VIM Executive Coaching never sees barriers when it takes on new clients. It is our way of saying that we do not view our executive leadership clients in terms of age, let alone other biases. In fact, we abhor “screens.” We dearly value mindfulness, compassion and authenticity.
One of our newer Northern California clients, normally an effusive person, came to us recently with a rather downhearted edge to his personality. Without much of a prompt, our client blurted:
“A person I had been friendly with, recently described himself as a hipster. I asked him what he meant by the term and he told me I wouldn’t understand as I am a fossil.”
At first, we thought he was joking but he seemed much too upset at the characterization to brush it off.
“I recognize my hair has turned gray,” he said, “and I may not be up on all of the latest terminology, but I am concerned about social issues, I try to be open and to listen to what people are saying.”
We know our client has been seeking new employment, and we understand he was encountering some not-so-subtle and incidentally, not-so-legal, ageist comments from people in HR departments who should have known a lot better, but what hurt him was the characterization he was a fossil.
Of labels and meanings
The classic definition of a “hipster” by the way, can be someone who does not like mainstream culture, bashes it, then goes out of their way to set themselves apart from it. The concept, of course, is not-at-all new, nor is maintaining it for long periods tenable.
A fossil can be someone who is elderly, stuck in their ways, close-minded, someone with no future, conservative in thinking.
The problem with all labels is that they are normally unfair and untrue. A 20-year-old barista who is intractable in their thinking, who constantly critiques and judges’ others, who mows down any argument, is to us much more of a fossil than a 62-year-old sales manager who is passionate about environmental issues and who mentors under-performing students at the local high school.
The other major problem with applying labels is the blind reaction that is brought to the social interaction. At VIM Executive Coaching, we are not good at judging books (physical or virtual) by their covers. Point is, it is impossible to know anyone without interaction and responding to their sense of fair play and mindfulness.
When a person fails to respond and instead judges and reacts, it is a mark of bias. It is, in fact, quite a “fatal flaw” for an executive leader to possess.
Who are you?
We once knew an executive who judged others by their clothes. Attire, in our executive’s mind, was a true window into the souls of others. It was a highly fallacious assessment. We’ve known executive snobs who looked down at those who weren’t multi-lingual and of course, those fixated on demeaning executives who lacked Ivy-league degrees.
None of the labels had a bearing on success, but it did define those casting judgment. As to the younger person who called our client a fossil, we have no clever retorts. And as for the same person who dislikes “society” and calls himself a hipster, we must also shrug and move on to that.
Mindfulness, you see, the state of being we support, does not care for labels. It cares for authenticity. It is difficult to support inauthentic people who go through life in premature verdicts of others.
And, as for our executive, the one with the gray hair, he is happily employed with an organization who responded to his ability to listen and to appreciate that his values align with their sense of fairness.