Book Excerpt: What's Next, Gen X?

In an excerpt from her new book, Tamara J. Erickson outlines the forces that have shaped Gen Y, personally and professionally

By Tamara J. Erickson

Over the past decade, Generation Y, also often called the Millennial Generation, has joined the workforce. Born between 1980 and 1995, the Y's are the largest consumer group and soon will be the largest employee group in the history of the United States, more than 70 million strong. They represent an even larger proportion of the population globally. The large size of this generational cohort means that they will have a significant influence on the world in which we live and work. They have been teens since the mid-1990s.

Y's grew up in the midst of a world struggling to comprehend the escalating terrorism and school violence dominating the headlines. Beginning with the Lockerbie air disaster, in which Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb, that occurred before Y's were teens (in 1988), through the bombings at the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, and the Atlanta Olympics during the 1990s; the bombings of the Madrid and London subways in 2004 and 2005, respectively; and, of course, the events of September 11, 2001, this generation has been engulfed in a world colored by inexplicable and unpredictable events. And the violent incidents in schools during Y's own school years—Columbine and Virginia Tech in the United States, Beslan in Russia, and, sadly, many more—had an even more significant impact, being aimed straight at their age cohort.

Terrorism differs from war in one important way. Everyone who goes to war recognizes at some level that bad things could happen. No one goes to school expecting that bad things could happen. Acts of terrorism are fundamentally random. Growing up when they did has left Y's with a conceptual model that is heavily based on unpredictability (have you noticed how frequently the word random peppers their speech?). For many, living life to the fullest—now—has become an important and understandable priority. A sense of impatience—I prefer the word immediacy— will be the single most salient characteristic defining this generation throughout their lives and not something they will "outgrow."

In contrast to the external world, and perhaps in part because of it, Y's have been blessed with an almost cocoon level of parental attention—immersed in a very pro-child culture—in contrast with the latchkey childhood of many X'ers. This is a generation that grew up eating off red plates with "You Are Special Today" on the rim; one that was continually reminded that they could do anything they set their minds to. Movies in which kids were horrible or scary began to fail at the box office during their youth, replaced by Three Men and a Baby and Parenthood. Boomers soaked up the humanistic theories of childhood psychology and became increasingly involved in their children's lives.

Today, Y's and their parents share many common interests, from movies and music to recreational activities and charitable concerns. The result is a generation of young adults who like and trust not only their parents, but most of the older adults in their lives. "Their connection to their parents is deep and strong," says Middlebury College psychology professor Barbara Hofer. "They say, 'My parents are my best friends.' People would have seen that as aberrant a generation ago, as pathological."

Their behavior in the workplace can strike many of you as inappropriate. Fearless and blunt, they offer their opinions freely, without regard for corporate hierarchy and with no sense of what would be considered "proper" business protocol, and seem to expect everyone to be interested in their point of view. The strong bonds they've formed with their families are easy to misinterpret as dependence and can seem very odd to many of you who made your decisions independently or based on advice from friends.

"Yes, there's a revolution under way among today's kids—a good news revolution," demographers Neil Howe and William Strauss would write in 2000 in Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, barely containing their glee…These are not my italics, by the way. They're in the book.

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