Checking in with the Millennial Generation

What is up with the Millennial Generation?

50 million Millennials span the ages of 18-30 (they were born after 1982). They are more tech-savvy than any other group and they voted for Barak Obama at a 2-to-1 ratio of other generations. 


They are self-confident but unlike baby-boomers, not morally superior. They may be better educated because of the stiff headwinds they faced during the Great Recession. Many Millennial youngsters are still in school.

Millennials diminished sense of economic opportunity remains focused almost entirely on the job market. About two-thirds of Millennials are employed but only slightly half of those are working full-time. Almost two-thirds of Millennials without a job are looking for work.

For those in the workplace these responses* were given about:

When recruiting Millennial generation:

·  93% of Millennials want a job that works with their lifestyle.

·  93% of Millennials want a job where they can be themselves.

·  88% of Millennials want their coworkers to be their friends.

·  89% of Millennials want their workplace to be social and fun.

·  79% of Millennials think they should be allowed to wear jeans to work at least sometimes.

·  81% of Millennials think they should be allowed to make their own hours at work.

·  92% of Millennials think their company is lucky to have them as an employee.

·  Half of Millennials would rather have no job than have a job they hate

When managing Millennial generation:

·  The three most critical aspects of their work are work/life balance, loving what they do, and having good benefits. Having a good salary and vacation time are important, but not their key drivers.

·  76% of Millennials think their boss could learn a lot from them.

·  8 out of 10 Millennials want regular feedback from their boss.

·  8 out of 10 Millennials think they deserve to be recognized more for their work.

·  Over half of Millennials want feedback at least once a week or more.

·  Three-fourths of Millennials want to work for themselves one day.

·  Three-fourths of Millennials would like to have a mentor.

·  61% of Millennials say they need specific directions from their boss to do their best work.
(research released by Nick Shore, Sr. Vice president, strategic insights and research at MTV network)

How to appreciate a Millennial:

Leaders, listen up. Instead of giving your team members the usual kudos for their good work, try something more personal and meaningful:  walk them into their office, close the door, and tell them how important their contribution is to the organization. Hand-written notes are back. Get out your pen and start writing!

How this new trend in the workforce is a back to basics, humane approach:

The results seem to show a smoothing out of the workforce into a comfortable environment and a perpetual feedback loop. Dress can be casual, and management hierarchy is flatter. Despite the grim economic environment Millennials are still confident about their future and actually want to be treated as individuals, not cogs in a machine. They have the self-respect to be bold enough to ask for humane treatment; Millennials are realistic about their situation and their future.

These are often 30-something emerging managers who will be the talent and bedrock of many corporate teams. Will they care about ethics and reasonableness enough to not lie, cheat, and steal from shareholders and the stock markets? Are they cocky and petulant, or principled and wise? Only time will tell.

Millennial employees want to be treated as we always should have treated co-workers, with respect, with the desire to have their input and foster their creativity. They will inevitably bring to our workplaces a more progressive and civil authority now, and as they grow into the next generation of leaders. They have seen the turn of a millennium (thus the generation's name), 9/11 attacks, the worst economic downturn in decades, and a long overseas war for which many volunteered.

This is a force to be reckoned with. The other generations should pay attention. ##


(*information based on a survey of Millennials by MTV, otherwise, opinions are solely my own)

There Goes my Hero: Code Yellow (Part II)

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There Goes my Hero: Code Yellow (Part II)

“Are you ready for the dance tonight, dude?” Lieutenant Harrington casually asked me as we climbed up on the Rhino, outside of the hearing of enlisted men, or “blackshoes” who checked all the tags and ordinance hanging off of the Hornet they prepared to catapult off into the ink-blue night.

As we both settled into the routine of pre-flight checks in the cockpit of the highly complex, computer driven F/A-18 Hornet aircraft, it stretched comprehension to think that this flying machine descended from the heavier than air model that the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk in 1903.

In just a little over a century, aviation went from analog to digital; the awareness of this complexity lost on the aviators, but not in history. The Hornet was so complicated, the pilots did not know what they did-not-know about this evolution from clothe and pulleys on the dunes of North Carolina to gigahertz and nanoseconds cruising on the Persian Gulf. Could aviation’s complexity eventually take human beings out of the cockpit? That question was not on the agenda tonight.

Idling on the deck of the USS John C. Stennis, they both knew in the far reaches of their “leadership grey-matter,” that possibly they could be one of the last crews back on the carrier. The chaperone waits by the door until everyone makes it home safely from the party. That is just the gentlemanly thing to do.

“Hope the Texaco jocks are warmed up and sharp tonight,” I said partly to myself. If this was a long ordeal, many of the jets would probably re-fuel while in the heavens.

The Lt. replied, “This could turn into a Turkey shoot before that,” the landing process, although a dangerous part of the evening, was more of the business side of this mission; Lt. Harrington’s fangs were out, clearly focused on engaging bandits before the serious landing maneuvers started.

