If you haven’t yet, check out leadership coach Simon Sinek interview “The Millennial Question” with Tom Bilyeu on his show, Inside Quest, in December 2016 — it is incredibly thought-provoking.
Sinek shared his theories and criticisms on Millennials and their careers, and much of what he said was incredibly profound and popular. However, some of what he said was reviled for being too general and misunderstanding of Millennials as narcissistic, dependent on instant gratification, self-interested, unfocused and angry.
Many people were offended by Sinek’s “The Millennial Question” and took no time to post their rebuttals on platforms like Quora. Watch the film below and then scroll down to discover what 3 Millennials really think about Sinek’s opinions of “Millennials In The Workplace”.
These opinions were originally published on Quora: What do Millennials think about Simon Sinek’s video about Millennials in the workplace?
Ava Mohsenin, I am a Millennial
His main thesis appears to be: Millennials are accused of being entitled and unsatisfied with the current state of the workplace, and Sinek attributes this finding to 4 things: parents, technology, impatience, and environment.
I would largely agree with Simon Sinek’s more broad points of the importance of balancing technology and life, building better greater social intelligence in our communities and humbly embracing the time it takes to achieve more significant goals — but in the name of practicing kindness and supporting everyone in our socioeconomic and ecological systems, the negativity of his assessment (though many select stats holding true) generalizes too many people with too many varying traits and values.
Ditte Cramer, I’m a Millennial working in tech
“Ultimately Sinek’s points are simple, homespun justifications for his own consultancy and lucrative speaking tours, telling bosses what they want to hear and helping older generations feel less guilty for having been willing participants in creating the structural conditions that are fucking over young people worldwide.”
Amanda Reish, Research Assistant at Melbourne Graduate School of Education
Some interesting and thought-provoking points, but I have to say that with regards to the impact of technology on young people, there were some claims that Sinek made in the interview that I felt were too extreme and a little over the top.
Having graduated with a psychology honours degree and currently working in research, I believe that addictions shouldn’t be confused with social media overuse. The two are not the same. Addictions are also not something that are “hard-wired” in the brain (Sinek may be thinking of neuroplasticity here), and social media use can have both positive and negative effects.
The claim that social media ‘addiction’ is destroying lives isn’t the full story. Sinek takes an overly pessimistic view which unfortunately neglects the subtleties of human-technology influences.