A few months after this clip was recorded, a longer talk by Simon Sinek on “millennials in the workplace” went viral around the world. This 2016 London Real clip is one of the earliest versions of that argument, and in it Sinek lays out, piece by piece, why he thinks a generation is struggling, and why he doesn’t blame them.
It’s seven minutes long, delivered at speed, and it ends with a direct challenge to CEOs.
▶ Watch the full episode: Simon Sinek – Start With Why
Filters and a failure to ask for help
Sinek starts with what he calls a ticking time bomb: a generation with addictive habits and without the skills to ask for help. Young people are very good at putting filters on their lives online, he says. When a young person takes their own life, you can look at their Instagram and see no sign of depression. That’s why, he argues, telling people “my door is always open” isn’t enough. It assumes they have the courage to come in.
A parenting strategy that backfired
He then describes what he sees as a failed parenting strategy, though he stresses it doesn’t apply to everyone. Too many children were told they were special and could have anything they wanted. They got medals for coming last, which he says devalues the medal for the winner and embarrasses the child who knows they didn’t earn it.
Then they get a job and discover, in an instant, that none of that applies at work. The result, in his view, is a generation with lower self-confidence than previous ones.
Phones and instant gratification
Add social media, and you have young people checking their likes and followers for reassurance, he says. Being unfriended feels like trauma, and relationships often end with “ghosting” rather than a hard conversation.
On top of that is what he calls institutionalised impatience. Everything is instant: next-day delivery, instant messages, streaming, and dating with a swipe. So, Sinek says, these young people aren’t really entitled. “I think they’re impatient.”
The mountain
His favourite image is a mountain. He meets smart, driven, idealistic graduates who want to quit after eight months because they’re not “making an impact”. It’s as if they can see the summit, he says, but not the mountain itself. Job satisfaction and deep relationships are a slow, meandering journey, and “there’s no app for that.”
What parents and leaders should do
Sinek wants parents to intervene: no phones in the bedroom, at the dinner table or at school, and limited hours. Children’s minds, he says, aren’t ready to manage the dopamine.
But he puts even more weight on companies. Young employees are entering workplaces built on 1980s and 1990s thinking that put numbers before people. He cites research on mice and multitasking to warn about the long-term costs. And to executives who say business is a war and they don’t have time for leadership, he says bluntly: you’re not at war, and you do have time.
What to take from it
Sinek’s message isn’t to blame young people. It’s that the environment shaped them, and leaders, at home and at work, are responsible for changing it.
If you’re struggling, please talk to someone you trust or contact a local support service. In the UK, Samaritans are available any time on 116 123.
Who is Simon Sinek?
Simon Sinek is a British-American author and speaker, best known for Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last. His TED talk on how great leaders inspire action is one of the most-watched TED talks ever. A trained ethnographer, he works with organisations on leadership and culture.
In his full London Real episode, recorded in 2016, he talks with Brian Rose about finding your why, trust and leadership. You can also watch another clip from the same interview: Simon Sinek – Why Donald Trump Is A Reflection Of Us.
See everything Simon Sinek has done with London Real on his guest page: Simon Sinek on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Simon Sinek – Self-Esteem, Instant Gratification And The Addicted Generation
0:00 Simon Sinek: So you’re dealing with an addicted generation. This is a big time bomb ticking, and it will get really worse. Combine that with the fact that you have an addicted generation that doesn’t have the skill set to ask for help. Combined with the fact that they’re so good at Facebook and Instagram. They’re good at putting filters on everything, so good at showing you how smart and strong they are. These kids who commit suicide: you go and look at their Instagrams, and you would have no clue they were depressed. They’re happy, they’re star athletes. You have no clue, because they’re really good at it.
0:29 Simon Sinek: So we say silly things like, “My door is always open.” You’re assuming they have the courage to come in. Combined with the fact that too many of them, not all, were subject to a failed parenting strategy. Their parents told them they were special, they could have anything they wanted, they could be anything they want. They got medals for coming in last, which, by the way, we know doesn’t work. It devalues the medal for the one who comes first, and the one who came last feels stupid, because they know they didn’t deserve it.
0:59 Simon Sinek: Some kids got into honours classes not because they deserved it but because the parents complained. Some got good grades not because they earned them, but because the teachers didn’t want to deal with the parents. And then the kids graduate college and get a job, and in an instant they find out they’re not special. They don’t get anything for coming in last, the parents can’t get them a promotion, and you can’t have whatever you want just because you want it. In an instant their entire self-image is shattered. So you have an entire generation growing up with lower self-confidence than previous generations.