“Can’t you see the guys in the con-tower placing their side-bets on Bubba Bolter,” the slang name for the pilot who makes multiple attempts at the tail-hook. My bombardier-navigator focuses also sharp, still picturing the SNAFU routine of the pitching deck at landing time.

Carrier landings are actually controlled crashes. The fighter jet rams into a lurching runway, hoping the large titanium hook jutting out of his tail slaps across the thick steel cord tightly wired across the deck, known as the crossdeck pendant.

Once the plane hits the ship’s surface, hopefully lined up straight down the runway; the pilot throws the throttles forward full. This full speed tactic instantly allows a hookless Hornet the opportunity to get back off the carrier and try again; otherwise jets skid off the runway and into the ocean in front of the ship, adding insult to injury.

Blue-water ops in the dark, an opportunity to excel as Lt. Harrington liked to remind us. “You look like a lost nugget tonight, J.O.?” “What’s wrong?” “I’ll take you out partying tonight, little brother, promise.”

“It’s gonna be a long night, Lieutenant,” trying not to complain. “At least we don’t have to plow through the Goo,” meaning bad weather that makes it impossible to see.

“We’re in the Navy to have fun, remember?” I was looking at the back of his helmet by now; we were conversing on the intercom. “Don’t forget the Code:Yellow gouge we got in the readyroom?”

“Copy, Rocket One.” I was done with small talk and wanted to light the two fires on the Hornet’s tail and get up in the sky, where even though I was not flying the aircraft, I had the best seat in the house.

©Mark H. Pillsbury

(aviator fiction series #2)

Dave's blu Gibson in case you watched the YouTube video "My Hero" on Letterman

Love After Love, by Derek Walcott

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life. 

Derek Walcott

Code Yellow

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Code: Yellow

The evening hours passed quietly aboard the USS John C. Stennis, sort of like a middle-school slumber party, but not really. Instead of nail-polish and text-messages, men wrote hand-written letters on thick-cotton stationery and studied the Naval intelligence maps of Iranian air bases and nuclear facilities. The young pilots were part of a powerful, strike-force flotilla cruising the claustrophobic waters of the Strait of Hormuz, on the southern coast of Iran, the world’s busiest oil-shipping lane. The boys of the Persian Gulf: fighter jocks taking it easy in a rec room on a lazy Friday night in April.

Squadron commander, Lieutenant Harrington was almost oversized for the cockpit. The big Texan carried himself casually, even sauntering when there was room above deck. His sad eyes and perfectly cropped Naval hair gleamed against the perpetually tan face and neck of a professional pilot. His correspondence home always on bone-colored, embossed Crane stationery, a habit leftover from his traditional southern mother in Dallas. The lieutenant’s natural leadership centered upon a social intelligence based on close relationships not only with his WSOs but all the flying teams in his unit. He treated every pilot like his brother; frequently he could be found holed-up next to a colleague discussing business in the close quarters of a aircraft carrier, but with the tenderness and quiet of a counselor. Knowing every teammate intimately, including talents and weaknesses in flying ability and personality allowed him the kind of access and respect few commanders garnered in today’s Navy.

I am merely a NFO, Lt. Junior Grade. The NFO is the back-seat partner to the pilot, formerly known as the Naval Flight Officer. The modern Navy NFO position has naturally become more complicated. Back seat of a fully equipped and upgraded F-18 Super Hornet, the NFO is now called the WSO (“weapons system operator”) because of the stunning array of assault options it carries. More than a navigator, I am the lieutenant’s little brother who brings all the booze to the party. He gets me to the target and I equip him with more firepower than the most of the small armies of the world combined. As we internalize through years of training, nothing I do is unimportant or routine. Without a talented WSO, the pilot is a gifted aviator flying on gilded wings, but with no talons. Weapons after all, are what we do. The Hornet has half a dozen Raytheon® missile systems which allow precision strike capability in enough configurations to make your mind numb. Each plane is an air-to-ground and air-to-air aggressor; like a flying army of guns and bombs.

A calm Friday evening of “watch-duty” with quiet activity, soft music, and standard recreation in the briefing room, turned in just ten minutes into a beehive of preparation, determination, and steely readiness for battle? The simple phrases of a love-letter and a song transform into the rote instructions of a wing commander quickly organizing his squadron for deadly serious work.

The squadron commander made an unusual decision during what were called publicly “training exercises,” a move they called, “All-in.” Every fighter jet on the carrier would be up and active tonight, prowling the skies. At least once during a long cruise, protocol required that this exercise take place because someday during a real shootout, the battle group might just have to use all assets to win. This was the most dangerous night of their deployment, but it was also the most realistic.

All assets on the ship were scrambled; every crew activated and every pilot manned a stick. The launch process was grueling and dangerous in any scenario, but a night launch was always a little more stressful. Tonight’s “All-in” gambit assured the ship that until all the planes were safely back on deck, every crew member would sweat out the once placid evening. The lieutenant was no Jimmy Doolittle, but this was a major-league decision given the circumstances in the Persian Gulf, even the fuel tankers would circle the landing pattern until all fighter jets returned. Tankers too would have to “call the ball” of the landing system used on the USS John C. Stennis.

