On a warm June evening in Manchester, three men in their fifties walked onto a stage in front of 60,000 people.
For the next two hours, the crowd sang, laughed, smiled, danced, and for some, probably shed a few tears too.
The band was Take That.
For those of us who grew up in the UK in the 1990s and were Take That fans, they were part of the soundtrack to our lives. Back then there were five members. Today there are three. The years have passed. Life has happened. Time has done what time always does.
Yet 60,000 people still turned up.
As I watched the show, it struck me there was a lesson in it for all of us.
The performance was not the same as it would have been thirty years ago.
Nor should it be.
They have adapted.
The songs people love were still there. The dancing was still there too, albeit not quite as polished as it once was.
What I loved most was their honesty. They were completely comfortable with who they are today and what they could, and could not, do.
At one point, Mark was riding around on a unicycle. Gary was on a tricycle, openly joking about the fact that he was never going to master the unicycle. He probably would not have managed it thirty years ago either!
Nobody cared that it was not perfect.
In fact, I think the audience loved them more for it.
There was no pretending to be twenty five.
There was no trying to recreate the past.
There was simply an acceptance of who they are today, combined with a determination to keep doing what they love.
What also struck me was something Gary asked the audience.
“How many of you are seeing Take That for the first time?”
To my surprise, thousands of hands went up.
Of course, there were plenty of people who had been following the band for years, but there were also people experiencing their first Take That concert.
That felt important.
It is one thing to keep people connected to you for thirty years. It is another to keep attracting new people along the way.
Whether it is a band, a business, or a leader, that connection only continues when you evolve whilst staying true to the values that made people connect with you in the first place.
Watching the concert made me think about how often age appears in conversations about careers and employment. People worry they are too young, do not have enough experience, or have reached a point where others see them as too old.
Those concerns are real.
I speak to candidates who worry they are too inexperienced to be taken seriously. I also speak to people in their fifties and sixties who worry they are becoming invisible in the job market.
One thing I have learnt after three decades in recruitment is that people adapt.
Experience allows people to contribute differently as their careers develop. Skills evolve. Confidence grows. Perspectives change. People continue to find new ways to add value.
What also struck me about the concert was why people were there in the first place.
It was not simply about the music.
It was about the experience, the connection, and how the music made people feel.
People remember how you make them feel.
Businesses are no different.
When organisations build cultures based on trust, respect, consistency, and shared values, people stay connected. Employees stay connected. Customers stay connected.
The relationship becomes about far more than age.
The concert was filmed by Amazon and I watched part of the replay afterwards. It was good, but it was nothing compared to being there. It reminded me that whilst technology helps us connect, some experiences can only really be felt in person. The goosebumps happened in the stadium, not on the television.
Perhaps that is why 60,000 people turned up to watch three men in their fifties perform songs they first heard thirty years ago.
The next time you catch yourself thinking someone is too young or too old, pause for a moment.
The better question is not how old they are.
It is whether they can still learn, adapt, contribute, and connect with people.
If the answer is yes, then perhaps age matters far less than we sometimes think.
Ruth
