Are you a baby-boomer? Have you decided what to do with yourself after your retirement? Are you rethinking boomers?
Rethinking boomers.
Before you answer those questions, I’d like to refer you to a fascinating article by Marc Freemen: The Dangerous Myth of Reinvention.
A man is never too old … until his regrets take the place of his dreams.
John Barrymore
Marc Freedman is founder and CEO of Encore.org, which annually gives out The Purpose Prize for social innovators in the second half of life. He is the author of The Big Shift: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life.
Like many of us, you may not have heard of this organization. And that’s not because it has not been very successful.
For those not familiar with Encore, here’s how they describe themselves:
Encore.org is building a movement to make it easier for millions of people to pursue second acts for the greater good.
We call them “encore careers”. These are jobs that combine personal meaning, continued income, and social impact in the second half of life. An excellent idea, isn’t it?
A lot of this article revolves around two keyword definitions. Here are the words and relevant definitions from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Reinvention – A complete remake or redo to bring into use again.
Reintegration- a restoration to a unified state.
We will come back to these definitions in a moment.
We will leave it to you to read Marc’s article in its entirety. In this blog, I will capture components to give my views on the author’s opinions.
Myth of reinvention.
Point one
Gary Maxworthy spent three decades in business until a personal tragedy prompted him to reexamine his priorities.
He left the corporate world behind and set off to find his true calling. In the process discovered both a new identity and the path to accomplishing his most important work fighting hunger.
In this telling, Maxworthy is an archetypal example of the reinvention mythology that seems omnipresent today.
This is especially so when it comes to those in the second half of life. Self-help columns are packed with reinvention tips.
For all its can-do spirit, I’ve come to believe the reinvention fantasy. The whole romance with radical transformation unmoored from the past, is both unrealistic and misleading.
I’ll even go further. I think it is pernicious, the enemy of actual midlife renewal.
For the vast majority of us, reinvention is not practical, or even desirable. On a very basic level, it’s too daunting.
How many people have escaped the past, started from scratch, and forged a whole new identity and life?
Sure, it happens. But not often, at least outside of Hollywood.
My view:
Let’s start with the meaning of reinvention, so we are all on the same page.
Reinvention is a remake or redo. But in this context, I believe the remake or redo has to do with the end state of what you want to do.
For example, people have executed reinventions within their careers on many occasions.
I started as an engineer, then went into marketing, and ended up as a business unit executive. The end state in each instance was different. However, many of the skills required for success were the same.
One could refer to these changes as a reintegration or a reinvention.
Not very different indeed? More like splitting hairs?
My conclusion then is that people in retirement have several choices. They can be totally retired and do hobbies, or pick a different end state of activity.
This could be much different than the one that represented their last job. To achieve this new end state, they could reinvent or reintegrate.
In case, many (or perhaps most) skills to be successful would already be there. It is not like they are starting over, in my opinion.
So I believe Marc is splitting hairs here. His conclusion is far overstated.
Point two
More troublesome is the underlying assumption that the past. In other words, our accumulated life experience is baggage to be disregarded and discarded.
Isn’t there something to be said for racking up decades of know-how and lessons?
Considering failures as well as triumphs? Shouldn’t we aspire to build on that wisdom and understanding?
My view:
Don’t understand how he got to this conclusion at all. Whose underlying assumption is this? Not a good one in my opinion.
Everything new we decide to do whether a reinvention or reintegration is built on the old. It is often just ‘reconnecting the dots’ of experience in a different way.
Rethinking boomers … point three
Studying social innovators in the second half of life with a focus on individuals who have done their greatest work after 50. I’m convinced the most powerful pattern that emerges from their stories can be described as reintegration, not reinvention.
These successful late-blooming entrepreneurs weave together accumulated knowledge with creativity. They continually are balancing continuity with change.
They are continually crafting a new idea that’s almost always deeply rooted in earlier chapters and activities.
My view:
Certainly, agree with these points mostly in entirety. However, they do seem in conflict with the previous points, don’t they?
Again I believe that much too much is being made of the differences in the meanings between reinvention and reintegration.
Baby boomer.
Point four
To me, that’s the most damaging part of the reinvention mythology. It is the preoccupation not only with rebirth, but with youth itself, even as it is slipping away.
Today 70 is upheld as the new 50, 60 the new 40 or even 30, and 50 practically adolescence.
My view:
My opinion is that there are varied reasons why people want to continue to have meaning in their lives and try new things.
It is about the age of continual learning, and you could (and perhaps should) consider this to be age-insensitive.
While I certainly have no real data to back it up, I believe new things and continuous learning has little to do with age in most instances. Notice I did not use either of the terms reinvention or reintegration.
In fact, I would conclude most baby boomers would like to ignore age entirely. They would prefer to make it irrelevant.
My takeaways
I don’t buy into the myth of reinvention. I believe all people, regardless of age, should consider new things. They are just building new skills on top of the old.
Probably none of the new skills will be far afield from the older ones. And for certain, everyone should be as active as possible. This includes continuous learning and engagement in activities with new end states. This is particularly true of ones that ‘give back.’
I certainly believe in ‘encore careers”. That is jobs that combine personal meaning, continued income, and social impact in the second half of life.
Encore.org is a great organization with an impressive mission.
What do you think? Do you have comments or opinions to add to this discussion?
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Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Is your company in an industry that is experiencing digital disruption? Many industries have experienced this “disruptive” change, a phenomenon that has transformed many. Even with an excellent reinvention roadmap, there is a little guarantee of survival. But the ESPN reinvention roadmap will illustrate how a good one can be built.
