What Happens when all the Adults Retire at Work?

[Anonymous]

The past few years the amount of folks at work running areas 55 and over who have seen all business cycles and can make the tough the decisions and have a strong work ethic one by one are retiring. The next set of generations below don't have have a clue. Heck Look at WeWork CEO Adam Neuman he totally screwed up his whole company and IPO. No clue how to run a business. Meanwhile Jamie Dimon who is 63 at JP Morgan Chase runs a tight ship. JP Morgan have been only struggling to find a successor.

Pretty much not just CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO, CRO, etc the talent pool is week. Tons of great young workers, great department mangers etc. But the whole package is far and few. Why is that?

Who will be our next leaders of companies? The Unicorns, Uber, WeWork etc all seem to blow up and usually it is a young inexperienced C-suite to blame.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Yeah, Karen sitting next to me who can't figure out how to filter a spreadsheet will be a real loss.

[Anonymous]

Maybe young people are more willing to take risks. You're talking about start ups and new ideas vs. the old ho hum companies of yesterday. Bigger risk, bigger return.

[Anonymous]

I mean, weren't these people who are now retiring young once? The youn'uns will learn, sometimes by making mistakes, just like the oldies did.

[Anonymous]

This is only applicable in Govt agencies. Gov is terrible in workforce planning/transition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is only applicable in Govt agencies. Gov is terrible in workforce planning/transition.

In my federal gov office the near-retirees are largely dead weight. They're just sticking around until they can retire, doing the bare minimum. It's the gen x and millennials doing the hard work day in and day out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is only applicable in Govt agencies. Gov is terrible in workforce planning/transition.

In my federal gov office the near-retirees are largely dead weight. They're just sticking around until they can retire, doing the bare minimum. It's the gen x and millennials doing the hard work day in and day out.

Yes, but the "dead weights" carry the agency when gen X and millennials were pooping in their diaper. it's a circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is only applicable in Govt agencies. Gov is terrible in workforce planning/transition.

In my federal gov office the near-retirees are largely dead weight. They're just sticking around until they can retire, doing the bare minimum. It's the gen x and millennials doing the hard work day in and day out.

Every dog has 15 min of fame.

[Anonymous]

You get the White House.

[Anonymous]

They’ll introduce new way of work, new culture and new ideas and will make some old and some new mistakes in the process. Just like the generations before them - not like the current 55+ never made a mistake.

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, whatever will we do when the Boomers retire?

Look, if you think that young people are incompetent than you have onlu the Boomers to blame. The most important part of leadership is ensuring the prosperous future of your organization through strategic decision making AND developing your successors. If Boomers failed to do that, maybe they aren't the "adults" you think they are.

[Anonymous]

I haven't seen this in my work. All I see are brilliant 30-45 year olds who are stuck under boomers and unable to move up. They are excellent middle managers right now and I think they'd be better senior managers than the current.

[Anonymous]

If Boomers were really such great leaders, this wouldn’t be an issue because they would have appreciated all along the need to mentor people, develop talent beneath them, and plan for the company’s succession after they’ve moved on. To the extent there’s any kind of leadership crisis when Boomers retire, it’s due to an existing leadership crisis while they were there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't seen this in my work. All I see are brilliant 30-45 year olds who are stuck under boomers and unable to move up. They are excellent middle managers right now and I think they'd be better senior managers than the current.

I see this too.