Aging Up, Not Out

AMY GALLO: Amy B., I’m really glad we’re talking about aging at work on this episode.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. This has been something I’ve wanted to take on for a while with this group. Partly because we have talked quite a bit about what it’s like to be a young woman in the workplace. And I’ve learned a lot, and I have dim memories of what it was like, but I come at it from the other side. And I think that women who are in their fifties and even their sixties deal with a whole host of challenges that we don’t talk about and should.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Yeah. And it is an experience I feel like I hear very, very little about. And as someone who’s approaching those age groups, I need to know what it’s going to be like.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, smack dab in the middle of those decades. I can tell you that what they say about women in their fifties kind of disappearing is true. You know, I think that it is much harder to show up, to be taken seriously, and to be seen in the workplace when you’re not, you know, bright and young and dewy.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Alright. We’ve got a lot to cover.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yes, we do.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo. Nicole is on vacation this week, so it’s just us Amys.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, not really just us. We’re going to talk to two other women about what it’s like to grow older at work. First up is our guest expert, Nancy Morrow-Howell. She’s a social policy professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and she directs the University’s Center for Aging. So Nancy, thanks so much for joining us.

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: You are welcome.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Let’s start with the work you do with freshmen, your students. You teach a class on aging?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: I do. I do. I teach 75 freshmen, so some of them aren’t even 18, most of them are, but they’re just freshmen to Washington University. And in the class I have at least 15 older students who come from a community organization that I work with around the campus. So we have a mixture of young people and older people and it’s a class on their long lives. We say, you know, you can expect to live to your eighth and ninth decade. Lot of them will see 100. What do they need to do now to be thinking about this longevity, and what especially do they need to be changing terms of our social institutions, our programs, our policies to enable a long healthy life. So it’s just the funnest course. I’m really excited about it.

AMY GALLO: So when you’re teaching this class, what do you tell them about yourself as an older worker?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: I definitely share some personal things about myself as an older person. So it generally hasn’t been too much about my work life. I’ve definitely shared it about some changes I’ve experienced physically. I’ll share that with them. Some caregiving experience that I had personally, some family experiences I’ve had. So I definitely share, but I can’t imagine teaching this class without older students that I can rely on them as well and ask them about their experiences. And they do talk about their experiences in the workplace in the sort of multiple careers they felt they had in the job and sometimes that they felt discrimination in the workplace. So I think people are really open to sharing their experience, and the younger students are interested.

AMY GALLO: And have you noticed that since you’ve identified as an older adult that people treat you differently?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: I think people do treat me differently. I’m in a very privileged position, you know, being a faculty member with an endowed professorship at Wash U. So I can’t complain about much. But even in that pretty privileged environment, I do feel like people treat older adults differently. We are very ageist still, and I have become more aware of that, mainly because I’m studying it more too. But the concept of implicit bias, that we’re just not even aware of how ageist we are when we interact with people or think about our organizations. And I hear plenty of older people say that they, they just sense that they are viewed as more irrelevant. You know, they say “invisible” but I think irrelevant is more the word. And you know, age discrimination is illegal on paper, but older adults are still often treated differently in terms of opportunities offered, leadership positions offered, just a sense of being overlooked for new engagements, especially in the world of employment when people have gotten out of an employment situation — whether if they’re downsizing or they stepped out to be a caregiver — getting back in they feel very overlooked, that their applications aren’t taken seriously or viewed as competitively.

AMY GALLO: Right. Do you have any advice for people who might be going into the job market to brace themselves for that, for the fact that they are going to be discriminated against?

NANCY MORROW HOWELL: Well, if I’m remembering my statistics right, an older person, an older worker — and you know that’s pretty young, an older worker might be 55-plus, I think — I think that the younger worker it took 36 weeks to find a new job, and the older worker it took 50-some-odd weeks to find a new job. So to me that says it takes longer, but apparently it happened. People are getting these jobs.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So are there things we shouldn’t say? Are there any landmines we can avoid?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Well I do think it’s to not use anything yourself that’s ageist, any talk about senior moments or you’re maybe rusty in the technology. You know, none of that can happen. You have to get on top of that, and if it’s true, you have to get on top of it and not be looking for jobs where that’s important.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So let me ask you — well actually I’d love to pass along a question from one of our listeners. Christina writes to us, “We are a cohort of 50- to 60-year-old women who are productive, capable, experienced with wisdom and the ability to see context.” And she says, “In the workforce, because of our age and our gray hairs, we are seen as not technically capable,” which she says is not true, “not forward thinking, not entirely true,” she says, “perhaps too experienced and expensive, and after a workforce reduction, not a candidate to hire.” She asks, “Are these anecdotal observations valid? Are they validated by research?”

