Recently, I came across an article on LinkedIn written by Mr Lionel Crottaz, one of the senior members of staff at Adecco Singapore, which was where I interned at for 12 weeks in 2016.
The article was also published on the Adecco Singapore website, so readers who don't have LinkedIn accounts can view it too: A pledge against GENeralisation XYZ.
Being a Director at the company, Mr Crottaz isn't exactly young, and I remember him possessing a sparse nest of grey hair. So I was pleasantly surprised by the contents of his article.
In short, he took a stand against the trend of lumping people together based on their year of birth. We've all heard it before, and some of us may even have done it ourselves. For example, millennials are commonly defined as those who are currently in early adulthood, and have a negative reputation for being "strawberries", meaning that they are mentally and physically fragile and don't take hardships very well.
Mr Crottaz pointed out that in making all these assumptions about people using their age as a yardstick, we run the risk of losing sight of "individual uniqueness". Every single person is different from every single other person. An extreme example given in Mr Crottaz's article compared a farmer in India with an IT professional in America. Both may be in the same generation, but how similar are they really? One "may walk 3 hours to get water and food every day" while the other "deliberat(es) between a Cappuccino and a Latte at Starbucks at Times Square NY". Assuming that they are both millennials by chronology, is the Indian farmer just as "strawberry-ish" as the American may be? Ludicrous.
Of course, not all cases are as cut-and-dried as this, but the point is that like every other stereotype, categorising people by the loosely developed concept of "generation" and then assigning characteristics to them using vague observations is inherently unfair. We are not okay with people who claim that all Muslims are terrorists. In the same vein, it's unacceptable to say that everyone between the ages of 15 and 35 years or whatever is a strawberry.
I found the article by Mr Crottaz very refreshing as the "strawberry
myth" seems to be a particular favourite among people in his age group.
This is common sense because millennials obviously aren't the ones
criticising themselves! I liked the fact that Mr Crottaz chose to stand
up for this cause instead of going along with the rest of the baby
boomers in staring down their long noses at everyone else.
The trouble with stereotypes is that they reinforce themselves through confirmatory biases and self-fulfilling prophecies, making them very difficult to stamp out.
Confirmatory biases: This is the tendency to regard everything that fits in with your beliefs as evidence for their veracity while disregarding conflicting observations. In the current context, someone who believes that millennials are strawberries takes notice every time a millennial demonstrates strawberry-like behaviour. For instance, if a news story shows a millennial complaining about stiff competition in the job market or the rising cost of living or being treated badly at work, the person will scoff and make a remark about how "spoilt and self-entitled these young ones are nowadays! Back in my day..." But reports of millennials overcoming challenges or acting stoically are ignored or dismissed out of hand. Fake news, anyone?
Self-fulfilling prophecies: In this phenomenon, the person holding the belief plays a more active role, interacting with the other party in a way which elicits a response which fits in with the belief. That was confusing, but an example should clear it up. Let's go back to the person who thinks all millennials are strawberries. One day, he meets a millennial face-to-face. Already he has preconceived notions of the hapless millennial. Perhaps he may even feel contempt toward the other person, before words have had the chance to be exchanged. Naturally, he will be more negative in his language and tone, and this would obviously put the millennial on the back foot. Under more pressure now, the millennial may exhibit signs of anxiety. This is quickly picked up by the belief-holder, who triumphantly sees the millennial's discomfort as a sign in support of his "theory".
Can you imagine the harm that could result? In a job interview, a recruiter who subscribes to the generation generalisation could influence the performance of candidates through the self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a double-edged sword too: a young recruiter with a dim view of baby boomers has the potential to do as much damage as an older recruiter who looks down on millennials.
It can be argued that when it comes to stereotypes, "there is no smoke without fire". I don't deny the fact that there exist certain cohort effects. For example, it is indisputable that millennials grew up in a relatively stable and prosperous environment as compared to baby boomers. This may, and I stress the word "may", result in millennials being less functional during adversity as they are not used to handling such situations. But it's unreasonable to brand them as strawberries and weaklings because of it. Most are able to cope with the vagaries of ordinary life just fine.
The people who make up the age group called millennials are not at fault here. Indeed, nobody is to blame. It just so happened that these people were lucky enough to be born at the time they were. Insulting millennials as being weak, incompetent, lazy, arrogant, or what-have-you, can easily lead to a slippery slope, and before you know it, millennials are suddenly the cause of the extinction of the human race!
To be fair, millennials are mean toward the older generation too. Oftentimes the young poke fun at the perceived ineptitude of the old in dealing with technology. I'll admit that I've indulged in it with my parents as the target. But this too should ideally be avoided before it becomes malicious. Too many older job applicants have been passed up in favour of younger candidates due to inaccurate assumptions arising out of ageist attitudes. It has to stop.
In summary, the "generation generalisation" is potentially quite harmful, and adds little value to our understanding of one another. As Mr Crottaz said, rather than shoehorning people into predetermined "buckets" and drawing spurious conclusions, we should focus on getting to know each individual as exactly that: an individual, with his or her own unique set of attributes, goals, dreams, aspirations, values, wants, needs, strengths, weaknesses, skills... Only then will we truly be able to develop mutual understanding, and achieve harmonious and fruitful relationships for everyone involved.
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