1:33 Simon Sinek: Lower self-confidence, combined with an inability to ask for help with the things they’re struggling with. And you turn to social media or the device. You keep checking, you count your likes, you count your followers, and if somebody unfriends you, oh my god, it’s trauma. The way they break up with each other is they just ghost each other, stop returning texts and calls, because they don’t have the skill set to say, “Hey, it’s not working out.” There’s no closure.
1:57 Simon Sinek: Combined with the fact that there’s an institutionalised impatience. They’ve grown up in a world of instant gratification. You want to buy something? You go on Amazon and it shows up the next day. You want to get in touch with someone? You don’t leave a message and wait four hours; you text them and they get back to you immediately. You want to watch a movie? You just log on and watch it. Everything happens instantly. You want a date? Swipe right. You don’t even have to muster the courage to go up and say hi.
2:35 Simon Sinek: So the problem is they’re accused of being entitled. I don’t think they’re entitled at all. I think they’re impatient. I keep meeting these fantastic, smart, driven, ambitious, idealistic kids who graduated from school and got a job, who want to make an impact in the world, and I ask them, “How’s it going?” and they say, “I think I’m going to quit.” “Why?” “I’m not making an impact.” I’m like, you’ve been here eight months.
3:02 Simon Sinek: It’s as if they’re standing at the foot of a mountain and they can see the summit, the thing they want, the impact they want to make, but they don’t see the mountain. It’s a large, immovable object. You can go fast, you can go slow, I don’t care, but there’s still a mountain. What they don’t understand is that life, relationships and career fulfilment are a journey. There’s no app for that. You’ve got to go through the slow, plodding, annoying, meandering process called career and life. If they don’t get it in eight months, they go somewhere else. So it’s impatience, and because they don’t have the skill set to ask for help and because they feel lonely, it compounds.
3:53 Simon Sinek: And then we dump them in office environments built on theories from the 80s and 90s, which prioritise a number before a person, where no one really cares about their confidence or their personal growth. They’re just numbers on a spreadsheet, and they enter work cultures that don’t help them. The problem is they’re entering the workforce at a deficit. Kids tell me they struggle to form deep, meaningful relationships, and the companies don’t care. It’s destructive to them as individuals, and ultimately it will hurt the companies, because more and more millennials are entering the workforce.
4:35 Simon Sinek: So, to your point about solutions: the responsibility on companies is greater than it’s ever been to take care of their people. If the environments where we ask our youngest workers to work aren’t built to help them, I can’t even imagine what the suicide rates, the rates of depression and the accidental overdoses are going to look like in the future. It’s going to reach epidemic proportions. The statistics are already alarming, and yet nobody sounds the alarm bells.
5:03 Simon Sinek: Parents have to intervene. We have to stop giving our kids free access to social media and phones at young ages. They’re not ready. Their minds cannot cope with the dopamine. It’s fine, you can give a kid a phone, but they can’t use it in their bedroom, they can’t have it at the dinner table, they can’t take it to school, they can only have it up to a certain hour, and then you take it away. They’re children. You can take the phone away.
5:31 Simon Sinek: But as companies, we now have to deal with the influx of young people coming into our companies with addiction. I see it all the time. Walk through any office: the older employees have their phones to the side of their computers as they work, and the youngest employees have their phones face up in front of their keyboards, between their arms. This is how they work. And the science is alarming. They did experiments on mice, with flashing lights to mimic going from the computer to the cell phone to the TV. The mice exposed to the changing lights took three times longer to solve a maze than the mice that weren’t, and the damage was permanent. It didn’t improve when they stopped the lights.
6:27 Simon Sinek: So leadership now is even more important, and leaders are even more responsible. You are responsible for the lives of human beings, and some of these human beings are your children. So, OK, you bastard CEO who thinks all this stuff is craziness and you don’t have time to make these changes: I’ve actually heard executives tell me, “It’s a war out there, I don’t have time for this leadership stuff.” I know guys who go to war, and I’ll tell you, what you’re going through is not a war. You tinker with money. It’s not a war. You do have time for this. And if it’s really that way, what were you doing when it wasn’t a war?
