"The Years Teach Much"
Having once been young, and now being a person of a “Certain Age” as the French say, I can decisively say I will take the wisdom and experience I have earned at this point in life over the uninformed years of my earlier life. As Maurice Chevalier sang, “I’m so glad I’m not young anymore.”
Not that I’m against the young; but I know they don’t have as much knowledge and experience as those who have lived for a while, made mistakes, and (hopefully) learned from them. How do I know? Because I was young once and when I look back I think of the song lyrics, “If I knew then what I know now . . .”
What do the young contribute? The young bring fresh energy and sometimes fresh ideas. They haven’t developed the callouses of experience yet and they remind us of the days when we were filled with enthusiasm for a future not yet written.
This is why, in my opinion, successful teams have a mix of generations. We need to be reminded by the young of what dreams are made of, and we need to be reminded by the Experienced of how to make those dreams real.
Save the angry postcards: this is not a diatribe against the young and inexperienced. It is instead a defense of the benefits of the older people among us – the Experienced – who bring context to the varied experiences we all see in the workplace.
Despite the supposed crisis in hiring – not enough employees for the available jobs – many people I know who are, like me, of a “Certain Age” are struggling to secure employment. While there is no definitive explanation of why this is happening, we all have the uneasy and sinking feeling that it is because of Ageism.
Yes, Ageism is real. There is a misconception that is promoted by the purveyors of “The Conventional Wisdom” that Youth is best. They are young! They use technology! They have ideas! They understand Instagram! Well, that right there is inaccurate because NO ONE understands Instagram.
There is a common misconception that Experienced People (aka OLD PEOPLE) don’t use or understand technology. That is just not true or accurate. If you are an individual that lives in the world as it is today, and working in that world, you are keeping up with technology and how to use it. Stop watching AARP commercials – people over 35 years old DO know how to use a smartphone.
There is another misconception about hiring younger employees that I have never understood: let’s hire a young, inexperienced person who doesn’t know anything, train them, and teach them – KNOWING they will leave in 2 years. But hey – we got their youthful energy. This is the same thought process that people use NOT to hire older people because they “will just retire in a few years.” As Ayn Rand said, “Check your premises.”
Wow. What a waste of time and resources. Your organization just invested in an employee that is now valuable to SOMEONE ELSE who doesn’t have to train them. And now you have to start all over again.
Let’s flip that on its head. If you are looking for an employee that is only going to be there for a few years, why not hire someone older and experienced? They already know their job, know how to do things, know how to interact with people, and there is minimal training/onboarding that needs to be done.
Wow. You just saved a lot of time and money. AND you have just added Knowledge, Experience, and Wisdom to your staffing asset column. Win!
It’s called a Life Cycle for a reason. The emphasis on only the front end of that cycle holds us back. Wisdom is where knowledge and experience come together – it’s valuable because it takes time to develop. Wisdom is worth the wait.
“The years teach much which the days never know.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
