In a San Francisco federal court, the Communication Workers of America union recently expanded the scope of the class action suit they filed last December against some of the country’s largest employers — a diverse list of companies that included Amazon, T-Mobile, Capital One, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car — accused of deliberately targeting their Facebook ads to exclude older workers. A ProPublica investigation shows that IBM has quietly pushed out upwards of 20,000 aging workers over the past five years. And, for all that has been written about the woeful lack of diversity and the “bro culture” that prevail in the tech industry, Silicon Valley’s 150 biggest tech companies have faced more accusations of age bias over the past decade than racial or gender bias.

Although the Age Discrimination Employment Act of 1967 prohibits discrimination against people 40 and older, a recent survey by AARP showed that two-thirds of workers between the ages of 45 and 74 said they have seen or experienced ageism.

So, while class action lawsuits and tough journalistic scrutiny are steps in the right direction, efforts to merely enforce the law are not sufficient. Let’s remember that equal rights for women, blacks, disabled people, gays and lesbians, and others weren’t achieved solely through change in laws, but instead by a change in attitudes that usually predated legislation.

And yet our culture, in this particular arena, is lagging behind. The brisk march of progress from the industrial to the tech era has created a strong bias toward digital natives who understand gadgets and gigabytes better than those of us who didn’t grow up “byting” from the Apple in childhood. One paradox of our time is that Baby Boomers enjoy better health than ever, remain vibrant and stay in the workplace longer, but feel less and less relevant. They worry, justifiably, that bosses or potential employers may see their experience and the clocked years that come with it as more of a liability than an asset. They fear becoming increasingly invisible, or even being cast aside.

In many industries, especially in technology, you may feel “old” at 35 — even though you might continue to work full-time until you hit 75. The 40 years between may feel like a run-on sentence that could use some punctuation — especially in a world where more of us are living to 100.

We’re living longer, but power is moving younger. While the median age of employees in the United States is 42, that number is more than a decade younger among our tech titans. A Harvard Business Review data analysis showed that the average age of founders of unicorns (private companies with more than $1 billion in valuation) is 31, and the average age of their CEOs is 41 (as compared with the average age of an S&P 500 company CEO, which is 52). The problem is that many of these young leaders are being thrust into positions of power long before they are ready — often tasked, with little experience or guidance, with running companies or departments that are scaling quickly. As a young tech leader asked me the other day, “How can I microwave my leadership skills?”

The answer: There is a generation of older workers with wisdom and experience, specialized knowledge, and unparalleled ability to teach, coach, and council who could pair with these ambitious Millennials to create businesses that are built to endure.

Working in the Age of the Modern Elder

In early 2013 I returned to the workforce in my mid-fifties as a senior exec with tech startup Airbnb. I was twice the age of the average employee and was reporting to cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky, who was 21 years my junior. What I lacked in DQ (digital intelligence), I made up for in accumulated EQ (emotional intelligence). And the mutual mentoring I offered and received turned me into what I call a “Modern Elder” — someone who marries wisdom and experience with curiosity, a beginner’s mind, and a willingness to learn from those younger. With five generations coexisting in the workplace for the first time, it’s essential that we embrace and develop more means for such intergenerational collaboration.

The attitudinal change necessary for Modern Elders to flourish needs to start with our language. It’s time to liberate the word “elder” from the word “elderly.” We associate the elderly with being older and often dependent on society, and yet separated from the young. On the other hand, society has historically been dependent on our elders, who have been of service to the young. Given that someone who is moving into a retirement home today is, on average, 81 years old, we have many productive elders in our midst who are growing whole, not just old.

So, what comes first, Modern Elders or less ageism? Mining mastery in organizations fosters more meaningful collaborations between generations and creates the conditions for greater wisdom and success.

Ageism is one of the few “isms” that ultimately affects us all. As deeply divided as we are politically and culturally today, the eventual arrival of elderhood is a condition that unites us. It’s time we embraced age like any other type of diversity. Wisdom precedes us and will succeed us. The Modern Age needs Modern Elders.

from HBR.org https://ift.tt/2K5Dgua