How far should you go to connect with an audience?

 

Should you try to be something you’re not to connect with other people?

Recently, I gave a talk to incoming graduate student editors of a policy journal. The side topic of when I began writing “The Right Thing” column arose. When I canvassed the group about how many of them were born after the column started running in 1998, more than half rose their hands.

On the walk home, I calculated that working with someone like me who graduated from college in 1978 would have been like me working with someone who had graduated from college in 1935 when I was their age. Back then, I would have thought anyone who graduated from college in 1935 was ancient.

I am now that ancient guy.

The policy journal editors are among the students I try to teach. Doing teaching well can be hard and time-consuming work. But working with students continues to bring joy especially when they seem to get some value from what I am trying to teach.

But as the gap in years between me and most of the students continues to grow, it has never crossed my mind to try to act younger than I am. For one thing, I’ve never been particularly hip. For another, I’m not sure pretending to use words I usually don’t or referencing things just to seem au courant adds much value to the work we’re trying to do. It also never crossed my mind to dress younger than I do. My completely white hair and beard are a giveaway. Dying my hair or buying some of that formula advertised on television to get rid of the bags under my eyes wouldn’t improve my ability to teach.

A thought does, however, cross my mind from time to time: Should I do more to try to bridge that inevitable growing age gap?

I was reassured last January when a student came up to me during break and said she was impressed that I never sat down when I teach an all-day course. She followed that she was particularly impressed given how old I am.

One of my favorite songs is Bobby Cole’s “I’m Growing Old,” a recognition of aging but also the wisdom that accompanies it. Cole was in his mid-40s when he wrote the song, the age of some of my older current graduate students.

Rather than trying to appear to be younger or more with it, the right thing for me, and I suspect many others, is to focus on the work. A former professor of mine once told me that when he stopped caring about the things his students cared about, he knew it was time to stop teaching. Because many of my students do public service work, we continue to care about similar things. When the work no longer sparks joy, however, and I no longer seem to be able to achieve whatever goals I set out for a course, that’s when it’s likely time to stop.

When we try to be something we’re not to please or connect with others, I’m not sure there’s real value. Instead, it seems a distraction from simply trying to do good work.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

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