Millennial Generation

Using the five paragraph essay format, please present your perspective on the following topic. Provide examples to support your response. Include the proper APA citation(s) in your essay. Topic: Organization, time management, and effective communication are key elements to online learning. Discuss how you can use each of these elements toward your professional career.

Today’s young Airman comes from the Millennial Generation and believes they inherently understand three important skill sets; organization, time management and communication. In speaking with them, they all point back to their mastery of today’s technology and social media applications as the reason they believe these skill sets come so naturally to them. Leading, managing and training Airmen in today’s Air Force is not only complicated, it can be quite frustrating for those who did not grow up with the technology currently available.

The millennial Airman not only grew up with a full range of technology, but considers it a requirement to daily life. Hartman and McCambridge (2011) citing references (Tyler, 2007) describe millennials as those individuals born between 1980 and 2002, characterized as technologically sophisticated multi-taskers, who are accustomed to working in teams and who rely on their parents for guidance as they struggle to make decisions independently. While technology and resulting social media sites can assist us in organizing, managing and communicating, there is no substitute for experience.

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The Air Force, like most companies, businesses and groups requires organization skills at every level. While military life is full of structure, leadership within internal groups cannot effectively manage without organizing the force. Of the three skill sets discussed, this is where the millennials seem to excel. They eagerly embrace and utilize available tools to quickly accomplish the mission. When grouped and tasked with a project, they will immediately seek out the best tool to map out the plan and track progress, regardless of whether that tool is a white board or Microsoft Office© applications. Unlike their organizing aptitude, time management skills are clearly lacking in the millennial Airmen. Constantly bombarded with text messages and Facebook© updates on their readily available smart phone, they will halt a task just to check updates and statuses on any number of applications. Hansen and Hansen (n. d. ) in their quintcareers. com article recognized effective and timely project implementation as one of the skills sought most by today’s employers. Not only is timely project completion important, but so is managing daily tasks.

Talk with a millennial and you find they place stock in multi-tasking, but get distracted easily, thus failing to complete projects in a timely manner. Finally, effective communication is by far the most important of the three discussed skill sets and where the millennial Airman requires the most training and education. After researching numerous studies, Hartman and McCambridge (2011) concluded that effective communication is directly linked to an organization’s success.

While communication comes in many forms (spoken, written, gestured, etc), the millennial tends to fall short in many, if not all. Just review a short email and you will find misspellings and a complete lack of grammar similar to a phone text. The millennial will argue that text messaging is evolving with its own grammar and syntax. While this may be true, an office’s professional correspondence requires effective grammar in order to move the mission forward. The Air Force’s future relies on the many aptitudes its people possess.

While the three discussed here are just a sampling, they represent some important areas leaders and managers must concentrate on remain effective. In the book Taking Charge: Making the Right Choices (Smith, 1993), the author has rank-ordered twenty fundamental skills that every leader must possess and continually improve upon. Communication, time management and organization are numbered two, five and nine respectively (pages 2-5). By building upon these and many other skills, an organization will ensure its success and continued growth.

With regard to the discussed skill sets, the millennial Airman brings an impressive array of tools centered around online collaboration. While they do not lack enthusiasm, they do require leadership to fine-tune these skills and make positive changes. -

References:

1. Hartman J. & McCambridge J. (2011). Optimizing Millennials’ Communication Styles. Business Communication Quarterly, 74, 22-43.
2. Tyler, K. (2007, May). The tethered generation. HR Magazine, 41-46.
3. Hansen R. & Hansen K. (n. d. ), What Do Employers Really Want? Top Skills and Values Employers Seek from Job-Seekers. Retrieved from http://www. quintcareers. com/job_skills_values. html
4. Perry, S. (1993), Taking Charge: Making the Right Choices. Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing Group Inc.

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