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: So I think that she is right that those are the common perceptions. I think most of them can be invalidated through research. There was a lot of them in there. But the more expensive part, because people have been on a job a long time and there’s a cost of living increase and time, you know, generally leads to raises, older workers salaries can be higher. But the cost of training people and replacing people who aren’t as committed to a job overruns those costs. And in fact, despite older adults being more, having higher risks for different chronic conditions, there’s less absenteeism among older workers. So a lot of those things we can confront with the facts. I think older workers have to, you know, just keep it up. They have to work on self-development. They have to work on staying digitally competent. There’s no resting on any laurels, and that takes energy. And people of any age need to do it, but older workers are, you know, accused of not having as much energy. And so we need to make sure that we’re demonstrating that yeah, we do.

AMY GALLO: How have you been doing that yourself?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: You know, I try, I try to do this myself, and I just had the interesting observation — in fact, it regards this, what I’m doing right now, being interviewed by you all. There is sort of on our CVs of older workers, it’s always a challenge. They can’t be, here’s 20 pages and all my experience. Like who cares? You know, it has to be really short and well-framed, and there’s new sections of CVs, like all your social media stuff, right? And your different opportunities, and maybe the podcast or the blog or the media coverage. And I need to pay more attention to that kind of stuff in my CV or just on my webpage because it’s not something that I’m used to.

AMY GALLO: Right. How do you, how do you stay on top of what is happening? I mean, I’m 45, and I have to say, I feel pressure to also stay on top of — my 12-year-old daughter was shocked I knew what TikTok was, for example, the other day. Right. And I’m curious how you have stayed on top of what needs to done in these regards?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yeah, well I haven’t 100% because it really is hard. I’m just lucky because I’m in an environment surrounded by young people. I have good relations with my kids and grandkids, so I just try to be exposed and not say, Oh, I don’t like that stuff, you know, but try to figure out what it is. So I think that maybe that’s a good example of sort of the energy that it takes. It doesn’t happen just by you not being proactive. So I think that’s why some people do eventually want to step back and retire and say, Oh, I don’t want to put in that energy anymore, I’m ready to do something different.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So a lot of women feel that, you know, they kind of disappear as they get older in the workplace. What are your thoughts on that? I’m interested both sort of practically and emotionally.

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: I have the sense from colleagues that I talk to, and a bit of my experience — so there’s just an overlooking that has to do because people are turning to folks that are a little younger. For me, I often think it’s so common when people ask me, When are you going to retire? And I think, Hmm, I’m thinking about it, but I’m wondering if that means they think I should, you know, or they are giving me a hint. But it’s a very common question to older people, When are you going to retire? And I think that carries a lot of emotional messages too, where you begin to question yourself or your relevance or your competency. So that’s one way that I see it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So what’s your, so you’re in a meeting and you know, the group turns to the younger person at the table. How do you handle that if you’re an older woman in this meeting, and you feel that you have something to contribute on the topic, on the subject at hand?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Well, I think that for myself, I just have to know that I do have something to contribute. And not accept being overlooked, unless it’s warranted. I mean, I want my younger colleagues to take leadership. I’m tired of some of these things, you know, more power to them. I want to help them do it. I just don’t want experience and the more mature worker voice to just be excluded just for ageist reasons.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So you would advise asserting yourself appropriately. Don’t —

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yeah, asserting yourself appropriately and have good things to contribute. I do think there’s also a funny kind of a slippery slope. People say don’t say, Well when we did this then, and, 40 years ago, and you know, don’t drag up the old history lesson when you’re presenting an idea. But I do feel so often I can frame something in a historical perspective. Like, We tried that, you know, a handful of years ago and this is what worked and this is what didn’t work. But just be careful that you’re not the one who always starts with a long story from how we used to do it.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I want to go back to what you said about people asking you about when you’re going to retire. How do you respond to that question?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Well, very honestly because I have been thinking about it. I’ve always said that I would work till I’m 70 and then I’d start some sort of a step down plan. So I say that to people. Because all the colleagues around me are thinking about it and talking about it, and I don’t think people are trying to be mean or imply that I should be. I think they’re generally curious because it’s such a kind of normal thing that’s expected, you know, of people in their mid-sixties — it’s certainly changing. But next time I think I’m going to ask the person, tell them my answer, then say, I’m wondering why you asked that? What are you thinking? Or what are you thinking about me? See if I can discover what people are thinking when they ask me that question.

AMY GALLO: Well, and it might force them to reflect on why, right? Because this is often implicit bias. It might encourage them to reflect on what caused you to ask that question.

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Right, right, yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So if you sense, you as an older woman in the workforce, that you’re not getting the same kind of professional development opportunities as your younger colleagues, how do you bring that up with your boss or with HR?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Well, I don’t know about you guys, but we have annual reviews that include our self-perceptions and include our desires for what we need to improve and how we might do it. So I would make sure that I had a very well developed and articulated plan for myself for professional developments with real concrete things that I could do. You know, don’t leave it to anybody’s imagination, but to say, here’s what I need and here’s how I can get it done.

AMY GALLO: And how do you, if you are a manager, how do you make sure that you’re not overlooking your older workers in the ways that we’ve talked about? What can you be on the watchout for that, whether this implicit bias is coming up or not.

