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Leading People Older Than You

Regardless of how you got to your management position, eventually you will find yourself managing people older than you.

I met one manager last week who is the youngest person in her department. That situation is pretty common these days, and it is a scary one for many leaders, especially those who are not well seasoned.

Here are ten tips that will help you be successful at gaining the necessary respect to lead more senior people effectively.

1. The first few days matter most
Actually, the first few hours or minutes are incredibly important because that is when you plant the seeds of confidence or doubt in your abilities.

Be authentic and do not play head games with people. Show immediate interest in and respect for the people who will be working for you.

Get to know them personally as quickly as you can. Every small gesture of interest in them and their thoughts will transform into credibility for you.

2. Be observant before you try to transform
Many leaders, especially those with little experience, figure they need to impress people with their power or brilliance to get respect. That approach usually backfires.

Before you seek to influence how things should be done in the future, you must first understand and appreciate how things have been done in the past. Do not spout out theories you learned in school in an attempt to snow people into respecting your knowledge.

3. Ask lots of questions
Many new leaders make a lot of statements and expect the workers to listen or take notes.

Instead, ask a lot of questions. The best approach is not knowing the right answers; it is knowing the right questions and using them wisely.


4. Put the age issue out to pasture quickly
People really do not care if their leader is older or younger than them. What they want is competence, compassion, and integrity. When you show those three things and respect people for their knowledge, then they will quickly forget that you are 20-30 years younger than they are.

5. Be genuine
Head games are for losers. Be genuine and real.

Try to figure out what matters and pay attention to those things.

Do not make the mistake of trying to be popular all the time, but also don’t be a jerk.

Think about the behaviors that you respect in a leader and emulate those. Respect people older than you for the experiences they have lived through, and listen to their stories with interest. Avoid doing a “one-up” on an experience that one of your reports conveys to you.

6. Begin to work on the culture
It is the culture of the work group that governs the quality of work life most of all. Work to figure out what is already working well and support that.

Where things need improvement, ask for advice about what people think would work. You do not need to do everything suggested, but you need to let people have a voice.

Work to build higher trust by making it safe for people to tell you what they really feel. In most areas that have morale problems, it is because people are afraid or feel disrespected.

Be approachable and be willing to listen deeply to the opinions of others. Make up your own mind what to do, but only after you have internalized and considered the ideas of others.

7. Be sincere, but not overly lavish, with your praise
People can smell a phony a mile away, and they will have no respect if you just try to butter them up in an effort to gain control.

Make sure that 100% of your reinforcement comes from your heart. People will know by the look in your eyes if you mean it or if you are just saying it. Mean it!

8. Create a positive culture
Motivation comes from within a person. If you try to manipulate the situation by providing perks in order to motivate the workers, you will fall flat on your face.

“Motivate” is not something you can do to another person; rather it is something a person does alone. Work to create the kind of environment where the workers decide this is a better place to work than before. They will motivate themselves in short order.

9. Be humble
People do not warm up to a braggart. Trying to impress them with your Harvard MBA will set you back several years in terms of ability to lead.

People relate to someone who is genuine and willing to learn from them. That attitude is far more effective than trying to win them over with your own prestigious background.

10. Care
There is an old saying that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” It sounds trite to say it, but that is really the secret to effective leadership of people who are older than you in years and experience.

Once you have built confidence in you as a leader, the issue of age goes away quickly, and you have overcome a stumbling block that trips many bright young leaders.

I grant that it is possible to muscle in and force your way to compliance with an older population. The problem is that compliance is another word for mediocrity. What you need from people is brilliant engagement, and that is what you will get if you follow the ten tips above.
 

Bob Whipple

Dominate Your Industry: How to Become the Best in Your Field

Image credit: Shutterstock

The notion of a miraculous genius being born smarter and more capable than the rest of us mere mortals charms our curiosity. Robert Greene, author of the popular The 48 Laws of Power (Penguin, 2000), would disagree. The fascination we have in prodigies, he says, is "bogus. It's completely bogus." Exceptional talent is about hard work, he says.

Greene studied the lives of exceptionally successful people for his latest book, Mastery (Viking/Penguin, 2012). He says that there is no such thing as being born into superior success. Rather, those politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, athletes and artists who rise above the rest in their field, achieving what he calls a "high-level intuitive feel" for their specialty, have an unyielding focus and work ethic.

