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Listen To People Younger Than You
It’s their world, not yours
In what I like to call “the bad old days” when I worked for companies and corporations (long before my much preferable current reality of working for myself)… age and status counted for a lot.
You respected the people above you in the organisation and you expected people beneath you to respect you.
Age threw a spanner in the works.
What happened when someone was younger than you, but more senior than you?
This is a question that world leaders need to wrestle with right now. Because in terms of being on the right side of the climate change issue, young people are both younger than them and “more senior” (as in they are better informed, understand the issues and are calling for the right actions).
The elders need to listen to the youth. But they won’t do it. Not really. Because it is so deeply ingrained into them that they know best. How could someone younger possibly be better at their jobs than them?
The Unwritten Rules
Back in those bad old days working in companies, I remember going for a management level job, not getting it, and the person who did get it was years younger than me. They were someone I…