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Right. What advice to give except for just to be aware, be aware that we do it so naturally. And with so much permission, you know, in our society to be ageist. So, I guess it just comes down to self-awareness, but building it into different types of development programs for managers and supervisors.

AMY GALLO: I mean, one of the things that strikes me is that much of the implicit bias toward older workers can often be confused with empathy. That you’re trying to think about, well, this person must want to spend time with their grandchildren, or they must be tired, or they’re — and I think one tactic for a manager might also be to just watch out for how, when those protectivist attitudes come into play, are you really doing right by your older workers if you’re just so concerned about them?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yeah. I love that point. Two things. One, we’re very paternalistic. In fact, there’s a thing called compassionate ageism, which is, you know —

[LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: You just know what that is without even having to explain it.

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yeah, yeah. Right, right. And it’s very paternalistic. I need to protect, I need to relieve, to take care of, support, because, you know, most people think all older adults need help. So I think a question we can always ask ourselves and our employees, you know, what does age have to do with this? You know, generally the answer is not a lot. Because we think age means someone can’t do something or they must not want to do something. But individual motivation and preference and capability and function, all of those things are not about age necessarily.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. We’ve talked a lot about the challenges. I just want to make sure we spend just a few minutes talking about the benefits. What are the benefits for older workers as they, you know, especially people who are working, you know, past age 65, for example?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yeah. Oh, there’s so many. I mean, number one, we have to work longer because we don’t have the savings that we need to live so long after we stop working. So, you know, there’s pressure to keep working because we have to, but because we want to, and we know that working in general produces health for people. Cognitive health, social health, physical health, those things are good. Now that’s not true for all workers. It depends on your job. You know, being in a real heavy duty, physical hard work, isn’t necessarily good. But when people have the social connections and the cognitive engagement, we can certainly show that that helps people maintain and improve their health.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Are there benefits in having all of that experience from having been around the block, sort of knowing how things go that accrue as you get older?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yes. The maturity, I think that it allows people to have a different perspective, more of a long run kind of a perspective that they can find the positive and withstand the negative a little bit more since they’ve been around the block.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So you might say that that older workers, older women in the workforce are more resilient?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I think so. They are by definition, you know, that they’ve been around the block and are still there. So there’s a certain resiliency, a certain survivorship, right, to these folks. And then there’s also the experiences taught people how to, I’m going to say, you know, since we’re using these phrases, roll with the punches, a little bit more. So in general, older people are able to roll with the punches a little bit better.

AMY GALLO: So as a 45-year-old, I’d love to know what you think I should be anticipating, thinking about now as I set myself up for this later aspect of my career. What do I need to know going into my fifties, sixties and hopefully my seventies?

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Yeah, I was looking at something, at some advice to older workers in some writing the other day. And it said, you know, we, my generation, particularly — and maybe it’s not too different with your generation — we were used to long careers with companies. And so when that ends, we have less of a, I did this and I’ve done this and I’ve done this across different types of organizations and different types of skills. So this piece of advice that I think is very hard advice was, you know, to have some alternative kind of skills and knowledge and potential careers. You know, that’s hard. So I’m not sure that that would be easy for me to advise you. But they were saying we need to have more options available for working. So we need to keep our skills and connections diverse. I think that’s a hard piece of advice but it does sound right.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I agree. And I think it’s good advice. I mean I think we talk a lot about side-gigs and having other interests, and non-paying careers. And I think that all of those could come to bear in the way you’re talking about. Nancy, thank you so much for talking with us today.

NANCY MORROW-HOWELL: Oh, I’ve enjoyed it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Hey Amy, who’s here in the studio with us?

AMY GALLO: Well, not Nicole because she is on vacation, but in Nicole’s seat is Maureen Hoch, who is the editor of HBR.org and the supervising editor of the show. She listened in to our interview with Nancy, and she’s going to talk with us about what we heard and what we think about this issue. Maureen, thanks so much for joining us.

MAUREEN HOCH: Hello, Amys. It’s really nice to be here.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Hello singular Maureen. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: The only Maureen. [LAUGHTER] Let’s talk about our conversation with Nancy. Amy, when she says the older worker is 55 or older, that includes you, how did you feel about that?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, you didn’t hear me sniffing and shedding a tear? You know, the thing about this whole topic for me is that I’m 59 — you notice that I had to pause to say it — but I feel like I’m at the top of my game. So to hear that 55 is considered an older worker and to understand how freighted that expression is was kind of painful for me, I’ll be honest with you.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I mean, did you anticipate, like, even in your forties, I mean — Maureen, we’re both in our mid-forties — like, did you anticipate that you would feel at the top of your game at the age you’re at?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I wasn’t sure what to anticipate and honestly, you know, I remember each landmark birthday I would sort of do a little mini assessment of where I was and ask — you know, it wasn’t a formal thing, but you know, I didn’t know where I wanted to be at any given age, but I knew for example, that I wanted to hit a certain position. I wanted to be a senior editor by the time I was 40, or I wanted to oversee a section by the time I was 45. But I would know that from the vantage point of being 39 or 44, you know. If you feel yourself slipping behind your cohort, you start to focus on stuff like that. But I’m not sure if I felt that I had, you know, lapped my cohort, I would have been thinking like that. You know?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I have a good friend who turned 50 recently and I asked her, I was like, Well, what is it like? She’s like, It’s great, you start shedding your goals. At first, I sort of gasped when she said that, and then later I was thinking about it, and I’m like, That sounds awesome. Can I get rid of some of my goals?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, it’s wonderful. You know, what you realize is that a lot of those goals are meaningless.