"It's not a question of some natural talent or brilliance that you have, it's that you have reached that level of experience or practice," Greene told Entrepreneur.com. "We have to get rid of that old-fashioned notion of genius and creativity." He holds himself to the standard he preaches, having put in more 20,000 hours researching and writing his last five books.

Robert Greene

Image credit: Susan Anderson

In Mastery, Greene examines the cultural poster-children for natural-born genius: Mozart and Einstein. For example, by the time he was 9 years old, Mozart had already put in 10,000 to 20,000 hours of work, equaling the efforts of an average person in his or her 20s, says Greene. Einstein attributed his own success to persistence, he says.

Greene developed a near cult-following for his methodical and -- some say -- Machiavellian breakdown of power and the people who wield it in The 48 Laws of Power. Part of what makes Greene popular is that he studies powerful people and then breaks down their process such that others can emulate it. Here are recommendations from Greene for entrepreneurs eager to be the next Steve Jobs.

1. Chose a topic to focus on that you are deeply in love with.
"Masters and highly successful people are emotionally and personally engaged in their work" on a level beyond intellectual curiosity, Greene says. It's the personal commitment to a topic, problem or skill that is ultimately necessary for motivating and maintaining the long hours and fervent curiosity required to rise to the level of "mastery" in a field. "Otherwise you are never going to have the energy, the patience, the persistence, the ability to put up with the criticism, you will give up too easily, you won't push through all the crap the world is going to throw at you."
  
2. Skip all the extra school. Learn by doing.
According to Greene, learning entrepreneurship in school is inane. "Being an entrepreneur is making something, it's like Legos," Greene says and the best way to become an entrepreneur is to try building businesses.

Henry Ford's first two automobile companies failed miserably, notes Greene. "You want to actually psychologically desire failure because it is how you are going to learn." If you aren't going to start your own business, at least work in as small a company as possible to learn as many skills as possible. Avoid large corporations and business school, Greene says. As an entrepreneur, "you are going to hire the people that have the MBAs. They are going to bring in that nuts-and-bolts knowledge."

3. Don't focus on making money in your 20s.
"Tune out the idea of making your first million. It's about learning. You are there to accumulate as much experience building a business and you want to build several, if possible," says Greene. In the first five to 10 years after college, pursue experience over money. You will learn more than you could earn in those years.

4. When you have some experience, select a mentor.
When selecting a mentor, look for somebody who is already doing what you see yourself doing in five to 10 years, says Greene. If you are going to try to approach a master to be your mentor, wait to do so until you have already started amassing a body of work.

A healthy mentorship relationship is like that between a parent and a child, says Greene. A good mentor should be older than you and at a point in his or her career that he or she is wants to give back. Personality is important, too. "You want somebody who matches your spirit. If you are a very rebellious type, you don't want a stuffy conservative type mentor," says Greene.



5. Be flexible and creative.
For the book, Greene interviewed Paul Graham, the computer programmer entrepreneur who started Viaweb, a company acquired by Yahoo in 1998 to become the Yahoo Store, and a partner of Y Combinator, an accelerator for startup entrepreneurs. In the highly competitive interview process for Y Combinator, Graham "can tell after one minute if he has the next Zuckerberg or this guy is useless, and it is because they are open-minded, they're flexible and they love, they are excited, they have a childlike interest," says Greene. Building a company will inevitably confront you with unexpected challenges, and your ability to adjust your path to deal with those surprises is critical.

Catherine Clifford

A Great CEO Is The Chief Experience Officer

The title “Chief Executive Officer” doesn't really say very much about what the person is supposed to do. Yes, they're an officer. Got that. They're an “executive” — got that too, whatever that means. And of all the executive officers, they're the “chief”. Sure. But, I'd still argue that overall, the title doesn't really work anymore. It doesn't convey anything. CFOs are about finance. CMOs are about marketing. CIOs are about information. But, a CEO? They're about being an executive?

Instead, I propose that the CEO should be the Chief Experience Officer.
If the CEO can make the following set of experiences amazing, she will have created an amazing company — and done her job.

