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Looking perplexed and sounding somewhat befuddled, 60- year -old Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson asked a profound and particularly generational question at Saturday night's New Hampshire debates. Paraphrasing here, he asked, "When did experience become irrelevant?"
It's a question that more and more boomers are asking as they find themselves in the sometimes ego-challenging situation of having a boss that "is young enough to be their daughter."
The day it happened to me was in 1998. I was 47 years old. I had been working on a retainer relationship with an oh-so-hip production company. My client/boss was 15 years younger. He was fashion forward.Music forward and he had very clear ideas about successful corporate videos. Think MTV.
I got the job because I wasn't a novice. I was an award-winning script writer with over 20 years experience. But in the end it was my experience that tripped me up.
The first several projects went well. Then, I handed in a training video that had a 20 second sound bite. My client/boss went ballistic. "20 second sound bites are old school," he screamed." We don't do sound bites any longer than 9 seconds."
It was at that precise moment that I knew that if my style of video scripting was old-school then I was too old school for that job. Professionally, I wasn't interested in creating a training video where the subject matter expert was limited to 9 seconds of talk time.
The relationship ended shortly after that confrontation because of irreconcilable differences.
But his "old school" message had a profound affect of me. It forced me to question my current client relationships and ask myself the questions, 'Did age matter? Was my experience and expertise a detriment rather than value-added?"
In my case I answered yes and yes. What I discovered is that the people who were most eager to work with me were people of my generation. Thirty -year old marketing managers would rather work with thirty-year old consultants.
Strategically it meant focusing on different kinds of businesses. In my 30s and 40s I was committed to having Fortune 500 clients. My client swere the same age as me. We lunched. We gossiped. We became friends. We were peers. As they entered their 40s and 50s they often left corporate America to do what I was doing --consulting.
Their replacements were in their 30s. Thirty-year-olds don't want to go to lunch or happy hour with a 47 year old consultant. And they certainly don't want to work with a 56 year old. I am older than some of their moms.
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., provides career planning to midlife professionals. In her post, Ouch: My boss is half my age...Cathy shares her reactions to a segment on ABC's Good Morning America that featured a 54-year -old woman who couldn't adapt to working for a 29-year-old boss.
These days it's not about time served - it's about technological skills," was the message.Author and Career Specialist Tory Johnson suggested "open communication." Identify your beliefs. Gen Y - workers born 1977-1991 - constitute the largest segment of the work force. These folks, says Johnson, believe authority comes from expertise and accomplishment - not time served.
;"Older workers," Johnson says, believe in the value of "time." But younger workers argue, "If I am a stronger performer, I can leapfrog."
Frankly, I think the issue is more complex. There *is* something to be said for perspective. The challenge comes not just from "resentment," as the program suggested, but from a sense of feeling devalued. After investing so many years, we're hearing, "Who cares what you did?"
It's the corporate version of "So what have you done for me lately?"
As surviving the workday: spirituality at work writes being the young boss to a group of oldies but goodies has its own set of stresses.
Young bosses may experience high anxiety as well: “Will a subordinate with twenty-five years in this business take me seriously?” “How do I overcome resentment?” “How will I authenticate my authority?” “How in the world can I inspire workplace senior citizens to abandon stone-age notions and interface effectively with the technology and culture of today’s information age?”
Lisa Takeucchi Cullen who blogs for TIME Magazine sites an article on the subject from Atlanta Journal Constitution that says,
There are some potential pitfalls ahead. The Randstad survey found that three-quarters of older workers (age 55 and older) said they relate well to younger workers, but only 56 percent of all employees said they
