DECISION MAKING SHIFTS 

But… the research from Six Seconds indicates that Millennials would be well served to focus on purpose at an earlier age. The same dataset found that pursuing noble goals predicted 62% of the variation in good decision making, which undoubtedly contributed to the older generation’s higher decision making scores. Long-term thinking tends to lead to better decisions than short-term thinking. It’s like a GPS for life. If you know where you want to end up (what you want to contribute / change in the world), that can be used as a guide for all types of decisions along the way. It may seem abstract, but in reality finding and following purpose has tangible, measurable effects. Millennials have an opportunity to focus on this skill and reap the benefits.

It’s time to rethink the common assumption that young people are more purpose driven than older people. According to the data, it simply isn’t true.

While this first finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom, this second finding in many ways upholds a popularly held belief. It’s about what Six Seconds calls Brain Apps, and which ones – the emotional, rational, practical, or idealistic – each generation is most likely to use. It’s another fascinating nuance of age and emotional intelligence.

Not surprisingly, it turns out the generation in which a person grows up plays a big role in which of these capabilities they are likely to have developed. Understanding each age group’s general strengths and challenges opens the door to working better together, or as a leader, working effectively with everyone. And these are learnable skills, so to be challenged in one, as an individual or an entire generation, simply means that it hasn’t been cultivated yet.

Once again the dataset looked at 3 age groups: Millennials (22 to 37), Gen X (38 to 53) and Boomers (54 to 72).

Gen X and Boomers had remarkably similar results in terms of Brain Apps. They reported struggling the most with Emotional Insight, Connection, and Collaboration, which are all related to people, emotions and human dynamics. And at the same time, the strongest Apps for these generations were Prioritizing, Data Mining and Critical Thinking, which are all related to assessing data, mapping out logical possibilities, and planning.

At least in the world my Dad and Grandpa grew up in, this makes a lot of sense. You simply didn’t talk about feelings. Emotions were seen as the toddler of the brain that interfered with logical reasoning. And naturally, as a result, they developed capabilities related to logical reasoning, and not the emotional dynamics among people. We know now that one isn’t more important than the other. They are both really important. But there is a clear generational bias toward valuing logic over emotion.

Millennials, on the other hand, struggled most with Critical Thinking, a strength of both Gen X and Boomers. In fact, the largest difference of any Brain Talent between the generations was Critical Thinking. According to a recent study by MindEdge, a learning company founded in 1998 by Harvard and MIT educators, many millennials lack critical thinking skills. Nearly half of the respondents for the study got an F on a quiz designed to measure critical thinking skills.  This could be due to something about the world Millennials grew up in. The common narrative is that growing up coddled by parents in a world where ‘everyone gets a trophy’ has resulted in a lazy, entitled generation that lacks critical thinking skills. But it could also be the result of simple life experience, not some innate characteristic. Critical Thinking is the ability to assess a situation and apply your previous insights to make a good decision, a skill that older people have naturally had a lot more practice at than younger people.

Another struggle for Millennials is Vision, which is seeing the long-term meaning. That fits with the data we looked at related to purpose. As a leader, understanding these nuances of age and emotional intelligence can help you gain insight into the potential strengths and challenges that different age groups may bring to the table.

The good news is that, like all emotional intelligence competencies, Brain Apps can be cultivated and strengthened through practice, at any age. To understand this let’s take a sneak peak at the beginner’s guide, which offers tips for strengthening all the Brain Apps.

Six Seconds’ SEI assessment, which reports on the Brain Apps and the eight emotional intelligence competencies, has been used by organizations all over the world to improve their hiring and training processes. One of the tools is called a Dashboard, an overall look at a group’s top and bottom Brain Apps, which provides invaluable insight into the group’s strengths and weaknesses. Click here to learn more about the SEI — or better yet, try it yourself with the Brain Brief Profile.

Whether it’s worldwide or within an organization, these tools and methods provide invaluable insight into emotional intelligence and how to leverage it for optimal results (here’s evidence).