1. Product Experience: What is the experience like using the product and getting value from it? Does it solve the problem simply? Does it make users happy, productive and hopeful when they're using it, or does it make them frustrated, angry, agitated and depressed?

2. Purchasing Experience: What is it like to go through the sales process and buy the product? Was it easy to figure out whether the product was the right fit? Was the pricing straight-forward? Was the buying process smooth without unnecessary steps and complexity?

3. Brand Experience: What is it like to interact with the company's brand? Does talking about the company with others ignite passion? What kind of emotions does it evoke? When people see the logo online or offline, what's the visceral reaction?

4. Support Experience: What is it like to receive support from the company? Do people dread having to call in and get help? When they do make contact, do they feel like the company cares not just about appeasing and pleasing — but that the actual problem is addressed?

5. Exit Experience: What is it like to leave the company, return the product, or cancel the subscription and no longer be a customer?

Sometimes you can tell more about a company by how it treats customers on their way out, than on their way in.

6. Employee Experience: What's it like being recruited by the company? Working for the company? Being let go from the company? If you have a terrible employee experience, you will not attract the kinds of people that will make the customer experience amazing. It just doesn't work.

Notice that most of the above experiences are all about the customer. How does the customer experience the company? I think that's the primary set of experiences the CEO should worry about. The reason is simple, by improving the overall customer experience, everyone wins. Including the investors/shareholders (and yes, the CEO also needs to manage the shareholder experience too).

What do you think? Am I over-thinking the importance of the overall experience? Any lessons learned or tips on how to measure and improve the experience?

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Dharmesh Shah

Why Innovators Get Better With Age

By TOM AGAN

“WE need some gray hair” once referred to needing someone with more experience. But I haven’t heard that expression in a very long time.

In fact, many companies are intentionally reducing the average age of their work forces in an effort to save money. Younger employees are generally paid less and have lower health care expenses and retirement costs. As one executive remarked to me recently, “I don’t think anyone really likes this — we all know our own 50-year-old moment will be coming, too.” 

There is a surprising downside, however, to encouraging older workers to leave or, at some companies, pushing them out: Less gray hair sharply reduces an organization’s innovation potential, which over the long term can greatly outweigh short-term gains. 

The most common image of an innovator is that of a kid developing a great idea in a garage, a dorm room or a makeshift office. This is the story of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple. Last week, Yahoo announced that it had bought a news-reading app developed by Nick D’Aloisio, who is all of 17. 

In reality, though, these examples are the exception and not the rule. Consider this: The directors of the five top-grossing films of 2012 are all in their 40s or 50s. And two of the biggest-selling authors of fiction for 2012 — Suzanne Collins and E. L. James — are around 50. 

According to research, the age of eventual Nobel Prize winners when making a discovery, and of inventors when making a significant breakthrough, averaged around 38 in 2000, an increase of about six years since 1900. 

But there is another reason to keep innovators around longer: the time it takes between the birth of an idea and when its implications are broadly understood and acted upon. This education process is typically driven by the innovators themselves. 

For Nobel Prize winners, this process usually takes about 20 years — meaning that someone who is 38 at the time of discovery will most likely be nearly 60 when he or she receives the prize. For most eventual laureates, that interval is spent attending and making presentations at conferences, networking with colleagues, writing additional papers, editing academic journals and talking with the press. 

Let’s assume that with company resources, it will take a corporate innovator 10 years instead of 20 to educate others about the nature, implications and applications of a new idea. If that’s true, a reasonable target retention age for attaining an average level of innovation would be at least 50. 

YET despite the overall aging of the work force, many organizations are heading in the opposite direction. One executive at a major investment bank remarked with concern that the average age at his firm was 32. This phenomenon is not unique to corporations. Many medical institutions and universities  have also shifted to younger workforces. But according to research by Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University, a 55-year-old and even a 65-year-old have significantly more innovation potential than a 25-year-old. 

If an organization wants innovation to flourish, the conversation needs to change from severance packages to retention bonuses. Instead of managing the average age downward, companies should be managing it upward. 

We can act within our own organizations to make a difference. For example, we can end policies that limit the time people are allowed to stay at a certain level in a given position. And we can stop rotating high-potential managers across different businesses. Instead, we need to encourage the best performers to stay put, giving them the years — perhaps even decades — to support and lead major innovations from inception to commercial launch. 