AMY GALLO: Right.

MAUREEN HOCH: It’s interesting how we assign values though to certain ages. Amy G. and I went to hear a case over at Harvard Business School a couple of weeks ago. It was about recruiting new talent, and the professor cited some study that showed you’re young until you’re 38 and then at 58 — I wrote down 38, young, 58, you’re done. You know that like something about the age of 58 like you are suddenly past the point that you can be considered even close to be considered young. But it’s such a strange idea to me because so much of this is like your attitude toward it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Totally.

MAUREEN HOCH: I mean it’s not — your age is one part of it and it is a big part of what you show to other people in terms of what they assume about you, but that also pretends like we don’t have any control over our performance during that time. That doesn’t seem right to me.

AMY BERNSTEIN: No, I don’t think so.

AMY GALLO: Well and I think this idea that what you’re talking about Amy B., about at a certain age you are going to achieve X and at the next age you are going to achieve Y. That to me feels like almost a young person’s view of how of it happens. And I think even when you’re 38 or younger that you think I’m going to achieve these things — I’m going to have a kid by a certain time or I’m going to, like you said, be a senior editor by a certain time, or manage X number of people by a certain time. I think you’re right, the older you get, you’re sort of like, Eh, do I care so much?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well also those milestones seem so meaningful when you don’t understand them. But when you get a little closer to them you really see that there’s so much more. And the thing that we didn’t get into, but it’s emphatically true, is that when you hit a certain stage of your life, you lose a lot of your fear and you lose a lot of the inhibitions that come with that fear. And that is the most liberating thing I can imagine. And I wouldn’t go back to my forties for anything. I have loved my fifties, and I’m so looking forward to my sixties because it’s just getting better. It just feels a lot better to me being me now than it did 10 years ago.

MAUREEN HOCH: Well, we published research on this, about the U-curve of happiness in the context of midlife crises and how people deal with them at work, that in your twenties you don’t know what you don’t know so you’re feeling very happy because you think I’m going to do all these things, just like you described Amy B. Unfortunately for Amy G. and I, it bottoms out in your mid-forties. It’s like a time of your life where you are letting go of some of those expectations. But I feel like I am in my mid-forties much more comfortable with myself than I have been any other time.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And it gets better Maureen.

MAUREEN HOCH: And then it gets better. And then the U picks up, and the fifties, like you really start to regain a lot of that happiness you had in your twenties.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, 40 was was really tough. You know, I think it was a time of understanding all of my kind of inchoate life goals that they were all so empty and they weren’t making me happy when I was getting there. That’s a great moment, for me it was a great moment just to sort of say, No, I’ve go to rewrite this all. This is not working. I’ve got to refigure all of this.

AMY GALLO: So, and you’re painting a very hopeful picture Amy B., which I love, but I want to also talk about all the negatives that Nancy pointed out, the being invisible, the being overlooked for things, being assumed you’re out of touch. Does that ring true for you?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, totally, totally. I mean, one thing you learn as you get older is that if you want something, you’ve got to ask for it.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I mean, that’s good advice at any age.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Absolutely.

AMY GALLO: Why is it more important when you’re older though?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Because I think the opportunities tend not to come your way as fast if you’re an older woman.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I’m sure it’s true if you’re an older man as well, but some of what Nancy was saying suggested that a lot of people assume that as people, as their colleagues get older, that they don’t want to continue to learn and grow. And so you have to communicate somehow that you want that opportunity to develop. You want to go to that conference, whatever it is. And asking for it is the way you communicate that.

AMY GALLO: Yup. That question about are you ready to retire, are you going to retire? I remember my mom — my mom retired at 72 last year and she, I think for the past 10 years said she got asked that question on a weekly basis and it drove her crazy.

AMY BERNSTEIN: How did she deal with it?

AMY GALLO: Well, I mean, I think partly she dealt with it by knocking it out of the park in her field and just tried to show, I am still at the top of my game. I am still going to have wins. You are not putting me out to pasture as much as you may try. And really saying, I think her response, I’ve been sure she had different responses at different times, but I heard her say, I’ll retire when I’m ready.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Good for her.

MAUREEN HOCH: Right.

