Wanda has a résumé that shows she is smart. She went to an Ivy League university, received a scholarship to study abroad, and earned an internship at one of the world’s most innovative corporations. She’s well read and well traveled, she plays the cello, she can hold a conversation in French. And she’s pretty sure anyone would look at her résumé and hire her in a heartbeat, based on the names of the places she has worked and studied. So Wanda is shocked to find that’s not the case. It turns out that while she has credentials, she has no achievements. She’s never been the most valuable player or a top performer. It may be time for her to check her entitlement at the door.
Why do we even have to have this conversation about a bus? What has happened to America, and why isn’t everyone inspired to run naturally? We are a nation built by people with a tremendous work ethic, people who weren’t afraid of a challenge. Now, it seems Runners are becoming the rarity, and everyone feels they are owed something. And the sense of entitlement that is so commonplace in America starts with you. No one promised you that you will have the job you have forever.
During the first year of RCA’s existence, we decided to give the staff bonuses in December. The team was overjoyed, and many cried. Their outpouring of appreciation was heartwarming, and we knew we had made the right decision to give the bonuses. The next year, the reaction was similar but not quite as profound. In each subsequent year, the reaction grew less and less appreciative, because the bonus became expected. I occasionally even heard people talk about what they were going to do with their bonus, and I had to point out that the bonus wasn’t guaranteed; it was something we did when we could.
That particular year, we realized we weren’t going to be able to give out the bonus because the economy was struggling and we simply didn’t have the money. In the end, however, we sat down with our board members and came up with a way to make it happen. It didn’t come without sacrifices, and the bonuses weren’t as large as they had been in the past. The Runners, however, in typical Runner fashion, showed the same amount of appreciation and thanks that they had shown in the past. The other members of the team sent emails like, “Thanks for the bonus,” and then a few didn’t even mention it. The bonus had become something they expected, and that is how many people view their jobs. They think they deserve the job and that they are entitled to it, and once that mind-set is there, the work ethic of those individuals tends to decline.
What has led us to this entitled state of being? I think the answer lies in the way we are raising and educating our children in America.
There is a wave of thought that we must do all we can to keep the self-esteem of children intact—to the point that we aren’t being realistic with kids about their abilities. Why does every child on the Little League team now receive a trophy? They all ain’t that good. You know who should get the trophy? The most valuable player. And when your child cries, “Why didn’t I get a trophy?” you should respond, “Because you aren’t the MVP.” Period. End of discussion. We are simply giving children too much, and when kids receive things without having to work for them, they begin to expect things for nothing. They feel entitled and believe things are owed to them, and they eventually end up living at home with their parents at the age of twenty-six, sitting on the couch all day, and wondering, Why doesn’t the world love me?
History teaches us that when a civilization rises to supremacy that it will eventually decline when the youth, the brain trust, don’t have to work as hard. When they aren’t challenged, they relax because they are given more than they need. They grow to feel entitled and lack a work ethic. That is the situation in America now. We’re already twenty-seventh in the world in terms of our education system. Where will we be years from now as long as we continue to raise a soft, wussified generation of children? We are giving them too much and teaching them that it is their right to receive things without working for them.
This sense of entitlement has transferred to the business world. I hear stories now about the youngest college graduates going into job interviews and saying things like “I’ll probably have your job in two years.” Yes, they have that much confidence. Then they get hired, and that confidence doesn’t translate to performance. It’s a crisis. They don’t like to be criticized. They don’t want anyone pointing out that they aren’t perfect. They make excuses: In my defense . . . no one told me . . . I didn’t see that in the handbook . . . They will make a small contribution to a project and expect to receive a large amount of praise. The reason for this is that they haven’t been made to work very hard in our education system, yet they have received numerous awards for their work.
If you grew up receiving a trophy just for playing on the team, let me give you a reality check: That will not happen in the workplace. This is capitalism, not socialism. You have to do more than just show up to be rewarded. Please, be grateful for your job. Be thankful to be a part of a team. Work to earn actual recognition and praise, because nothing is promised to you.
When a society coddles the brain trust, it marks the beginning of its decline.