An Old Lion is Still a Lion

 

I was looking through my Linkedin feed yesterday when I noticed that one of my groups had a picture of a long-forgotten childhood idol. That idol happened to be Mr. Roger Milla, who was the superstar of the Cameroonian Football team in the 1990 World Cup.

 

The 1990 World Cup, which was hosted in Italy was what you might call a “Grumpy” World Cup. The final, which was won by the Germans, was thanks to a penalty from a foul made in unfortunate circumstances. The Argentinians, who had won the previous World Cup in 1986 were a shadow of their former selves but thanks to the genius of Diego Maradona made it to the finals (I lived in England at the time and the English had not forgiven Maradona for the “Hand of Good” in the 1986 World Cup). The English lost a nail bitter to arch rivals Germany and Paul Gascoigne’s tears made headlines. My Brazilian friends left that World Cup stunned when Brazil was booted out of the second round by a surprise goal set up by Maradona, despite dominating most of the game.

There was, however, one bright spot for everyone from that World Cup. That was the presences of the Cameroonian National Team, lead by Mr. Milla. The Cameroon sensation started in the opening game when they beat Argentina, then the defending champions and then went onto make history as the first African nation to reach the quarter-finals. They were such a sensation that they became the default team to support when one’s national team wasn’t playing and if your nation didn’t have a team in the World Cup back then, Cameron became your default national team. This was a team that brought joy to everyone and even my English friends had to admit that they were damn lucky to beat them in the quarter-finals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynQ41HZdRf8

Mr. Milla was an integral part of that team. When he came onto the pitch, the team came to life and more importantly, he was the man who got them the vital goals needed to bring them into the next round. All of us remembered his celebratory dace after each goal scored:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrtWQSqD3A0

What makes Mr. Milla’s achievements so incredible was the fact that he was 38 in the 1990 World Cup. Given that most top-class players are in their twenties, Mr. Milla was officially a geriatric by the standards of top-class international football. Yet, despite his age, Mr. Milla proved that he still had what it took to be a sensation on the international stage. Furthermore, it didn’t stop there for Mr. Milla. While Cameroon wasn’t quite the sensation it was in the 1994 World Cup, Mr. Milla was still able to score goals and became the oldest person to score in the 1994 World Cup.

I bring up Mr. Milla because his sudden stardom on the international stage at the age when most professional footballers are moving towards retirement because I come from a country that doesn’t exactly have a great record when it comes to looking after old folks. Go to any prominent location in Singapore and you’ll inevitably see a group of old folks trying to flog you tissue paper so that they have enough to buy a cup of coffee. All the jobs that other people associate with as being “student labour,” are inevitably filled by grandpa and grandma.

What’s particularly noticeable is in the job market. Everyone frets about the lack of babies and how we need to create opportunities for the young. Yet, nobody seems to notice that the ever-increasing number of “old” people.

This is particularly noticeable when it comes to employment. Talk to enough employers about the state of their business and you’ll find that they all have one common complaint – namely the fact that they cannot find people willing to work for them. However, if you happen to be over 45, you’ll find that nobody will touch you with a barge pole. As an “over-45” I’ve had the experience of replying to “urgent” job ads and being told that they didn’t need people and then they’d repost the ad again. As one former senior army officer said “You got to do things before 45 because people over 45 are perceived as lacking energy.”

I’m not denying that young people bring things to the table but that doesn’t mean that people over 40 are nothing more than a walking collection of health problems. At the age of 35, I realised I was never going to play top class international football like Mr. Milla nor was I about to become a top-level boxer like Mr. George Foreman. However, based on the blood pressure reading I took yesterday, I am healthier at 48 than I was at 35, when the army medical officer freaked at the state of my blood pressure.

 

 While the over 35s may not put up with everything, we have things to offer and businesses and employers should look at how to utilise the over 35s. We may not be as pretty as those under 35 but we come with skills that we’ve learnt through trial and error. I take the firm I’m at, which hired a 60-year-old with lots of experience in managing accounts. Our accounting department has seen and incredible rise in productivity. How did this happen? The answer is simple, we had someone who knew accounting like the back of his hand. We didn’t need to train him.

Let’s not get caught up in self-imposed beliefs about people of a certain age. Instead, we need to look at what we can extract from this group. Just look this observation from Ogilvy & Mather:

 

 Mr. Milla and Mr. Foreman have shown that people over 35 still have plenty left in the tank. We should be thinking about how to utilise them instead of making them redundant. Instead of trying to solve the “Aging Society,” let’s look at how we can utilise the opportunities.