Age-free zone

It used to annoy my long-suffering wife no end that at any given time I did not how my age – other than within a band of a few years. She was convinced that this was a contrivance on my part but with the passage of time, she has come to accept this as yet another of my clinically peculiar foibles.

It is still the case that if I am asked how old I am, my answer is either “I don’t know” or “I’d have to work it out”. It has nothing to do with not aging gracefully – now there’s an oxymoron – because it was no different when I was in my 20s.

I was the editor of a weekly business newspaper when I was in my mid-20s and on one occasion one of my young staffers asked me how old I was. “How old do you think I am?” I asked. In most cases, this is a dangerous question to answer and ordinarily should be deflected at all costs. But in my case there was no risk of the young journalist giving the “wrong” answer. As it happens, he was way off the mark. His guess was 45. Many people assumed I was in my late 30s or early 40s.

I have no skill at guessing people’s ages – and generally no interest, although occasionally an interesting face will prompt me to wonder about its owner’s age.

As a young editor, one of my staff writers was “much older” than me or our colleagues. We were good chums and I may have known her age at the time, but I have no memory of it now and couldn’t even hazard a guess – even though she was and remains one of my favourite people. She was also a brilliant journalist who was freelancing when I gave her her first full-time job as a journalist and she repaid that decision in spades. She used to call me her “boy editor”. These days she is one of Australia’s most distinguished journalists.

It’s true that I despair at some of the less agreeable characteristics of young people today. This is something I wrote about in BRW a couple of months ago.

“Young people, most notably the generation everyone is talking about, Gen Y, really believe they are entitled to instant fame and success,” I wrote. “They are determined to change the world, not out of deeply held convictions of right and wrong but because they take it as a given that any institution, custom, practice or norm that predates them is by definition irrelevant.”

But such collective reservations aside, in my day-to-day dealings I take individuals as they come. I work with and write about some outstanding young people and their age, or generation, is irrelevant.

Whenever a management consultant or academic lists the qualities of leadership required in current and future workplaces, somewhere at the top inevitably appears the ability to manage “multi-generational workforces”.

“In today’s [workplace] there are up to four generations working in the workforce at once. Although this is an exciting time, it is not without challenges,” writes one. “Working with multiple generations requires patience and understanding. Each generation brings a new perspective and managers must learn to value new ideas and embrace the change that each new generation brings.”

Are things really so different in today’s workplace? I doubt it.

The challenges that occupy a manager of people are no more or less complex than they have been at any other time. In my experience, when individuals are taken on their merits and treated with dignity, respect and empathy, they will contribute to the full extent of their ability to their team or workplace. This stands irrespective of age, cultural background, ethnicity or gender.

When it comes to the task at hand, an individual is either capable or not; interested or not; motivated or not. When it comes to team or group dynamics, an individual is an agreeable person to work with, or not; a collaborative person, or not; a communicative person, or not.

There is no need to attach undue complexity, much less contrived management science, to the task of managing, or indeed working with, people of various ages.

How old am I? How old do you think I am?

Write and tell me your views.

BRW

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