But still, you must do something; will it be to build a shelter or a windmill?
Many a reinvention roadmap.
The bad news is that when the dust of disruptive change settles, historically even the best-run companies typically end up in the loser’s column.
In the computing industry, for example, Digital Equipment Corporation missed the personal computer (P.C.) in the early 1980′s, started to fall apart in the early 1990′s, and got acquired by Compaq in 1998.
Dell Computer’s low-cost business model destroyed Compaq, forcing a merger with Hewlett-Packard (H.P.) in 2001.
Dell’s continued incursion into the P.C. and printing office now threatens H.P., which announced more than 10,000 layoffs in an effort to remain competitive.
It’s the same thing that happened to the book industry with Amazon.com and now e-books on demand. It’s the same thing that happened to the financial industry when they started trading stocks online instead of using traditional stockbrokers.
And to the record companies that once ruled the music industry with an iron fist. And the typewriter industry with the advent of word processing on the computer.
In 1892, George Eastman formed the Eastman Kodak Company to “make the camera as convenient as a pencil.” It was an idea whose time had come and by the early 20th century, Kodak emerged as one of America’s largest companies and Eastman one of its most successful entrepreneurs.
It wasn’t just that one idea that made the company so successful, it managed to stay on the bleeding edge for over a century, pioneering impressive new advancements in photographic paper, development and image processing. In 1975, it invented the digital camera, which would lead to its downfall as a major corporation.
The problem wasn’t that Kodak didn’t understand the potential, but that it became stuck in its operating model. It was so huge and so profitable, that almost any other opportunity seemed small by comparison.
While Kodak is an extreme case, many others fail in new markets for similar reasons, they fail to bridge the gap between innovation and operations.
The list goes on and on.
Make no mistake, if you don’t discover, you won’t invent and if you don’t invent you will be disrupted.. It’s just a matter of time. However, you can’t just show up one day and decide you want to work with the world’s greatest minds. Even Google, with all its resources and acumen, has had to work really hard at it.
It’s made these investments in time, focus and resources because it understands that the search business, as great as it is, won’t deliver outsized profits forever. Today, we no longer have the luxury to manage for stability, but must prepare for disruption.
The internet and digital technology have brought significant change and, occasionally, death to many industries. Your company and industry will not be the exception, as revenues and customers will rapidly switch to the next new digital product set.
A return to the old days is not in the cards, is it? But does that mean that you are doomed?
Not yet, but certainly likely, if you do not act early and in dramatic fashion. Don’t convince yourself that you can weather the storm and maintain the status quo.
Here is a recommended list of ideas and actions to pursue in order to build a roadmap for reinvention that ESPN should pursue if ESPN was under ‘digital disruption’ attack:
ESPN reinvention roadmap … carefullystudy the trailblazers
Carefully study what the trailblazers have learned over the past 5 years.
For example, if you were in the newspaper or magazine business, there are many lessons.
Here are a few of the best trailblazers to start with: Huffington Post, Voice of San Diego, Business Insider, and Tech Crunch.
ESPN reinvention roadmap … make customer engagement a top priority
Let this customer engagement be a source of ideas in all reinvention solution alternatives. Build communities for your customer advocates and your potential customers.
Your biggest customers, other businesses, are also going through significant change … make their success the centerpiece of your reinvention.
Frequently solicit ideas from your customers on critical issues.
ESPN reinvention roadmap … be a rapid adapter
It is all about the timing of decisions, the culture of change, and the ability to take risks.
If you want to have any chance of avoiding digital disruption … you need to be able to make changes and do so before you have to. Don’t let the roadmap get stale.
Spread your wings and take a leadership position within the region. Be a hands-on leader, spokesman, and creator of change and improvement in ways that local governments have not been able to do.
Make the leadership of change the flagship of your new brand like ESPN has been doing..
ESPN reinvention roadmap … make crowdsourcing a center of competence
Put crowdsourcing of new ideas for both internal as well as local issues. Experiment, prototype, and test fearlessly … iterate often.
Make business model experimentation a top priority.
Note that 80% of the game-changing ideas over the last 100 years came from people outside the fields where the new ideas were successful. WOW, now that is an impressive fact.
Collaborate with other businesses often
Look for inventive partnerships that can yield win-win opportunities.
The key here is finding inventive new opportunities in media to pursue.
ESPN reinvention roadmap … become a medium for local social sharing
On-line internet games and learning are in their infancy and would be a great place to start.
Be innovative in ways to present information and data
Many of the issues that your customers and businesses face are multi-faceted and complex.
Be innovative in ways to present information and data improve education and bring clarity to these issues. Look for ESPN ideas.
ESPN reinvention roadmap … develop and hire new skills
Many of these ideas (and others) will require new skill sets by ESPN and others.
Skills such as multi-media specialists, community builders, information technology experts, curators, and innovation specialists will require employees with new skills.
Several of these recommendations you are already pursuing, many others have yet to be defined or implemented.
Be a rapid adapter.
We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.
– R. D. Laing
Here’s the thing: your idea, solution, or strategy is just a collection of guesses until they’re tested.
There is the real power in making bold assumptions because you can turn them into clear hypotheses, and then scientifically test them in a rapid, iterative way.
Done right, your eventual strategy will indeed survive the first contact.
The bottom line
The biggest obstacle your industry faces?
Letting go of the old ways fast enough so that the new ways have a chance to grow and develop.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your creativity, innovation, and ideas?
Do you have a lesson about making your creativity better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on creativity and innovation from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
