Cross-posted to The Green Suits:

Aided by my wonderful but eye-straining Kindle for Android app I read Millennial Momentum, Morley Winograd’s and Mike Hais’ great new book about the U.S.’s Millennial Generation.

The Millennials (otherwise known as the “Gen Y” cohort) are Americans born between 1982 and 2001. Milllennials stand in stark contrast to the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers that preceded them; they are highly collaborative, technologically and social-media savvy, and wildly enthusiastic. The term cynic rarely applies to this, the largest demographic cohort in the U.S.

Perhaps of greatest importance, Millennials are the starring cast-members of the New Green Economy. They care deeply about resource sustainability and social responsibility. And they volunteer their time to important social and environmental causes. As business executives, many will become The Green Suits.

Upon finishing Millennial Momentum, I enthusiastically posted this review to Amazon.com:

 

MORLEY WINOGRAD and MIKE HAIS have followed up Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American P... with a truly great book; Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America brilliantly demonstrates how the huge civic Millennial Generation is remaking and–in many ways improving–every aspect of society.

Most important to this writer, Millennials are reinventing work and career in ways few of us [Boomers or Gen Xers] could have imagined; despite the current high rate of U.S. unemployment, Millennials are passionately pursuing work and career opportunities with companies and organizations that share their civic-minded values. And the eco-entrepreneurs in their ranks are hard at work inventing and bringing to market renewable energy, green tech, and resource sustainability technology–the foundation of a strong and scalable New Green Economy.

Millennials are enthusiastically crafting careers to make the world a cleaner, fairer, and more sustainable place.

In the near term it won’t be easy for Millennials to win the warm embraces of Corporate America. Most Boomers and Gen Xers in corporate or C-level executive roles–CEOs, CFOs, COOs, etc.–have not come to fully appreciate this huge cohort of young, talented collaborators. Some cynically portray Millennials as coddled, entitled, and lacking the kind of self-starting drive and ambition necessary to grow the corporate bottom-line.

But, C-level cynics would be well advised to adapt to Millennial motivation or be left in the dust. For sure, we will see once preeminent companies lose their luster because they fail to embrace Millennial innovation and triple bottom-line thinking–to grow profits, but also empower people and save the planet.

That is why this writer believes Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America should be required reading in Corporate America. And every hiring manager–from Chief Corporate Talent Officers in Fortune 500 companies to the founders of bootstrapped start-up enterprises–should pick up or download a copy, right away.

DAN SMOLEN
Author, Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Care...

The Millennials face steep challenges ahead. For sure, they have yet to make their impact felt in Corporate America. And it won’t be easy, given that the C-Suite is populated by often cynical, idealistic Boomers and Gen X executives. Further, they will inherit–and likely have to fix–all the world’s structural problems such as debt crises that their Boomer and Gen X parents left them. And they will have to reinvent politics, public policy, and government to render them transparent and trustworthy.

However, if Millennials are anything like the civic generation members that preceded them–the G.I. or “Greatest Generation” that fought World War II–then our future will be very bright, indeed.

Please pick up a copy or download Millennial Momentum. And while you are at it, please pick up or download a copy of Tailoring the Green Suit: Empowering Yourself for an Executive Career in the New Green Economy.