THE MIDULTS
Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan
QDear A&E, I’ve been with my company for over 10 years but a recent corporate reshuffle has given me a new, much younger boss. I don’t think I would mind this if it wasn’t for the fact that he is one of those terribly woke millennial types who makes us meditate in meetings and share gratitude lists. Long story short: I cannot stand him – every interaction makes my blood boil and it’s beginning to affect everything. Can you help? — From Angry
ACan we just start by saying how problematic we find the expression “woke”, not least because of the way it has been co-opted by centre-right political factions to dismiss progressive movements? Who doesn’t want to be alert to social injustice? Who isn’t horrified by the inequalities and unlevel playing fields facing huge swathes of society? But, wherever you sit on the woke index, culturally it is the big divider. We are bombarded with messages from both sides ordering us to pick a side. No room for nuance or discussion or even questions. The subtext is: “You are either with us, or against us.” The woke wars.
Surely the key to any peace talks is to find the things you have in common rather than the differences. Our feeling is that you are reacting to a shift in the system… to an entire generation. You seem to be directing a lot of hostility towards one bloke who has a different way of doing things. Perhaps one way to learn to swim in these new waters might be to build a personal relationship with him so you are separating the person from the philosophy. You are assuming a lot from the meditation and the gratitude lists, and while you might find it annoying, he’s unlikely to be a deranged fanatic. In fact, some of the stuff he is doing might be useful. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Change is hard. You’ve been playing it one way for many years and now the game has changed. But don’t fall into the trap of being the grumpy one in the corner complaining about how the old way was better. Because the more you box yourself in, the more your frustration becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then you will neither contribute nor learn: “I hate him, I hate woke, I hate everything, harrumph.”
We’re not saying this stuff isn’t hard and we’re not saying he is right. But just check in. Is he really a nightmare with no experience who is going to destroy the company one communal sound bath at a time? Do you have any common ground? Listen to the bits in between the meditation edicts. Otherwise, you are the closed book who is just going to sit and rot on the shelf. Given a chance, he may respect your wisdom, your experience, your knowledge of the corporate structure, your roots. He is also under pressure to perform, after all.
This is not just happening around your boardroom table. Work isn’t what it used to be. For years there was a clear structure and skills were tangible. Work has probably changed more in the past two years than in the past 10. As we dust ourselves off from the pandemic, we cannot be sure about what will stick and what will revert.
Go and see a life coach to give all this stuff some context. It may well be that
Is he really going to destroy the company one communal sound bath at a time?
you have grown out of your role, which is frightening, but at least proactivity will allow you to control your destiny rather than just furiously fizzing. Think about who you want to be. Do you really want to be the office misery? Or could you see this as an opportunity? To harness some flexible thinking? To expand your neural pathways?
We recently interviewed Dame Helena Morrissey on our podcast I’m Absolutely Fine! and she said one of the keys to corporate success was mentoring that goes both ways, with older colleagues asking questions of younger ones as well as vice versa. How else are you going to learn about new audiences and their new ideas? Not from your irate vacuum, that’s for sure!
Good luck, Angry. This is a crossroads. You can mock the meditation and the millennialisms; or you can dive in. Go on! The water might be lovely.