Can you still criticize younger colleagues?

Last month, after a lecture on generations in the workplace, I received an interesting question from a man in the late thirty, early forty – we now call that a millennial.

We discussed with a group of all ages that people in Fifties sometimes find it difficult to criticize younger colleagues. You quickly hit the wrong tone, and then they sometimes feel offended, or even worse: ‘unsafe’. A number of people in their fifties complained that they sometimes had to walk on eggs with ‘the young people’.

Until the ‘millennial’ asked his question. And said that older colleagues could sometimes moderate their tone? « Why did it always have to be so blunt? » I had to think about that.

Because very honest? I think many colleagues also find me blunt. It is not an excuse, but I think that is partly because ‘my generation’, generation X, became a bit of gangerboard, if we did something wrong.

We received criminal work at school and then you had to write down a hundred times that you were sorry. Or you had to stand in the corner. My parents thought that was fine and said: « You will have made it yourself » if I came home after the ‘stay’.

That is a difference with stories that I sometimes hear from teachers, in which parents come to get a story when their champion has received the request to come to school, instead of being smoking in the park.

But also later, at work, it was sometimes fast. I remember that when I am in the nineties de Volkskrant worked, there was a notice board on which all the blunders from colleagues who had reached the newspaper were punctured. Complete with nasty comments such as ‘can’t write’ and ‘this works here’, where all colleagues were laughing. If there was a cut from me, I was ashamed and I felt humiliated. I was 26.

But that was part of it! Did you find then. If you played in the Champions League, you had to be able to take taps. Maybe there the attitude of more people in their fifties comes from, about the ‘bullshit Snowflakes About insecurity ‘. And perhaps that is also the reason why people in their fourties generally respond more little more to news, such as last week about top conductor Jaap van Zweden, who according to TV program Pointer guilty of cross -border behavior.

And yet I am glad that times have changed. Sure. When I asked for it on LinkedIn, I also understood the Fifties who wrote that it sometimes seems like « young people can’t stand anything anymore », « no more resilience » and the « backbone of a sea horse. »

I understood the generationmate who wrote: « I notice that I have become more cautious against Gen-Gen-Collega’s, » and the one who said that she « speaks managers in the public domain every day who get paralyzed ».

Or the university lecturer, who now warns students when he starts using solid language. He says that people who can’t stand that, but just have to put their fingers in their ears. « Something I never did until five years ago. »

And I understood the frustrated manager, who once tried to reach a 27-year-old employee by telephone and was then told: « It doesn’t feel good now » and couldn’t do anything with it.

But I am especially hopeful. When I read that young people no longer accept all the criticism and their colleagues – no matter how old they are – force them to deal with it more professionally. I sometimes think that the words are ‘unsafe’ and ‘cross -border behavior’ are of emancipation. Symbols that you can use, words that we used to have no words.

I am also grateful for the generations before me, who fought the five -day working week, contested the earvig, the rape by a priest, marrying within your stand, the only right is your countertop, and always agreeing someone who was employed for thirty years.

Nowadays young people also fight abuses. It will not always go handy and there are victims among the oldies and the young people, but I support the big movement.

Because certainly, criticism makes you better. And of course some young people can use a resilience train. But you really learn something, if criticism is not only given by Botteriken who know better, but with respect and trust. You really learn something, when criticism is not only used, but also lasting. That millennial who asked last week if it can sometimes be a little less bone?

Everyone gets better.

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