The squadron’s enemies were not so much Iran’s aging fleet of F-14 Tomcats based out of Isfahan, but the lack of fuel and light which hampered the performance of these aviators more than the paltry resistance of the Iranian military. Most naval aviators learned the carrier game on high-end Tomcats, or their instructors taught them about Tomcats early in their career. Not like the movie Top Gun anymore; an improved Super-Hornet skins a Tomcat every time, but a cloudy approach was the wickedest fight of all.

With a diplomatic meeting during the coming weekend in Istanbul, the United States and Iran are supposedly going to peacefully negotiate over Iran’s fledgling nuclear program; however, at the same time U.S. Naval presence in the Gulf reinforces the physical strength our diplomats wish to portray while they talk. Unfortunately, such “ancillary” transactional communications usually don’t create much traction, because they are impersonal and shallow; they may not drive someone away, but they don’t draw the other party closer either.

Military personnel worry about Iran’s capability to wage “asymmetrical warfare” by mining the narrow passageway called the Strait of Hormuz or by swarming U.S. vessels with small boats armed with a single missile. This type of guerrilla fighting accentuates the standard threats of Iran’s three Kilo-class submarines, or the mini-subs they bought from North Korea. Iran can launch short-range and long-range missiles, both from the ground, and from an aging fleet of aircraft. The only thing certain in the Persian Gulf is that the Iranian military threat is unusual and unpredictable.

“Saddle-up, Mark,” the commander squawked as he grabbed his parachute pack and Velcroed® his flight log book to his thigh. Tonight, I was Lt. Harrington’s WSO, which meant I was the lucky sap who would play night watchman for the entire staff during this squirmy “All-in” game that the Lt. had just called out.

“Everyone up tonight, boys,” he said gleefully as he strode up to the front of the briefing room, the back entrance of the conference area already crowded with the entire squadron. “C’mon, let’s get quiet,” he added, “I want the last plane up by twenty-two hundred, so listen up, I only have five minutes to talk to you guys.” 

Lt. Harrington smiled out with wattage that outstripped the dull fluorescent bulbs in the meeting room, beaming with the dangerous look of "we are all in on this one together!"

“I realize this is just an exercise, you guys know that we have to do one ‘all-in’ per cruise; but tonight a little birdie told me that the big bad Eye-Rainian air-force may be up there ‘practicing’ as well.”

You guys ready fo dat? He held in his hand a small, letter-sized Manila file folder with a bright yellow tab clearly visible even from the back of the room. They all knew what Code Yellow meant.

Fiction ©Mark H. Pillsbury

Fear

Our Constant Companion

Jesus repeatedly told his disciples and other people not to be afraid, yet humans deal with fear so often everyday that fear is almost our closest companion. As natural as breathing, apprehension can be a protective mechanism or a friendly motivator; but like food, too much makes us bulky and slow.

Like darkness invading nighttime, fear creeps into the day, ultimately blinding us from the reality of time. At the heart of each dawn is the possibility of a new day; however fear saps our joy and paralyzes our creativity. Can we be comfortable with distress like we are in our own skin, or will fear eat away at the soul, gradually corroding the mind from the inside out?

Constant Questions

We are constantly asking ourselves:

How do I look?

Do they like me?

Is she telling me the truth?

Am I late?

Did I forget about something?

Did I study enough?

Did I save enough?

How will I know what to do?

What’s going to happen to us?

Fear is even more basic than that; fear is connected to mortality, and the core question of our existence. We are afraid of other men, what will they think of us? We are afraid to die. We wonder after a certain age how much longer we have?

At the same time, fear gives us wisdom, discernment, perseverance, even intuition; in many ways it is our protective older brother but fear also takes charge and causes even the most rational to second guess.

Coping with Fear

Coping with fear is one of life’s greatest challenges. We sojourn to so many places in search for the miracle antidote. Fear is a toxic poison with deadly side-effects; it squeezes stress out of uncertainty instead of faith. Interpreting what John O’Donohue said, “stress is a perverted relationship to time,” I would add that stress is a perverted relationship to fear. Time and fear have overcome our daily routines, so that rather than being a subject of your own time, we become fear’s target and victim, lacking the control to stand up to these twin villains.

“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God… for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power, love, and self-control.”
2 Timothy 1:6-7

Our Response by God's Grace

Instead of dismay, may I tremble at the Lord’s power to control the universe and his good intentions with my life and family? Rather than being overcome with anxiety, may I run to the biblical comfort of the Word made flesh, and rest in the admonitions of Jesus Christ? Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but it is only the starting point. As we fall in love with the supremacy of God and the sovereignty of God, our peace grows to the point of resting in God and fearing no more the changes in our lives.

Without faith there is no meaning to life and no reason to conduct ourselves with courage in the face of fear. If death is merely a threshold onto another platform, and our hope is in a better place as we are promised in Christ, then we can dig deep into our well of faith and believe enough to push out the fear. This is done through the power of the spirit, with love and self-control.

©Mark H. Pillsbury