AMY GALLO: And to really show she was in control. Because I think she felt pressure to leave. And you know, she owned her own business, she had people who were younger than her who were eventually going to take over and have now taken over. And I think she felt like people were trying to push her out the door.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh God. What an awful feeling that must have been.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, and I don’t know how you, I don’t know how you deal with that, especially this idea of being overlooked or invisible. But how do you make yourself visible? And maybe that’s not even the answer. Maybe the answer isn’t to be more visible. Maybe the answer is to accept that people see you as invisible and you’re still going to succeed. You’re still going do what you’re going to do.

MAUREEN HOCH: Well, I think it’s what Nancy said about you do have to put effort into staying on top of your game. You know, I mean, this is something that I think about in the context of working in digital media, where I have worked for many years. And I worry about this a lot, that I’ve always been part of the team that’s the young web team that’s sort of coming in to be the rabble rousers and like shake up the establishment. So like at what point do I become part of that establishment, or at what point do I seem to lose the air of someone who can manage that kind of work. And so to do that, I really did believe and agree with what Nancy said that you have to put work into staying on top of that. And some of that is, we’ve written about spending time with people that are different from you. I like the idea of age as a form of cognitive diversity. I think women especially make a mistake when they say, Oh well that’s for the young people and I can’t possibly understand that you young people. No, you know, like that’s, I don’t accept that. And I think there are ways for you to stay on top of what you’re doing that will keep you current and keep you fresh. But it’s not like those are easy things to do. You have to put effort into it.

AMY GALLO: So how do you do that?

MAUREEN HOCH: I mean I use many different strategies for that. Some of it is definitely, you know, hiring people who are, who bring some of that to the table. I use a very elaborate system of Twitter feeds and newsletters and also just talking to people. I think you really have to, you have to be naturally interested in it though. If all of that totally felt like work to me, I think it would be much harder to do. And I think it’s something that I’m passionate about and that helps a lot, you know.

AMY BERNSTEIN: One thing I do — now, I’m not, I’m not on the cutting edge of your world, your digital world, your young person’s digital world — but one thing I do is when I hear a reference to something I don’t know, I always write it down and look it up, or I ask in the moment.

MAUREEN HOCH: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, I’m not ashamed of not knowing, but I do think that, you know, once you give up on that, once you’ve lost your curiosity, the game’s over.

MAUREEN HOCH: You have to stay curious about it. And you have to also believe in yourself that this can be part of your world, that it’s not somebody else’s world. And that’s where I think being able to talk about age, the benefit of experience is something that I think is hard for us to talk about sometimes. Like it can, as a young person, maybe you sort of eye-roll at someone saying, I have more experience at this than you do. But the fact of the matter is that experience is then what makes you so valuable as someone to be a mentor, or to give advice, or to just help guide the people on your team. You know it’s, I wish that we had a different word for it sometimes.

AMY BERNSTEIN: What do you, OK, I have to ask, “OK Boomer.”

AMY GALLO: Yes, let’s discuss that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Let’s talk about OK Boomer.

AMY GALLO: Wait, can we just pause for a moment? Maureen jokingly said “OK Boomer” to me on Slack the other day —.

MAUREEN HOCH: I did, I did.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I was like, I feel like she’s outing us as older people.

AMY BERNSTEIN: OK, but you’re not a boomer.

MAUREEN HOCH: We’re not boomers.

AMY GALLO: I know, I know. But don’t you feel like it’s a way to say “you’re old.” Like, it doesn’t matter if you’re a boomer or not. It’s just a way to say you’re out of touch.

MAUREEN HOCH: Yeah. You don’t get it — that’s what I hear.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s what it is.

MAUREEN HOCH: That’s what I hear with OK Boomer. Like, Oh, you’re just so involved with yourself that you can’t possibly —

AMY BERNSTEIN: I find it so dismissive.

AMY GALLO: There is something that’s dismissive about it. And yet, there’s also, for me on sort of the cusp of becoming an older worker, there’s part of me that’s like, what can I learn from this?

AMY BERNSTEIN: You have ten years.

AMY GALLO: I know, but it feels like the cut-off, it really does.

AMY BERNSTEIN: OK, OK, a decade-long cut-off. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: But to me it’s a warning of don’t become out of touch.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, totally.

MAUREEN HOCH: That’s true.

AMY GALLO: Rather than it feeling dismissive, I’m thinking, OK, how do I avoid that being something someone wants to say about me?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, and on the other hand, have you ever been around someone who’s trying to be hip? You know, someone who’s just trying to talk to the kids in the kids lingo and all that. I mean, it just — I was reading, did you guys see that article that published recently about “OK” versus “kk”?

AMY GALLO: Yes. [LAUGHTER]

AMY BERNSTEIN: And that like “OK!” with an exclamation point is OK, but a simple “OK” without an exclamation point is like stamping your foot.

AMY GALLO: Yup.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And “kk” is what you’re supposed to say. And if you ever get a text from me, either of you that says “kk” — [LAUGHTER] — the next question ought to be, When are you retiring? Because that is just never going to come out of my mouth or off my fingertip.

