What do you think?
Rate this book
The Millennial Mindset: Unraveling Fact from Fiction
We’ve all heard that Millennials are smarter than everyone else, unique in every way possible, that they have probably been millionaires since age seven, and that they are poised to take over the world. We’ve also heard that they are lazy, unmotivated, entitled, and condescending know-it-alls. How can this generation have such opposing characteristics? What is the truth about this generation?
The Millennial Mindset offers parents, educators, managers, and co-workers insights and suggestions on how to engage, prepare, and foster the Millennial generation in all aspects of life. Through interviews with millennials and those who work with or otherwise engage them, Regina Luttrell and Karen McGrath offer ways for Millennials to better understand older generations and their peers so they can coexist without animosity in today’s fast-paced globalized world. They also offer insight into Millennial characteristics, passions, and goals for those who work with, live with, or otherwise co-exist with Millennials. Readers will gain a better sense of what this generation has in store for the world, and how the world can best respond.
The Millennial Mindset offers parents, educators, managers, and co-workers insights and suggestions on how to engage, prepare, and foster the Millennial generation in all aspects of life. Through interviews with millennials and those who work with or otherwise engage them, Regina Luttrell and Karen McGrath offer ways for Millennials to better understand older generations and their peers so they can coexist without animosity in today’s fast-paced globalized world. They also offer insight into Millennial characteristics, passions, and goals for those who work with, live with, or otherwise co-exist with Millennials. Readers will gain a better sense of what this generation has in store for the world, and how the world can best respond.
226 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2016
22 people want to read
About the author
Regina Luttrell
21 books4 followersBefore becoming an educator, Regina (Gina) Luttrell spent the first half of her career in public relations and marketing. Her extensive background includes strategic development and implementation of public relations and social media, advertising, marketing and corporate communications. She has led multiple re-branding campaigns, designed numerous web sites, managed high-level crisis situations, and garnered media coverage that included hits with the New York Times, the CBS Evening News, and the Associated Press. Today she is an Assistant Professor in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University where she researches, publishes and speaks about public relations, social media, and the millennial generation both in the classroom and the workforce. Visit www.ginaluttrellphd.com to learn more.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 24, 2017
This book seeks to dispel myths and establish facts regarding the common traits of the much-maligned and supposedly little-understood Millennial generation. For those who've read much on the topic or reflected on it at length, there is little of surprise here: Millennials are characterized as entitled (largely as a result of upbringing), largely hardworking and highly motivated, committed to ideals of social justice and change, and inextricably (even symbiotically) enmeshed with technology and its many social iterations.
The nuances are more surprising. For instance, the authors (both academics) show that while on the surface Millennials appear to highly value collaboration, they actually prefer to work individually and therefore to be rewarded and recognized as individuals. In The Millennial Mindset this is discussed in terms of the difference between working in a team vs. on a team, where working in a team means essentially being a cog in a complex machine, while working on a team means being part of a larger group with a common goal yet still having an individual and independent function.
Another surprising point is that, while Millennials largely favor tech and social media integrated into a classroom learning situation, they aren't as optimistic about or excited by exclusively online learning—they still highly value face-to-face interactions.
Sometimes the authors make too much of too little, however. It's difficult if not impossible to impose common traits on an entire generation, which the authors acknowledge—what they don't acknowledge is that many of their findings seem contradictory not because Millennials are uniquely conflicted, but because there are different types of Millennials from different demographics and backgrounds. As a result, many of the traits and nuances identified here are probably attributable to factors the authors didn't take into account. For instance, Luttrell and McGrath attempt to demonstrate that Millennials are actually careful with money; but isn't this a far more environment-, nurture-, and individual-based detail than a generational one? Aren't there plenty of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers who are bad with money? And Gen-Xers? And Millennials? Etc.
Perhaps the authors are only revealing their investigational bias. The Millennials they briefly profile near the end of the book are all upwardly mobile young professionals, sure to skew results in favor of more positive qualities. Did they interview Millennials who work at McDonald's? Or who play video games and watch porn all day and all night in their parents's basements? If not, this book will likely need a significant revision.
Throughout, fact/fiction statements about Millennials are looked at in detail—all these statements are shown to have elements of fact and fiction, and then are related to everyday life, work, and education and how older generations in these areas are most likely to achieve success in dealing and interacting with Millennials. A lot of this analysis was helpful, and this is where the chief value of the book lies. If you work with or employ Millennials and aren't one yourself, you could benefit from just reading the work-related sections. An interesting read, but hopefully a better and more comprehensive study will follow or be written by someone else.
The nuances are more surprising. For instance, the authors (both academics) show that while on the surface Millennials appear to highly value collaboration, they actually prefer to work individually and therefore to be rewarded and recognized as individuals. In The Millennial Mindset this is discussed in terms of the difference between working in a team vs. on a team, where working in a team means essentially being a cog in a complex machine, while working on a team means being part of a larger group with a common goal yet still having an individual and independent function.
Another surprising point is that, while Millennials largely favor tech and social media integrated into a classroom learning situation, they aren't as optimistic about or excited by exclusively online learning—they still highly value face-to-face interactions.
Sometimes the authors make too much of too little, however. It's difficult if not impossible to impose common traits on an entire generation, which the authors acknowledge—what they don't acknowledge is that many of their findings seem contradictory not because Millennials are uniquely conflicted, but because there are different types of Millennials from different demographics and backgrounds. As a result, many of the traits and nuances identified here are probably attributable to factors the authors didn't take into account. For instance, Luttrell and McGrath attempt to demonstrate that Millennials are actually careful with money; but isn't this a far more environment-, nurture-, and individual-based detail than a generational one? Aren't there plenty of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers who are bad with money? And Gen-Xers? And Millennials? Etc.
Perhaps the authors are only revealing their investigational bias. The Millennials they briefly profile near the end of the book are all upwardly mobile young professionals, sure to skew results in favor of more positive qualities. Did they interview Millennials who work at McDonald's? Or who play video games and watch porn all day and all night in their parents's basements? If not, this book will likely need a significant revision.
Throughout, fact/fiction statements about Millennials are looked at in detail—all these statements are shown to have elements of fact and fiction, and then are related to everyday life, work, and education and how older generations in these areas are most likely to achieve success in dealing and interacting with Millennials. A lot of this analysis was helpful, and this is where the chief value of the book lies. If you work with or employ Millennials and aren't one yourself, you could benefit from just reading the work-related sections. An interesting read, but hopefully a better and more comprehensive study will follow or be written by someone else.
February 20, 2017
Both positive and negative characteristics about the Millenials that I can use for both parenting and supervising/working with Millenials. Interesting summaries of other generations as context too.
May 6, 2016
Who are Millennials? That is the question that this book strives to answer. The authors are professors so they are in the thick of the Millennial generation. This book gives an overview of the previous generations, then tackles the Millennial generation. It is clear that they did their research. Luttrell and McGrath also provide advice for bosses, teachers and parents on how to interact with Millennials. Very informative and well researched.
December 23, 2016
Informative and quick. Provides a good sketch of various generations and how we need to understand one another in order to be successful in parenting, education, and business.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews