Video Music Awards ceremony was the culmination of her efforts to celebrate and endorse the Millennial generation’s concept of feminism. Quoting the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Beyoncé proclaimed, “We should all be feminists,” defining a feminist as a “person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” MTV proclaimed her performance to be “Fearless, Feminist, Flawless, Family Time”, a combination only a Millennial could deliver.

The "us vs. them" tone of American politics, most visibly emanating from the White House, but infecting all the country’s political rhetoric, has now spread to daily life. The polarization leads some to question the country’s ability to keep its democratic traditions and hold together as one nation. A recent poll conducted with bipartisan sponsorship by the Biden and Bush Institutes found that 50% of Americans believe that the United States is in “Real danger of becoming a nondemocratic authoritarian country and 80% of Americans are either very or somewhat concerned about the condition of our democracy.”

Finding the right mix between encouraging learning and growth within an organization while still providing enough direction to keep the entity on course remains the biggest leadership challenge facing anyone seeking to harness the energy and enthusiasm of America’s youngest, largest and most diverse generation of workers. Although strategic direction will still come from the leaders of organizations in the future, new work processes and behaviors need to embrace the bottom-up approach to solving problems that Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, favor.

Part of the answer to this challenge is to design work environments that simultaneously reflect the vision and values of the organization’s leadership while aligning the organization’s purpose with the desire of Millennials to find ways of working together to change the world for the better. Implementing such a strategy, however, requires transforming the world of work from cubicles to creativity and from hierarchy to democracy.

Millennials: Work is Not A Place, But What You Do

Video from Mike & Morley
Unlike Generation X, Millennials aren’t interested in balancing
work and life. Work is just one thing to do among many
in their blended, seamless daily life.

Confrontation and conflict are the favorite dispute resolution tools of Baby Boomers, who were born in the aftermath of WWII and grew up in the rebellious ‘60s. In stark contrast, members of the Millennial generation, born 1982-2003, bring a spirit of collaboration and consensus to solving any problem they encounter. A great example of what a difference this generational distinction can make is the cooperative spirit the parents at the LA Unified School District’s 24^th Street school, most of whom are Millennials in their twenties or early thirties, used in resolving the dispute over the school’s future.

Located near the 10 freeway and Western Avenue in a predominantly Hispanic, hardscrabble neighborhood, the school appeared regularly on the District’s list of academic underperformers. Beyond poor learning outcomes, the parents at the school were upset by LAUSD’s apparent unwillingness to address major cleanliness and health issues and a tendency for the principal to use suspensions and a police presence as the way to enforce discipline. Before California’s Parent Trigger law gave parents the legal status to challenge incumbent administrators, the parents had organized a protest designed to remove the principal, but LAUSD failed to respond to their request.

Millennials: Economics of Higher Education

Video from Mike & Morley
Millennials’ student debt is depressing US economy. College will become part of universal, free educational system in America when Millennials run things.

The Millennial generation’s (born 1982-2003) attitude that will have most impact on the daily lives of Americans is the distinctive and historically unprecedented belief that there are no inherently male or female roles in society. This belief stems directly from Millennials’ experience growing up in families in which the mother and father took on roughly equal responsibilities for raising their offspring. As men and women enter the workforce on an equal footing this generation’s belief in gender neutrality will force major changes in our laws governing the work place and its relationship to family life.

Historically, “civic” generations like Millennials, have tended to emphasize distinctions between the sexes, while “idealist” generations, such as today’s Boomers, have advanced the cause of women’s rights. This includes the Transcendental generation that founded the feminist movement in the 1840s, the Missionary generation suffragists in the early twentieth century, and of course the Boomers who revitalized the women’s movement in the 1960s.

Millennials' Belief in Gender Equality Biggest Cultural Shift of All

Video from Mike & Morley
Millennials firm belief in gender neutrality in roles and responsibilities will have the most profound effect on culture of all the generation's beliefs.

