The New Generation

To paraphrase, "They are reckless, ill-mannered and disrespectful of adults". Sounds like today's young people. You're right. However, Socrates said this over 2,000 years ago about the youth of his day.

We can be awfully harsh on the next generation. Most of it is undeserved. They are just young and inexperienced, full of emotion and ideals. No scar tissue. They just don't know some basic truths about what can happen to them. How fragile life is and how fickle it can be. Lastly, that God has a sense of humor.

Some of our criticism is deserved. We have a generation that ( most of) hasn't experience three basic emotions:

• Hunger
• Financial Distress
• Loss of a loved one's life

The first two problems (lack of) are part of the great abundance of the United States. The last is through only grace or luck depending on your religious outlook. The first two is where we are frustrated. Too much consumption and not enough investment by us as parents, uncles, aunts, neighbors and the like. We don't want our young people to go through the awful time most of us went through.

Now, we can all share stories about our first car, our first job, our first month on our own etc. The older generations didn't have as much given to them as the latter ones. It is a fact we cannot control. The 20- and 30- somethings as a group aren't as circumspect about their lives as we are.

All this means to me as a management consultant is that the pool of strong management talent has gotten smaller. We have to ignore this trend and focus on finding those who have touched by harsh reality. They are out there.