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Sun, May 4, 2008 10:18 EDT

Boomers Moving On: Brain Drain or Wisdom Gain?

Topic: Personal Management

Blog: Doing Business in Real Time

Current Rating: 5 Comments: 4

I see stories of an impending business brain drain as the Boomers retire. But what will really be lost? There probably isn’t a lot of technical information that will be lost as Boomers retire because much of the hardware and software they know about is being replaced over the next ten years anyway. And systems they built that do continue on have been in production for many years so they’ll run just fine for many more years (computer code does not wear out; computer code does not rust).

Technical skills are advancing and changing at a rapid rate; as in we need to constantly refresh and retool our skill sets or we become obsolete in about 3 – 4 years. This applies to all generations, therefore Boomers (I’m one myself), have no particular technical skills that are more valuable than those of any other generation. What we and older generations do have is experience (also known as “years of service”).

Since technology changes so fast, it isn’t the Boomers’ technical skills that are valuable. Instead, what Boomers (may/might/possibly could) have that would be valuable is a little of that elusive stuff called wisdom. Wisdom requires experience; it builds up over time; it means being there and doing it. Wisdom requires you to be aware of what’s happening, and remember it, and think about it, and make something out of your experience that goes beyond just you and the circumstances of your own life.

Most of us agree that technical skills alone are not enough; unless we use wisdom to apply those skills to best effect, it will all be for naught. Here’s where people who have been there and done it and learned from it are well positioned to provide value. Here’s why Boomers aren’t done yet – not by a long shot; we may move on but we won’t retire (can’t afford to anyway; who’re we kidding?).

Wisdom Could Get a Whole Lot More Accessible

The wisdom of the world has, for the last several hundred years, mainly been kept on paper in the form of text and that’s been a limiting factor on the number of people who could participate in and benefit from it. We all know there are different ways people learn and communicate; some people do respond to the written word and love to read and write, lots of other people don’t like to read and they aren’t crazy about writing and they respond better to music, or to pictures, or to movies, or to the spoken word.

And now (luckily just in time) there is this global network that can communicate wisdom in more ways than just text on paper and it reaches many more people than could ever hear the spoken word. So the role and influence of wisdom could actually expand in a big way. That’s a good thing. Because wisdom is probably our only hope for overcoming the most dire of human afflictions – the affliction of making the same mistakes over and over again and missing the same opportunities over and over again.

Let me sketch out a relevant analogy. We emerged as the creatures we are today (scientifically referred to as Homo Sapiens) when our cerebral cortex blossomed and grew over the existing structures of our animal brain. In that expansion of the cerebral cortex we awoke and became aware of ourselves. Our planet (affectionately known as Mother Earth) has spawned this whole unruly lot of us, and now she is using us to grow a network over the top of all of us

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Mon, May 5, 2008 15:20 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Nenufar
Rating:

This piece made me grit my teeth and curl up my nose -- Boomer's insights on history and events are valuable as far as first person historical accounts go, but do we really need their 'Wisdom'? Aren't these the same people that got us into the economic and ecological mess that we're in right now? If Boomers were able to provide a solution to these problems wouldn't they have done it before now? This piece implies that somehow the Great Boomer Hope has been saving up all its oomph for retirement, cleverly holding back amazing solutions to economic crisis and ecological meltdown until the 11th hour. I for one don't believe it. In the words of my generation -- put up or shut up.

Gen X-er

 
Thu, May 8, 2008 14:09 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Mike Anderson
Rating:

Your post is interesting, and I found the one commentor even more so.

When anyone uses a word like wisdom, it implies a certain degree of superiority which appears to have irritated the commentor. It would have irritated me as well. Whenever anyone suggests my skills are dated, I have the same response. It is critical without a basis in fact.

Wisdom is not something automatically gained through having lived long. The decisions of my generation and the earlier sixties radicals, are and will plague us for many years.

The passing on of highly effective managers will have its affect on business. But if they did their jobs, they have mentored their replacements. Unfortunately, in the me, me, me world they created, mentoring is sitting on a shelf right next to succession planning, gold watches, and chivalry.

The younger generation will do just fine without us.

Take care,

Mike Anderson

 
Sat, May 10, 2008 9:02 EDT
Posted by: Michael Hugos
Rating:

Hi Nenufar – I hear you; it seems to be the fate of all generations to be blamed and reviled by those generations that come behind them. In the words of another generation – don’t trust anyone over 30… :)

Alas Mike – We all make mistakes; wisdom is often confused with self-righteousness. We’ll also be plagued for years to come by the decisions of nineties neocons made in this decade. In the words of a poet from a generation that has already come and gone -

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Best regards,
Michael

 
Mon, May 12, 2008 11:35 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Anonymous
Rating:

I enjoyed reading your article and loved the trip down memory lane. I think you are brilliant to suggest a networked compilation of wisdom may be what we need to avert the chaos the planet is heading towards. I also read with interest the comments of the Boomer and the Gen-Xer.

I agree with age comes wisdom, and wisdom may be little more then the ability to not repeat the same mistakes, or to use your past experience to synthesize new situations and enable you to see things from a different more enlightened perspective that you simply couldn?t have unless you have seen many sunsets. You are not born wise. Wisdom comes from getting beat up, and it comes from being built up. Certainly some obtain it sooner then others. Perhaps some never obtain it.

.The boomer is wrong! Many in our generation many have gained wisdom. I can attest to it as I interview boomers everyday. They do get it. They have learned from their experience, and are using it is a wise way. For the Boomer in your blog I say wisdom does not imply superiority in fact from wisdom you learn your frailties, how much you still have to learn. Wisdom creates humility, a humbleness that you didn?t have as a 20 year old. We Boomers are in the interesting and unique position of having been educated like our parents, introduced to the computer revolution, and then growing up with it, and re-educating like the subsequent generation. We have been wizened in the throes of an exponentially growing technical explosion and we have lived the history and are living the present. We are probably the first generation to truly embrace change, to desire change, to glorify change.

The Gen-X reader is far too sensitive. It is not impossible to have wisdom at an early age just unlikely. Boomers are not at fault for all the ills of the planet. Boomers inherited a mess and didn?t have the discipline or the motivation to clean it up. In fact to be fair it got much worse. He need not venerate those with wisdom nor should he have disdain. Rather he could consider following the Asian cultures that appreciate what can be learned from their elders and he may always discard what wisdom he disagrees with.

In short if we are accepting of it, wisdom is the payment we get from growing older. It is the yin to the yang of atrophy.

Certainly one often pays a price for wisdom. Wisdom is certainly gained from the multitudes of experience that time blesses you with. Some of the wisest people I know are not necessarily well educated but know how to take their experience filter out the good from the bad and see the situation through a much more focused lens.

My dad often states that as we get older we actually get smarter. I agree with him, particularly if we can combine our wisdom with our learning endeavors. I will not allow the younger generations to make us irrelevant. I think for the first time in history the older generation is incredibly relevant and we have a duty to mankind to pass on our wisdom! We may be the wisest of all generations only time will tell. Certainly given our numbers one would think we have a collective wisdom that surpasses past and future generations.

I encourage you to keep on writing and trying to get people engaged. Build a neural wisdom network. The internet is a gift from the great electron giving us a forum to enlighten one another and build our knowledge base which in turn will generate ideas and one good idea could help, maybe even save us all.

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