Reviving Work Ethic

A Leader's Guide to Ending Entitlement and Restoring Pride in the Emerging Workforce

Greenleaf Book Group, 2012

15 min read

10 take-aways

Audio & text

What's inside?

Instilling Millennials with the work ethic of their grandparents is hard, hard work.

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Editorial Rating

Qualities

Applicable
Well Structured
For Beginners

Recommendation

Oh, those tech-savvy, self-centered, entitled Millennials! The members of the newest workforce generation challenge managers with their unwillingness to make work their first priority. Eric Chester, an expert on this group – identified by the Pew Research Center as encompassing those born between 1981 and 2000 – goes through the reasons why Millennials in their 20s and 30s lack the strong work ethic of previous age sets. He offers an action plan to instill good work habits, behaviors and attitudes in members of the Millennial cohort, also called Generation Y. However, Chester doesn’t explore the flip side of the work ethic coin: Perhaps members of the emerging workforce are reluctant to make sacrifices for corporations that consider them expendable. He focuses on workplace remedies without analyzing the economic, social or political environment that college graduates face. Given his very practical approach, getAbstract recommends Chester’s guidance to leaders and managers who must understand their newest generation of employees so they can lead them and evoke the best performance from them.

Summary

The Game of Life

The Milton Bradley Company’s Game of Life board game shows how Americans have ranked the value of a strong work ethic over the decades. In the late 19th century, when Bradley created the game, players advanced by demonstrating the virtues of hard work, strong character and business acumen. Being lazy hindered players’ progress, while acting honorably advanced their position on the board. The updated, re-created version of the game released in 1960 featured a new final objective: arriving at “Millionaire Acres.” Players advanced by collecting part of a rival’s paycheck, for example, or by landing on “Lucky Day” for a big payoff. By 2000, players benefitted from their rival’s hardships or from taking a gamble. The Game of Life no longer cited social values like hard work, community service and dedication to family.

If you’re a Millennial, that attitude probably affected your childhood. The common workplace complaint about the Millennials in their 20s and 30s is that they lack a strong work ethic. They won’t labor like their parents and grandparents. Yet this “always connected,” technology-savvy generation shows exceptional skills in creativity, problem...

About the Author

Eric Chester is a frequent public speaker and the founder and CEO of the “Bring Your A Game to Work” program.

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R. S. 1 decade ago

Thought it was just OK. The review makes a good point, and perhaps set up my take on it as well. Seems to be geared toward fitting people into a predefined model, rather than considering why Millenials behave the way they do and addressing the other side of the equation: changing the workplace.

Eric Chester