Depending on one’s partisan leanings, the desire of House Republicans to shut down the federal government if the Democrats don’t agree to repeal ObamaCare may seem to be either a courageous ideological stand or a kamikaze mission sure to destroy its proponents, if not the country. However, from a generational perspective it is not only a predictable but a necessary step in the country’s search for a new consensus on the role and size of government.

Nor is it coincidental that the current confrontation is coming to a head just as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is about to be implemented nationwde. The roles that the legislation assigns to the federal government, states and individuals in securing every citizen access to medical insurance is such a departure from the existing civic ethos it has become the touchstone for the debate about the nation’s civic ethos in the  Millennial Era. Yet, ironically, the law everyone wants to argue about actually provides a blueprint to any politician willing to go beyond their current ideological comfort zone and solve a range of challenges in ways that respond to the beliefs and behaviors of the emerging Millennial Majority in the electorate.

Millennials Think Globally, Act Locally

ObamaCare is the model for how Millennials will change the role and size of government at all levels in the future.

Video from Mike and Morley

Over the centuries, differences in generational attitudes have caused the nation’s consensus on how to balance the tension between security and privacy to shift. Group and civic-oriented generations, such as the GI generation that fought in World War II, emphasized safety and security. Individualistic generations, such as today’s Baby Boomers and Generation X, tilted the balance back toward protecting privacy from the intrusions of big government or big business.

Today another civic generation, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, is emerging into young adulthood and, like other cohorts of their type, are likely to once again push America toward a greater focus on security. In an era of ubiquitous smart phones, soon to be available as hands-free wearable glasses and smart watches, most Millennials accept the inevitable loss of privacy that comes with the increasing presence of social media. As a result, technologist Pete Markiewicz points out that tracking an individual’s physical and virtual movements can now be accomplished with sufficient mining of cell phone and web data to produce a “lifelog” that Google or Facebook might use to provide Millennials with a measure of their “personal connectedness” – or police might use to find a terrorist in our midst.

Millennials: Willing  To Trade Privacy for Security

Millennials are more willing to give up privacy for security. Will the generation's
desire for safety lead to new levels of government and corporate surveillance?

Video from Mike and Morley

The current Congressional debate over Obama’s request to attack Syria for its use of chemical weapons embodies the same generational consequences and disagreements as the debate over the United States joining the League of Nations did almost one hundred years ago. The outcome of that vote settled the direction of American foreign policy for two decades, the span of a generation. The outcome of today’s debate may well have the same consequences for shaping the role of the United States in the world for another generation.

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson personally led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to convince the US Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, which included the establishment of a League of Nations. Wilson, who firmly believed in compromise and conciliation as the best solution to future disputes between nations, was a member of the Progressive generation, an adaptive archetype similar to today’s seniors, members of the Silent Generation. Wilson told the Senate in July 1919 that "a new role and a new responsibility have come to this great nation that we honor and which we would all wish to lift to yet higher levels of service and achievement". Opposition came from Republican Senators such as William Borah of Idaho, a member of the younger Missionary generation, whose idealist attitudes most resemble today’s Baby Boomers. Wilson’s opponents focused on his idea of a continuing role for the United States in world affairs around Covenant X of the League of Nations, which required all member states to come to the aid of any other member who was a victim of external aggression.  The treaty’s defeat caused the U.S. to assume a relatively passive role in international affairs that didn’t end until the Nazi conquest of much of Europe led President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to propose the Lend Lease Act, which Congress passed in 1941.

We recently had the great pleasure of dining with some Millennials as part of our research on the generation’s eating habits that are transforming the food industry. Innovaro, a market research company that provides insights about new market opportunities to its subscribers, has been gracious enough to incorporate our findings in a report it  published on the topic. Without violating any of Innovaro’s copyrights or our guests’ privacy, we want to share a couple of brief vignettes on what transpired that night at a great Middle Eastern restaurant in Washington, D.C.