Why we are the ones who lose when we discriminate against young or older people

We've all heard reasons for not hiring young people. Comments like: “They won't stay,” or “Experience counts for more” or “They’re always late”.

These are generalizations, and ugly ones, too. I’ve made some of them in the past. Today, I try not to.

I know that the trying bit can be time-consuming. It means I must listen to each individual I encounter, or whom I’m approaching for some kind of service. Is it so bad? No. Like anything worth doing, it takes root fairly quickly, and the benefits are worthwhile.

When some governments implemented laws against ageism, they were to protect older people against forced retirement or discriminatory treatment based on age. Today, we include age discrimination against young people as one of our ‘ism’ problems in our multi-generational workforce and world of consulting.

Young and accomplished

Recently, I interviewed a young entrepreneur for my Communicate Influence podcast. Marc Gerburti has accomplished more than some of us will in our entire lives. Regardless, he has his critics, and some love to pick on the fact that he’s in his early 20s.

Marc view is that: “When I talk about business, and I’m telling you how to get clients, this is how you get blog traffic, this is how you build a brand, people are looking at [someone young] and saying ‘You don’t know anything, you’re young. Stop telling us about the stuff that you don’t know’.

“I don’t feel like waiting until I get 10 years of business experience, 20 or 30 years before starting a Youtube channel of the podcast, things like that,” he continues. “The way that you get the experience is that you actually do it. This isn’t theory.

“Some people will say ‘I have 20 years of experience’. For some people that’s 20 years of legit business experience. For other people it’s repeating year one 20 times. I don’t really care how many years of experience you have in something. 

“What I care about and what the market cares about is results. Do you want advice fro someone who’s been in radio and podcasting 30 years, but it’s not their full-time thing? Or do you want advice from the person who’s done it full-time and wants to help people?”

Some of the anti-ageist sentiment is mean-spirited. One comment on Reddit put down Marc’s Youtube channels with a snide “He’s only got this many views.” 

With everything in life, there’s a starting point. You begin, work, and grow. Or you fail. And that’s good. Because if you’re smart you learned something from that experience. If we want to learn, we should follow successful people who share both failures and successes - because that's how they figured out what does does actually work. 

Why say no to opportunity?

And this is the second reason why ageism is something we should dismiss once and for all. We cut ourselves off from knowledge and experience when we close our minds to young -and older - people. 

But do we really need reasons to say no to ageism? Life is about meaningful human connections. Closing your mind to someone young or old means you may be saying goodbye to the person who could turn things around in your organization, make a difference on your sports team, or evolve into one of the best mentors or friendships you could ever ask for.