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Sergio Lopez-Peralta
ENGL 2010-040
Doug Christensen PhD
Essay #2 - Final
Creative Freedom
Our workforce is growing as more and more individuals reach
adulthood. The millennial generation has been the most recent hot
topic due to their growing numbers. Much of what is said about the
millennial generation defines them as entitled, unpolished, and
undisciplined individuals. Time magazine most recently labeled the
millennials as the Me Me Me generation, lazy entitled narcissist who
live with their parents. Though the discussion regarding the rising
generation is nothing new. This has been going on for some time and
we continue to see trend pieces written about the rising generation.
Much of what has been said is consistent with the label placed by the
Time Magazine. But this labeling has been ongoing for decades with
many different generations. The New York Times said The now
generation has become the ME generation about the baby boomer
generation in 1976. Time Magazine said They have trouble making
decisions they would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb the
corporate ladder. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is
as short as one zap of a TV dial. in 1990 about generation X.

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We continue to follow the same pattern of labeling the rising
generation without finding creative ways to engage them in the
workforce. Though the label of entitled and undisciplined may be true
it does little to account for what will motivate the rising generation,
millennials, towards job creation, success, and impact on the larger
workforce and economy. In order to achieve the level of engagement
that will in turn produce success for companies during this era we will
need to provide millennials with one thing never before implemented
in previous eras, creative freedom.
Millennials comprise individuals who were born between 19822003. Morley Winograd, a senior fellow at USC's Annenberg School
Center on Communications and Leadership Policy, and Michael Hais,
former VP for entertainment research at Frank N. Magid Associates
share the following insights into the growing Millennial Generation.
Millennials will comprise more than one in three of adult Americans by
the year 2020; Adult being defined as individuals over the age of
eighteen. Winograd and Magid also mention in their research that
Millennials will make up as much as 75% of the U.S. workforce by year
2025. At Discover Financial Services alone Millennials currently make
up almost 50% of our current workforce. The other three generations
(Traditionalist, Baby Boomers, and Generation Xs) make up the other
50%, with traditionalist now at only 0.2%. Millennials will and currently

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have the greatest impact on the success of this era of human history.
The time for labeling is over and the call to action is now.
Everyone knows that previous generations have had success in
achieving great feats through the wise application of knowledge gained
during that era of human history. The agricultural age saw the rise of
mass production of food due to the growing ability of individuals to
cultivate acres of land to produce food in quicker and more effective
ways. The industrial age saw the rise of assembly lines and the
massive increase in consumer goods and production. We live in what
has been called the knowledge worker age, an era filled with massive
amounts of information, knowledge, and technology. We face a time in
human history where our challenge will not be to find new and
innovative ways to produce food, or even the development of new
methods for the production of goods. Our challenge will be in engaging
the rising generation in the workforce, Millennials, in producing what is
necessary for success in a competitive age. We need to stop wasting
time and do away with what has been traditionally used to run
businesses.
Keevin O'Rourke in a TEDx speech titled How to Make Millennials
Want to Work for You identifies two areas of friction currently faced by
individuals trying to engage and retain the Millennial generation in the
workforce; Micromanaging VS Autonomy and Money VS Meaning. In
discussing the first area of friction, Micromanaging VS Autonomy,

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ORourke makes it clear that this is not to say that Millennials want to
be left completely isolated from others. Millennials thrive and actually
prefer team environments. What is craved by the millennial generation
is autonomy in the workplace in four different areas.
1.
2.
3.
4.

What they do
When they do it
How they do it
Whom they do it with

We would be lucky to find an employer to satisfy even one of these

options, let alone all four of them.
When discussing Money VS Meaning ORourke makes it clear that
millennials want work they are passionate about. Money does little to
motivate this generation as much as the meaning behind the work
they are doing. While yes the money behind a days work is important;
at the end of the day Millennials continue to crave creative freedom,
work they can be passionate about that satisfies their craving for
autonomy. Peter Drucker, one of the greatest management thinkers of
our time said this:
When the history of our time is written, the most important
event those historians will remember is not technology, not the
Internet but the unprecedented change in the human
condition. For the first time, substantial and rapidly growing
numbers of people have choices and we are totally unprepared
for it

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Drucker was right; we are totally unprepared for the opportunities we
currently face. In the financial world alone we have label individuals as
expenses and things like computers as assets. We have created a
system that allows us to manage things; the only issue is that
things do not have the power to choose. We lead people, and they
have the power to make choices.
If companies want to find success in this era they will need to act
now in order to retain talented individuals. Recognized as one of Time
Magazines 25 most influential Americans, Stephen R. Covey did much
research during his time regarding leadership and organizational
achievement. In a lecture on leadership he said this: We stand at the
forefront of one of the most exciting and promising of all of the ages in
human history. There is a grand opportunity to do something more
than what has been seen in the past. I may not have all of the
information as to how we are going to satisfy the craving for creative
freedom; but I do know this, the time for labeling is over and the call to
action is now. We face an era in human history with so much promise
and the impacts to the workforce and economy are great to say the
least.

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Works Cited:
Crab, Jennifer. "Leading Across Generations." Message to the author. 16 Feb.
2016. E-mail. 2016 HR statistics for all 4 Generations
FranklinCovey. "7 Habits Leadership Modular Series." 4 Imperatives of Great
Leaders.
Discover Financial Services Building, West Valley City. Jan. 2015. Lecture.
http://www.franklincovey.com/leadership/modular_series.php
O'Rourke, Keevin. "How to Make Millennials Want to Work for You | Keevin
O'Rourke | TEDxUNI." YouTube. YouTube, 11 May 2015. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhOqki06IGo>.
Winograd, Morley, and Michael Hais. "How Millennials Could Upend Wall
Street and Corporate America." The Initiative on 21st Century Capitalism
(2014): n. pag. Bookings. 28 May 2014. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/millenials-upend-wallstreet-corporate-america-winograd-hais