AMY GALLO: So I love this because this gets to the question of how much should we be talking about age? Like how much should we be pointing out that you will never write “kk” right? Or if someone writes that to you, do you write back, Oh, I would, you know, how do you —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well someone writes “kk” to me, I know what they’re talking about, but I’m still going to say, “OK.” [LAUGHTER]

MAUREEN HOCH: Right.

AMY GALLO: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean that’s fine. I guess, you know, we’ve always worshiped youth. That’s just, that’s just the human condition. But you can make a decision on your own not to be, you know, that icky person.

AMY GALLO: So this feels like an important question for me maybe because I have a 12-year-old, and I’m trying to figure out how not to be the cool mom who’d like, Oh I get TikTok, I watch it, you know. And I don’t want to be that at work either. You know Nicole’s not here, but Nicole knows that sometimes I’ll go, Can you please explain how Snapchat works? I don’t get it right. And she’s so generous and helping —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Does she have to stifle a giggle?

AMY GALLO: She smiles. She definitely smiles.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, inside she’s roaring with laughter.

AMY GALLO: But so how do you navigate that of being, acknowledging that you are somewhat out of touch and yet not sort of putting yourself in that corner of I’m going to be dismissed, or I’m so old, or you know how, how do you navigate that?

AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re looking at me.

AMY GALLO: I’m looking at, well I mean here’s, let me rephrase it. Do you mention your age or your experience or your maturity at work intentionally or do you leave it out unintentionally?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Do I bring it up a lot?

AMY GALLO: I’ve never heard you bring it up.

MAUREEN HOCH: No.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean I am, look at me, right? No one’s going to think I’m 24 years old. Right?

MAUREEN HOCH: But Amy Bernstein, I’ve heard you do this well in meetings when sometimes we’ll be talking about something and you’ll say, let’s not forget what’s important here. It’s the idea or it’s the, you know, you have a way of guiding people back to what’s important.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s my job though. Right?

MAUREEN HOCH: Right, but that’s part of, I think what you bring to that without having to be like, kk, let’s snap that, you know, to the TikTok. [LAUGHTER].

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, let’s snap that — [LAUGHTER]. I’ll Slack you on that later. Do you Slack on or you Slack it? Is it transitive or intransitive?

MAUREEN HOCH: Hard to say. Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Questions you should never ask, right?

AMY GALLO: But you also don’t say, In my X number of years in publishing, what I’ve found is important is —

MAUREEN HOCH: You don’t do that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, so that kind of statement is always born of insecurity. I have never heard anyone say it in a way that didn’t make me cringe.

AMY GALLO: Right.

MAUREEN HOCH: I think it’s more being confident about what you know and what you’re bringing. You don’t have to know like all of those ins and outs to be a good leader of that project or that team or what have you.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And it’s just as important to know what you don’t know so that you can turn to someone and say, OK, is this appropriate for Snapchat?

MAUREEN HOCH: Exactly. And trusting those people. I mean, I think that is something like letting those people run with it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, totally.

AMY GALLO: I’m sensing a theme here of just having confidence in your experience and confidence in your place in the organization or in life. Because I mean, that’s what we were talking about earlier of, you know, just feeling comfortable in your own skin. And that’s what we’re talking about here is that there’s no need to prove, there’s no need to prove you have decades of experience. And there’s also no need to prove that you know what “on fleek” means, although that’s like now five years old. But right, you don’t have to —see how hip I am, I even know that’s five years old. [LAUGHTER] But you don’t have to prove it. You just are comfortable where you are.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well in my nine years of being a worker in her fifties — [LAUGHTER] — I would say… Well, but I think you’re right Amy G. I think that there are enough insults that come with being a woman in your fifties that you have to grow a thicker skin and you have to figure out a way to deal with the emotional challenge of disappearing, which does happen, by — you have to respond to it in a way that’s constructive and feels right to you and that you know, that allows you to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day. And that cannot possibly include acting out of insecurity.

AMY GALLO: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Alright Amy and Maureen, let’s take a listener question, OK?

AMY GALLO: Great.

AMY BERNSTEIN: This is from Teresa and she wants to get into the conundrum of not being ready to stop climbing the ladder combined with the fear of leaving a safe job. She says that she’s 56, single, empty nest, good health — I’m reading her question right now. She plans on working until she’s 67ish. The issue is that in her current company, she’s doing the same level of work she’s been doing for the past 15 years or so with no path for promotion. She’d love to continue to grow and move into a director level position. But the prospects for changing jobs seem frightening at best and impossible at worst. She’d love to hear from us about how to continue to move, stepping a little more carefully up the ladder after 50. What are your thoughts?

AMY GALLO: I mean, based on what we heard from Nancy, I think no one would say this is easy, right? This is going to — yeah, go put yourself on the job market, you’ll face no discrimination, you’ll be considered right along with people who are much younger than you. So I think she’s right to say it’s going to be frightening, but I don’t think it’s impossible. If the opportunities at her company are truly non-existent, I don’t think she should just settle for that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Right.

AMY GALLO: And there’s no reason she can’t start applying for jobs, see what happens while she still has this job.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Because she doesn’t necessarily jeopardize her current job.

