To meet the challenges of tomorrow, companies need more truth tellers

Things seem to have taken a turn, and I couldn't be happier or more grateful. It's been a long time coming, but the days of management walking on eggshells to appease entitled employees may soon be over. The timing couldn't be better. If the United States is to compete for the future on a global scale, employers need to get back to taking their business seriously after enduring decades of political correctness, lip-biting, and gossip. /p>

Billions of dollars and millions of hours have been wasted in frivolous, foolish efforts to make a miraculously sweet lemonade from the lemons of life. If you didn't like working for a living or working at all, if being graded, rated and judged was too tough a test for your selfish little self, and if no one had ever bothered to tell you the hard truth a lot about it in the real world, so give us a moment or two, and we'll try to change our reality to accommodate your fantasies, your insane expectations, and your absurd rights. We will do this because of serious misconceptions about what makes the world go round and other serious mistakes for which we will quickly atone and ask your forgiveness in advance. All because we really like you, in large part because you remind us of when we were young and just as stupid.

Meanwhile, China and India are raising and training millions of "meat eaters" – earnest, ambitious, diligent and brutally hard-working individuals – who are grateful for the opportunities finally afforded them, ready to do whatever it takes to get ahead, and proud of the commitment, sweat and effort it will take to achieve their dreams.

They are not ashamed or apologetic for competing aggressively with their peers, for wanting to better themselves and to make a difference for themselves and their families, and for working tirelessly towards these ends rather than to wish or expect them to magically appear. They don't expect the world to hand them their future on a silver platter. They don't need downtime, safe spaces, speech policing, or security blankets to ride. They just need the chances we take for granted.

Meanwhile, here at home, parents raise millions of precious little flowers to be accepted and appreciated for what little they have achieved rather than expected and challenged to achieve better and more things large. They are focused and obsessed with fabricated trivialities, traumas and concerns while the rest of the world rushes at them. They want to give it their all at work, but they aren't very enthusiastic about working once they get there. They were taught and told that they clearly had more important things to do and other places to go.

I'm sure millions of other CEOs and entrepreneurs agree that telling it like it is, outside of their soon-to-burst bubbles, is the best service and favor we can give to our children and young employees and, not coincidentally, to our businesses as well. While there are many valuable D&I programs, no company can succeed on a fabulistic basis of half-truths about diversity and inclusion, false promises (which are quickly abandoned when the rubber hits the road), and concise mission statements that no one measures up to.

The pendulum is hopefully swinging back to candor, painful honesty, daily doses of reality and genuine authenticity that can only get us all through what may be many more years of nasty surprises , difficult times and things to do. nothing of politicians aiming only to inflame and anger us.

Companies need to convey to their employees and, more importantly, new graduates a simple message about work: "You don't have to like it, you just have to do it." In a world of special cases, a million exceptions, tender sensibilities and helicopter parents, this message has the particular charm of being a unique solution. Sit down, shut up and swallow it. When you come to work, be prepared, be honest, and be on time. Leave your anxieties, affirmations and anxieties at home. Or feel free to "pretend to work somewhere else", as Elon Musk puts it.

Mark Zuckerberg is even clearer in his pragmatic approach when discussing the upcoming changes to Meta, noting that: "Some of you might just say this place isn't for you. And this self- selection suits me."

Entrepreneurs and managers who...