Cool

Generation Y (those born after 1980) are often perceived as unreliable, demanding and cocky, e.g.:

• More than 85% of hiring managers and human-resource executives say that GenY have a stronger sense of entitlement than older workers, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com.
• Michigan State University's Collegiate Employment Research Institute and MonsterTrak found that nearly 50% had moderate to high superiority beliefs about themselves. The superiority factor was measured by responses to such statements as "I deserve favors from others" and "I know that I have more natural talents than most."
• They also found that about two-thirds of GenY would likely "surf" from one job to the next, and about 44% said they would renege on a job-acceptance commitment if a better offer came along.
• More here.

While "there’s no question that the generation has been very much indulged" says Karyn Gordon, a GenY expert with dkb Coaching in Toronto, "they have not become very resilient. Despite their surface confidence, the young generation is tremendously insecure. They come across as cool and entitled, but behind that is insecurity about their performance and future."

The concept of cool developed mainly as a defense mechanism practiced by black slaves in the US. It involved emotional detachment and irony. "During slavery overt aggression by blacks was punishable by death. Provocation had to remain relatively inoffensive, and any level of serious intent had to be disguised or suppressed. So cool represents a paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion." Thorsten Botz-Bornstein explains in an article published in the current edition of Philosophy Now.

Cool is a skill to enhance and protect public and self esteem both in success and failure. Could GenY have picked it up as a behavioural tool for managing their relationship with the corporate world?

Theatrical detachment could mean GenY are very difficult to read and therefore to manage (this could relate to their alleged unreliability). It could also mean that they are quite at ease in slipping into a different persona and therefore in acting up a corporate profile. That's not so bad. You have a good likelihood to succeed if you craft yourself to the evaluator's measure. And also, what best way is there to survive failure than to know it is not your real you who is failing?