AMY GALLO: Exactly. So I think it’s worth putting herself out there to see what sort of response she’s going to get.

MAUREEN HOCH: When I look at this, the first thing I think of is she’s in a place in her life where she can do that, right? Like not everyone at 56 is in that position.

AMY GALLO: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s a really, really smart point.

MAUREEN HOCH: You know, you might have to stay in your job for you know, other reasons. But I do think that yes, it might not be easy, but hopefully she’s got a network and she’s got ways that she can start looking for the kinds of opportunities that would check those boxes for her.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Also, she can tell a good story.

MAUREEN HOCH: Absolutely.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You know, it’s how she frames this story, why she’s looking for a job after doing the same thing for 15 years. She can tell a story about needing a new challenge and feeling like she has a lot to bring to the organization. Right?

AMY GALLO: And that would show she’s got energy, right? If she’s willing to leave — and that can be part of her story — I’m willing to leave this safe job because I have so much more to give and so much more I want to do.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I love a challenge.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

MAUREEN HOCH: One of the things I’m realizing as I’ve kind of moved in my career is one of the things that’s difficult is the number of openings let’s say, or opportunities that align with your current role become fewer and fewer. So that’s, that is a challenge. Whereas, you know, maybe when I was 30 the world was my oyster, right? I could do this, that, it could be this kind of editor or that, and then suddenly as you go up in your career, you climb the ladder as she says, the number of roles that are similar to what you’re doing now start to feel like they’re fewer and far between, which is where you need to have a good network or you need to have a good sense of your industry I think in order to stay on top of that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Or figure out in what industry your skills could be put to use.

MAUREEN HOCH: In a new way.

AMY BERNSTEIN: In a new way.

MAUREEN HOCH: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I mean, sometimes changing contexts is really energizing, maybe that’s what she needs.

MAUREEN HOCH: Totally. Yes.

AMY GALLO: Yup. We got another question from a listener named Mary, who had recently read something about how women in their mid-forties and fifties are able to explore new opportunities because their children are grown and their responsibilities toward family are fewer. But she’s saying, you know, what about those of us who are in our mid-forties and fifties and still have children that we’re raising. She has two 10-year-old twins. And she asks, how do we handle the pressures of high end careers, menopause, and crazy schedules. How do we find time to be moms and leaders, all while dealing with the complexities of aging?

MAUREEN HOCH: I totally, I hear you Mary. [LAUGHTER] Because I’m 45 and I have a five-year-old. So you know, this is sort of in my future. I think first of all, you sort of need to understand how to prioritize what’s important. And I think this is something that women in particular face a really tough choice sometimes between do I want to be a great mom, or a great person at my job, or a great friend, or a great —whatever. I just think you do have to make some choices about how you’re going to spend your time. But I don’t think that means that you can’t have the career that you want because you have those other things going on. I think that’s where sometimes we get tripped up. So a lot of this does come down to things like, do you have a supportive partner or do you have support around you to help you be a parent and help you do the things you want to do for your job or for your life or other things that are just really important to you personally. I would say without that support, it’s really hard.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. And I think about our episode on maternal optimism too, and the way that, you know, being a mom can make you better at your job, working can make you a better mom. And I think it’s true also that for all the reasons we’ve talked about, older women tend to be more resilient, have a better perspective on their — those are all things that can contribute to both being a mom and to being an employee.

MAUREEN HOCH: Oh, they know how to get stuff done.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh yeah.

MAUREEN HOCH: Let’s just be clear on that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh yeah. That is, that is the open secret of management, right?

MAUREEN HOCH: Right, right, right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. There’s a woman at my gym who I talk to regularly who just had her first kid at 49. And you know, lots of people will ask her, very bluntly ask her, How old are you? And she, and she’ll tell them and she’ll say, You know, we waited for a variety of reasons, but I feel like I’m in the best place in my life to be a mom. And I just think that, you know, to acknowledge for Mary you have all of these pressures, and yet you also have all this life experience that helps you prioritize, helps you put things in perspective. That’s going to help your kids be raised in a way, by someone who knows what they want and is focused on all of these things that are important and just has sort of direction. I mean, I think there’s just positive —

AMY BERNSTEIN: And she’s a goddess of time management — she’s at the gym.

AMY GALLO: I know, I know.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Wow. We have no excuses. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: My gym friend is very impressive, I have to say. [LAUGHTER] But can we also talk about menopause for a second because that is part of Mary’s question, and I have to say that as someone who’s going through menopause, I definitely see ways in which it’s impacting my work, either, you know, up all night with hot flashes, but there’s so little advice for women out there about how to navigate this at work. And I wonder if either of you have any thoughts or advice.

MAUREEN HOCH: We actually have a couple of pieces we’re working on for HBR.org on this topic.

AMY GALLO: That’s great.

MAUREEN HOCH: And some of it about just the reality of the number of women, say between ages 45 and 55 in the workplace, going through this, you know, physical — going through this time in their lives, the change, the change —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yes, the pause.