And to encourage innovation, we must provide economic incentives to C.E.O.’s, boards of directors and investors through changes in the tax code and elsewhere that favor long-term returns driven by innovation over shortsighted pressure to reduce costs.

The journalist A. J. Jacobs has perfectly described our current situation when it comes to the relationship between age and innovation. In his book “The Year of Living Biblically,” he writes: “I’m 38, which means I’m a few years from my first angioplasty, but — at least in the media business — I’m considered a doddering old man. I just hope the 26-year-old editors out there have mercy on me.” 

Relax, A. J., you still have a few more years to hit it out of the ballpark with a mega-best seller.

Tom Agan, 51, is a co-founder and the managing partner of Rivia, an innovation and brand consulting firm.

Why Innovators Get Better With Age

By TOM AGAN

“WE need some gray hair” once referred to needing someone with more experience. But I haven’t heard that expression in a very long time.

In fact, many companies are intentionally reducing the average age of their work forces in an effort to save money. Younger employees are generally paid less and have lower health care expenses and retirement costs. As one executive remarked to me recently, “I don’t think anyone really likes this — we all know our own 50-year-old moment will be coming, too.” 

There is a surprising downside, however, to encouraging older workers to leave or, at some companies, pushing them out: Less gray hair sharply reduces an organization’s innovation potential, which over the long term can greatly outweigh short-term gains. 

The most common image of an innovator is that of a kid developing a great idea in a garage, a dorm room or a makeshift office. This is the story of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple. Last week, Yahoo announced that it had bought a news-reading app developed by Nick D’Aloisio, who is all of 17. 

In reality, though, these examples are the exception and not the rule. Consider this: The directors of the five top-grossing films of 2012 are all in their 40s or 50s. And two of the biggest-selling authors of fiction for 2012 — Suzanne Collins and E. L. James — are around 50. 

According to research, the age of eventual Nobel Prize winners when making a discovery, and of inventors when making a significant breakthrough, averaged around 38 in 2000, an increase of about six years since 1900. 

But there is another reason to keep innovators around longer: the time it takes between the birth of an idea and when its implications are broadly understood and acted upon. This education process is typically driven by the innovators themselves. 

For Nobel Prize winners, this process usually takes about 20 years — meaning that someone who is 38 at the time of discovery will most likely be nearly 60 when he or she receives the prize. For most eventual laureates, that interval is spent attending and making presentations at conferences, networking with colleagues, writing additional papers, editing academic journals and talking with the press. 

Let’s assume that with company resources, it will take a corporate innovator 10 years instead of 20 to educate others about the nature, implications and applications of a new idea. If that’s true, a reasonable target retention age for attaining an average level of innovation would be at least 50. 

YET despite the overall aging of the work force, many organizations are heading in the opposite direction. One executive at a major investment bank remarked with concern that the average age at his firm was 32. This phenomenon is not unique to corporations. Many medical institutions and universities  have also shifted to younger workforces. But according to research by Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University, a 55-year-old and even a 65-year-old have significantly more innovation potential than a 25-year-old. 

If an organization wants innovation to flourish, the conversation needs to change from severance packages to retention bonuses. Instead of managing the average age downward, companies should be managing it upward. 

We can act within our own organizations to make a difference. For example, we can end policies that limit the time people are allowed to stay at a certain level in a given position. And we can stop rotating high-potential managers across different businesses. Instead, we need to encourage the best performers to stay put, giving them the years — perhaps even decades — to support and lead major innovations from inception to commercial launch. 

And to encourage innovation, we must provide economic incentives to C.E.O.’s, boards of directors and investors through changes in the tax code and elsewhere that favor long-term returns driven by innovation over shortsighted pressure to reduce costs.

The journalist A. J. Jacobs has perfectly described our current situation when it comes to the relationship between age and innovation. In his book “The Year of Living Biblically,” he writes: “I’m 38, which means I’m a few years from my first angioplasty, but — at least in the media business — I’m considered a doddering old man. I just hope the 26-year-old editors out there have mercy on me.” 

Relax, A. J., you still have a few more years to hit it out of the ballpark with a mega-best seller.

Tom Agan, 51, is a co-founder and the managing partner of Rivia, an innovation and brand consulting firm.