Business network tips may all start sounding like a course in pop psychology if the current trend of catering to the “Y” generation continues. The “Y” generation has been soaked with so much unmerited praise during the course of their lives that failure to supply adulation can damn near cause a mutiny.
So now we have “celebrations assistants” whose responsibility it is to…

” throw confetti — 25 pounds a week — at employees. She also passes out 100 to 500 celebratory helium balloons a week. The Container Store Inc. estimates that one of its 4,000 employees receives praise every 20 seconds, through such efforts as its “Celebration Voice Mailboxes.”

Motivational speakers have a new thread to add to their tapestry of incessant optimism with “thank you” gurus dispensing the current brand of wisdom, such as…

“If a young worker has been chronically late for work and then starts arriving on time, commend him. “You need to recognize improvement. That might seem silly to older generations, but today, you have to do these things to get the performances you want,” he says…”

How in the world does this translate in global networking? Are there now courses on “How to Coddle the New American Businessman” for those unsuspecting countries upon which they are inflicted? And exactly at what cost does this alternate reality tax the employer?

“America’s praise fixation has economic, labor and social ramifications. Adults who were overpraised as children are apt to be narcissistic at work and in personal relationships…Narcissists aren’t good at basking in other people’s glory, which makes for problematic marriages and work relationships, she says.
[..]
Her research suggests that young adults today are more self-centered than previous generations….”
(Source)
via Denialism Blog

Time will tell if maturity and a few hard knocks will assist generation “Y” with fine tuning reality. Narcissism hardly seems a charcteristic that will go very far in promoting careers, or the bottom line.