Gen-Y Mindset: What a 'Waste'

Teaching the Gen-Y allows me to observe their behavior and understand how they think. I personally find that it is important to study their attitude towards assignments or work. This could explain why many companies have been questioning about the quality of work from Gen-Y.

I gave an assignment to my students this semester where they have to form a group of 5 and identify a company of their choice for examining the marketing strategies. After a week, they came back to me with a company they have chosen.

Everything looks fine but not until I asked them how many companies they have selected as alternatives before they make their decision to choose one of it. The answer given by almost all the groups.... one. Basically, they don't have any alternatives but decided on a company that they know and thought it is the only company that is the best for the assignment.

So, what is the reason and why don't they look for more alternatives before making a choice? I want to know why. The answer I got from them are:

"We thought this company we "know" is the best.
No time.
We want to focus on one company"

From their feedback, I learned that they do not like choices when it comes to a task or assignments. They find that it is a waste of their time and effort if the companies that they investigated were not chosen. Meaning to say that if given a choice, the students do not see it as an advantage but more work is needed to identify the alternatives. They are lack inquiry skills and do not see the benefits of the exploratory approach in the learning process.

In life, we need to make a lot of decisions to solve our everyday problems; and we always have many choices/alternatives to solve a problem. While we explore alternatives, we learn and improve our skills in making a decision. Nothing is a waste if we keep exploring the alternatives/choices; even if it is not the best choice for solving the current problem it can be used for the future.

Learning is a process. If one only focuses on the goals and ignores the process of achieving the goals, then it is really "WASTED"!

E.T. Is My Love From The Star

I wonder if anyone (Gen-Y) can understand a scene in the latest popular Korean drama, My Love From The Star (来自星星的你). In episode 18, Do Min-joon (an alien who has landed on Earth 400 years ago during Josean Dynasty) was asked by Cheon Yoon-jae to connect their friendship by touching their fingers together. There is this special background music too.

This is the famous act adopted from the movie E.T. In 1982. The background music played was the original main theme soundtrack of E.T. which I think many of the Gen-Y have not heard before. It is good to bring back such memories as E.T. was known as the earlier icon of Alien explorer to planet Earth and expose the younger generations to some good old movies.

Earlier I have problems to illustrate my example using E.T. friendship with human because all my students don't what is E.T.. Well, I hope after this, some of my students can understand my examples using E.T. and its adventure on Earth.

Welcome to Choe 'say' - a simply talk blog site!

While having my normal routine in the morning, having a nice cup of hot coffee and reading the newspaper, I came across an article about the perception of Gen-Y in job hopping attitude.

The article trying to clarify that it is a norm for Gen-Y to move from 1 job to another in less than 2-3 years. Some of the main reasons, Gen-Y is looking for faster way to earn more money, retire as early as possible, enjoy a work-life balanced and a healthy lifestyle. Because of these, many people may thought that they are job hoppers, very demanding and having too big head in expectation.

Being a Pisces, I always like to see simple thing from 2 different perspectives. First, lets look at how the older generations may look at the Gen-Y.

If you are the Gen-X or Baby Boomers in the middle or higher level of management, would you like to enjoy something like what the Gen-X wanted? Perhaps you may already have a secured senior management position with a good paycheck, some good assets and sufficient savings in your Retirement Funds (which for sure everyone thinks it is insufficient). Yet, you may still unable to enjoy what the Gen-Y wanted to achieve because, you already trapped yourself in the hunger for power, the 'not-enough' mindset for self-esteem/actualization needs and escalating commitments of family. Hence, you may say to the youngster: "do you think it is so SIMPLE to reach my level, earning what I am earning now and being so capable after years of work experiences?"

Now, try to imagine yourself as the Gen-Y living in this century, experiencing the global emerging competitive environment today. Will you want to move up the corporate ladders like how you have done it before? Take for example, if you get a second chance to become young again and start all over for your life...do you think your way of life that brings you all the way up there will work again now? So, to Gen-Y, they can only listen to your success story like a fairy tale. How many young entrepreneur we have today if it is not because of their simple mindset of not wanting to follow the footstep of the elder one. This simple mindset is about how we change and adapt.

Moving from one job to another is about changing. Looking for ways to earning more money in a shorter time is about changing the norm of typical workers attitude. Trying to achieve a balanced work-life is also changing the society and creating better future for a more simple life. Being loyal to a company is good but time shouldn't be used to justify loyalty. A person who works for many years in a company doesn't prove that he/she is loyal, if the person is not productive.

To me, a simple life is about being happiness. Gen-Y really know how to be happy, and that is why they are different from other generations. Sometime, we just worry too much and make things complicated. Why not be simple and open up our mind to start changing for good!

Anyway, I just simply talk...you don't have to agree with me. Cheers!