Angela Mollard: When generations engage with curiosity rather contempt, teams get stronger
Let’s hope The Devil Wears Prada 2 gives us a glimpse of what power looks like when it’s shared, not wielded, writes Angela Mollard.
I can’t decide what I’m most excited about when it comes to The Devil Wears Prada sequel.
Will Meryl Streep still be a magazine maven with pursed lips and passive-aggressive coat-tossing? And will Emily Blunt’s character have evolved from a neurotic ingenue with a fear of carbohydrates? I’m also thrilled to see our own lovely Patrick Brammall, hitting the big time after Colin From Accounts, will star as Anne Hathaway’s new love interest.
Oh and the clothes. A sneak peek suggests Streep’s Miranda Priestly, modelled on outgoing American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, is still full-on power dressing but Hathaway’s Andy Sachs is finally owning her style in denim, boho and streetwear.
The sequel, coming 20 years after the original, promises to be a ton of fun but what I’m dying to see is how they handle the workplace power dynamic this time around. Because while we have left behind the boss versus minion power imbalance – and thank goodness because it served nobody – we’ve traded it for another structural inequality which is infecting all strata of the workplace from the stock exchange to council bin collectors.
I’m talking, of course, about the growing antipathy and division between young and old. Between how it was done and how it’s now done. You can barely make your way to the water cooler without the ping of another study illuminating how much different generations resent each other.
A report last month by the Australian Human Rights Commission found nearly a quarter of HR professionals now consider workers aged 51 to 55 to be “older” while, just two years ago, only 10 per cent had that view. Meanwhile a US survey revealed that, when asked when they thought old age started, 48 per cent of Gen Z felt anyone over 40 was old.
These seismic changes in attitude have turned the modern workplace into a chaotic and toxic generational roundabout. Gen X are circling with their name badges firmly fixed and their CVs running to five pages, Gen Z are merging while making contributions on Slack, while Millennials are stuck in the middle desperately trying to indicate while everyone else ignores the rules.
To be blunt, young people are often too enamoured of their own nascent talent to embrace the value of older generations. These digital natives can operate with a dozen tabs open and invent a new dialogue in less time than it takes to mix their matcha but they have no curiosity and little patience for those who grew up in an analogue world. Meanwhile, the generation which grew up in the last century before feelings had currency, is riven with quiet indignance that Gen Z with their chutzpah and fluidity are unashamedly channelling main character syndrome.
We disparage their “quiet quitting” and insistence on work/life balance even when we know instinctively that it’s healthier than the Protestant work ethic and presenteeism we misguidedly prided ourselves on.
Frankly, if we dutifully climbed the career ladder, they casually flipped it sideways and continue to scale it any way they please.
And yet something magical and radical happens when generations respect each other, and I speak as both beneficiary and benefactor.
When The Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006, I was fresh from a decade on Fleet Street where, like Priestly, an editor could ruin your self-worth with a single eyebrow raise and colleagues would steal each other’s scoops even when they were married to each other. I had a boss who called everyone the C-word and a female editor who made a snarky remark when I wore a navy skirt suit on the same day she chose to wear a navy skirt suit.
But in the middle of that newsroom was an experienced journalist, also called Angela. She was in her late 40s, brilliant, and not the least bit threatened by an ambitious 20-something trying to make a name for herself. She gave advice warmly, celebrated my successes, commiserated when I stuffed up and regularly reminded me with collegial delight how much fun we were having.
Last year I saw her on Sky News doing royal commentary and dug around for her email. I thanked her for her encouragement nearly three decades earlier and explained how her kindness underpinned my own commitment to mentoring and uplifting younger journalists. “How lovely of you to say,” she emailed back. “You’ve made my day.”
The truth is that when generations engage with genuine curiosity rather than low-key contempt, teams get stronger. Knowledge gets passed on, reverse mentoring flourishes and new skills are adopted. Older workers, like Robert De Niro’s character in The Intern, bring calm, context and the long view. Younger ones bring originality, tech fluency and the audacity to question how things have always been done. Both are valuable; together, they’re unstoppable.
Let’s hope The Devil Wears Prada 2 gives us exactly that. Not just another parade of handbags and humiliation but a glimpse of what power looks like when it’s shared, not wielded. Because real leadership – the type that makes all of us actually want to go to work – is about learning from others. Even if they’re wearing Crocs.
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Originally published as Angela Mollard: When generations engage with curiosity rather contempt, teams get stronger
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