MAUREEN HOCH: And what, you know, first, how do they advocate for themselves? But I think it’s really tricky because I personally, even if I had another health issue, say that’s, you know, related to my age, like how much do I want to disclose about that and how much do I want people to feel like it might affect my decision-making or you know —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Or just to think about you that way.

MAUREEN HOCH: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: Right.

MAUREEN HOCH: It’s not comfortable. Maybe for future generations it’s going to be much more comfortable to talk about it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, undoubtedly as more women are sitting around the conference table. I mean, you know, I have observed colleagues bursting into a sweat, and because I’ve been there, I knew exactly what it was and you know, I’ll go open the door or something. This only happened once or twice just to let in some air because a hot flash, it really feels like someone has set fire to your chair.

MAUREEN HOCH: Oh boy.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh yeah, you got a lot to look forward to.

AMY GALLO: And then you’re drenched in sweat.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Then you’re — and you’re purple.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. It’s uncomfortable to talk about now, but I think it’s become, it hopefully is becoming more common. And I’m so glad we’re going to be publishing articles about it.

MAUREEN HOCH: Yeah. I think that’s the ideal state for me that we would have a language for talking about it. Even if it’s seeking support from each other, that makes that less scary.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You know what, just having a little, just a sympathetic look makes a big difference.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Just knowing that someone else feels your heat. [LAUGHTER].

AMY GALLO: Literally and metaphorically.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Because that’s how it really shows up. I mean, the stuff where your brain gets super foggy. I don’t remember that so much. I remember the brain not slowing down stuff. Where it just was like, it was like a cacophony in my brain. And I don’t think I even knew how to talk about that.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

MAUREEN HOCH: Right.

AMY GALLO: I feel totally unprepared. And I remember even saying to my doctor, I was like, Can you just tell me what to expect? And she had a hard time answering the question.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well because it’s really, it’s idiosyncratic.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I also, I remember the part where I got, you know, everything hit me hard.
You become super sensitive, really thin-skinned, and that you need to be aware of, particularly if you manage people because you cannot yell at people because your hormones are en fuego, right? Or you can’t, you can’t overreact to every little thing. And that part can be very real.

AMY GALLO: Well and I, and yet there’s men and women show up to work, not our best selves for a variety of different reasons. In some ways we both have to realize why we might be behaving the way we are, self-awareness is important, and yet normalize the fact that, you know, you might feel like your brain is on speed because of menopause and the guy down the hall may not have slept for the past three weeks. Right? So and, you know, there’s lots of reasons we don’t show up at our, at our finest but —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, you don’t have to explain it either.

AMY GALLO: Exactly.

MAUREEN HOCH: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You can say, I’m not at my best today. Forgive me.

AMY GALLO: Yep. Alright. And I think that’s OK.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. The other thing you can do, just some advice from someone who’s been there, is if you feel like you just can’t handle the upcoming meeting, you know, you just feel like your brain isn’t working, or you cannot get control of yourself in some way — see if you can move the meeting.

MAUREEN HOCH: This is big, yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Save everyone.

MAUREEN HOCH: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: Yup. I had a hunch about what it was like, I mean, partly talking with you Amy B., about what it was like to grow older at work. And yet I feel like it’s not something I’ve spent a lot of mental space thinking about. And we’re all headed there. It’s worth spending time thinking about, whether you’re 55, 45, 25, you know, how do you want to navigate this part of your career?

MAUREEN HOCH: Yeah. I think that’s right. And maybe getting a little bit of perspective on how to approach that and not just suddenly counting down, Well, when I’m this age, I might as well just throw in the towel or something. But like knowing that there are a lot of reasons why being someone who is older in the workforce, there are a lot of benefits to that. There are a lot of ways that you can be a high performer in that time in your life, but you have, you’ll have to put some work in to do it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. And you have to constantly ask yourself if you’re framing the context.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

MAUREEN HOCH: Right, right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Because your perspective changes. And if you’re aiming for exactly the same set of goals you had when you were 25, you might be disappointing yourself.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well, and it just gives me hope that you’re looking forward to your sixties.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I am. The one tip I can give you is just try to stay fit. I cannot tell you how important it is, not just for your physical wellbeing, but for your mental wellbeing. Hit the gym, do yoga, whatever it is.

AMY GALLO: It’s yoga time.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s yoga time. Oh my God, four thirty.

AMY GALLO: Amy B. does yoga, gets up at four thirty to do yoga.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And my partner says, It’s yoga time. [LAUGHTER].

MAUREEN HOCH: Is she that chipper?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, she is.

MAUREEN HOCH: Sorry. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: But she still gets up.

MAUREEN HOCH: I know. I know. She does.

AMY GALLO: That’s impressive.

AMY BERNSTEIN: We’re sweating at six, my friend.

MAUREEN HOCH: That’s right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s our show. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo. Nicole will be back with us next week. Our editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoch, Adam Buchholz, Rob Eckhardt, Mary Dooe, Erica Truxlur, and Cori Brosnahan.