Today I was asked what “the Spanish dream” was and I had to answer that I think that the Spanish dream is finding a job for life.
It was horrible to recognize that. Is it true? Or is it that I’m completely biased and since I came to the US and now consider that everything in Spain is slow, conservative and not-entrepreneurial?
I’m not sure. I hope I was wrong when I said that, but that’s what came to my mind when thinking about the ideals, and that’s what I’ve felt to be the dream wile growing up in Spain.
I admit that maybe “the dream” involves some more things such as having full weekends to party, long summer vacations to travel the world and enough money to be able to forget about it. In business, the dream can either be having a 9 to 5 job that pays enough, or being a director, manager or an important person in a multinational company. That’s at least the vision when you study at a business school: manage teams, make decisions, think strategically. Nothing wrong with it, except that it takes longer to realize that when you decided to study business you were not dreaming with managing some other people’s business, but with starting a business yourself. And somehow that dream was almost killed in the way.
Anyway, the reason I wrote this post is because I hope that someone will prove me wrong :D And if you don’t, at least I want to be sure of what’s the situation and find more people who will work to change that.
Hi Maria,
I must say that I don’t agree, at least 100%, with your point of view. It is true that the trend some years ago was to stay the whole professional life at the same company. But I wouldn’t say “Spain is slow, conservative and not-entrepreneurial”. Things are changing a lot.
First of all because the economy evolves very fast and companies need to adapt to this changes. Therefore, strategies, positions and people change.
But on the other hand, I believe that young people now have access to more information, speak more languages and are willing to travel abroad. This means that they are starting to develop an international talent and a higher professional and personal flexibility.
Finally, to add a counterpoint to your ideas regarding the young Spanish people and their lack of entrepreneurial spirit, I would like to share with you some statistics from 2007: http://www.clipmedia.net/ficheros/2007/03_mar/n2322.pdf
Tu artículo empieza con: “Los jóvenes españoles son los que gozan de un mayor espíritu emprendedor en Europa y los que muestran una mayor tendencia hedonista”
Y acaba con:“sólo un 20% cree en el futuro de la sociedad y que puede cambiar el mundo para hacer de él un lugar mejor”
“y a la hora de trabajar observó una conducta un tanto “mercantilizada” en que se mira más “qué puede hacer la empresa por mi, que yo por ella”
Ser el más emprendedor de Europa no es q sea ningún logro :D
Puedes no estar 100% de acuerdo pero algo de verdad hay en mis palabras….. aunque esto no tiene xq ser siempre asi! :D
Cuál dirías tú q es “the Spanish dream”?
Yo diría que el “sueño español” es tener una casa en propiedad.