Been getting some confusing counsel lately, about my writing.
I’m at a moment in my career—I’m 57 and have been watching the communication business for 34 years (and both my parents were professional communicators)—when I’m pretty sure of my judgement about a lot of things. Perhaps I haven’t seen everything over these decades. But I’ve seen most things, like a hundred times.
Known for most of my career as a relatively acerbic commentator in the comparatively milquetoasty communication business—in my twenties, I was dubbed “the world’s youngest curmudgeon”—I find I’m running especially low on patience in recent years, with sharpers claiming to square circles, with deck-chair rearrangers, with graspers of the obvious and with platitudypuses of all types. I literally don’t have time, as I suggested last week, to play tiddlywinks with your ego.
But just when I’m feeling like shifting into a late-career fifth gear, people whose judgment I trust are telling me I need to tone it down in some cases, or maybe not say it at all. Why? I don’t know for sure. Nor do I know why I am suddenly running things by people in the first place. In my rumination, I’ve considered this little section from my own 2021 book, An Effort to Understand:
I once had a conversation with a middle-aged seventh-grade English teacher who told me he was in the process of taking on his third entirely separate persona at the school.
When he was in his twenties and early thirties, the students regarded him as a big brother, with whom they cooperated out of admiration.
Then one day in his mid-30s, he yelled at a class and saw to his surprise that they were terrified. “I realized they related to me as their father now,” he said.
And he had to modify his approach accordingly. And through his forties and early fifties he behaved as a father.
Then one day—and this had happened not long before he and I had this conversation—the teacher yelled at a class in his thunderous Dad voice, and detected pity on their faces. “Uh oh,” was how he read their look. “Gramps is losing it.” And so he knew he had to establish a wholly new basis of influence—an elder’s role.
The decades don’t quite align, but is it possible that by my reputation and longevity I’ve unwittingly graduated in some people’s minds from brother to father in this business, and every punch I throw looks like punching down? (And hitting the kids!?) Or—worse?—are my consiglieri afraid that someone could interpret my lively critiques as Gramps, losing it?
Gotta consider that, gotta consider it. Once you go Gramps, it’s hard to go back. Very early in my career, I heard PR pioneer Scott Cutlip, then around 80, lament with a chuckle during the acceptance of some lifetime achievement award that he had once been lauded as “the angry young man of public relations,” but that somewhere along the line and without noticing, he’d become “the grumpy old man of public relations.”
Still, though: Some offenses in and around our business deserve yelling (and some even a spanking), and I feel more clear than ever about which offenses those are, and more competent than ever to call them out. And I suppose I could be convinced to leave the yelling to other, younger teachers. Except, I don’t see those corrective critical thinkers coming up, in this world of LinkedIn logrolling. Do you?
At the same time, I’ve got a communicator correspondent who’s always telling me he wishes he could bring himself to pop off as frequently and irascibly as I do. Just the other day, he lamented, “I don’t know why, but I still have more fucks to give than you.”
I care just as much about how I’m perceived as anybody else. It’s just that, my whole career, I’ve seen my role as a critic (as well as a convener). For me, the risk has always been being seen failing to call out a bad idea or a bit of hypocrisy or a phony dealer in false hope.
But maybe—maybe—I need to find a softer tone of voice. The very idea of which totally pisses me off.
POSTSCRIPT:
A communication manager responds:
I loved your piece about changing your communication style as you age. I almost said something in the comments, but thought better of it for all the reasons you described.
I remember being yelled at by editors in newsrooms and, after growing in skill and confidence, fearlessly yelling back. Was it healthy? Probably not. But we were able to say what we needed to say and help each other not look like assholes or get sued.
Now that I am a 53-year-old woman, I find that no one wants to hear it from me. If I speak up, I have to couch everything in corporate cushioning so I don’t look like a big meanie. Like you, I have grown more comfortable in my professional judgment of things, because you just know some shit after working on something for 25 years.
At first, I was told to back up my opinions with data, so I did, and whaddayaknow? The data, does, in fact, back me up. But my younger colleagues still do not want to hear it. I get labeled as difficult and negative by some people, but a joy to work with by others who, like me, have to actually get shit done.
I have watched my younger colleagues get promoted, and now some of them are my “leaders.” If I don’t just nod and blow sunshine up their asses, I’m told I need to work on being more collaborative and strategic. So my big change in communication style in this phase of my professional life is one of survival: Smile more, congratulate everyone on all their successes, and keep my mouth shut about terrible ideas.
I’m not at all bitter.
When I finished clapping at my desk, I replied that I thought this issue of needing to have to recalibrate one’s tone as one ages is worse, and probably much worse, for women. Which brought forth another blast from my correspondent:
I suspect you’re right about it being much worse for women. By this age, we have lived through being told many contradictory messages about getting ahead: Be hot, be assertive, be bold, be positive, be empathetic, be collaborative, be a good listener, be supportive, get a master’s degree. Now I’m just getting: Be quiet, you irrelevant crone.
And my patience is nonexistent, but these are supposed to be my biggest earning years, so I have to put up with it because the market is terrifying. Even my therapist said she left her corporate job and never was able to earn as much again. So now she’s stuck listening to people like me complain about work all day.
If I’m ever in a position of power, I’m only going to hire hilarious bitches over 40.
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