I've written several pieces on the "macro-succession" crisis I see facing American businesses. One challenge to my central thesis (which I've heard a few times, in fact) comes from people who think that the massive loss of institutional knowledge and expertise I predict as a result of Boomer retirements (which have already begun) won't occur because many of these people are choosing to work past the age of 65 (and ...
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Category: ‘Organizational Development’
New Pew report suggests that older workers stay on the job for non-financial reasons; implications for macro-succession crisis?
September 16th, 2009 by Sam SmithOrganizational fear and the importance of leadership
September 15th, 2009 by Sam Smith
My wife, who's working on her MBA, is currently wading through a class that focuses on leadership. Last night she observed that "there sure are a lot of people out there developing theories on leadership, aren't there?"
Well, yes, and for good reason. Most of those people are working to provide hooks for consulting practices, which can be pretty marketable. Why? Every company needs strong leaders. In fact, it's probably safe to say that very few ...
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Fear is the enemy of engagement
September 8th, 2009 by Sam Smith
Once upon a time the business world was dominated by hierarchical organizations that derived both their structures and mechanistic management philosophies from military thinking that traces its lineage through Frederic the Great all the way back, literally, to the Roman legions. And by "once upon a time," of course, I mean "at this very minute."
The truth is that way too many American companies today act as though their employees are some ...
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The right questions can be better than good answers
August 5th, 2009 by Sam Smith
You know the old proverb. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. I was reminded of this adage when I came across a recent Harvard Business Blog on "how to ask better questions."
The author of that insightful post, Judith Ross, notes that when people (especially subordinates) come to us with questions, the natural instinct is to provide ...
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Report notices that Boomers are retiring; offers band-aid for sucking chest wound…
July 24th, 2009 by Sam Smith
Lately I've been talking a lot about the looming macro-succession crisis, and my impression has been that most companies either don't see it coming or are whistling through the graveyard. For context, let's remember that over half of the American workforce will hit retirement age in the next decade.
This morning, though, I t ripped across a bookmarked MediaPost item from a couple years back that addressed a piece of the issue. While it's awareness ...
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How the macro-succession crisis is going to hit the entrepreneurial sector
July 14th, 2009 by Sam Smith
I've written recently about some generational issues facing companies - most notably the "macro-succession crisis" that I suspect very few corporations have even thought about in meaningful detail. In that post I examine how the coming Baby Boomer retirement explosion is going to engender all kinds of crisis, especially in larger legacy corporations that are so top-heavy with Boomer leaders that their Gen X successors are ill-prepared for the transition that must begin taking ...
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Changing a culture: getting the monkeys off the bus and the right people on it
June 30th, 2009 by Sam Smith
Hopefully that title will make sense by the end of this article.
For the change management and organizational behavior fans in the audience (as well as those who simply need some insight into improving how their teams work), Peter Bregman has some thoughts over at HarvardBusiness.org on "A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture." He recalls a conversation with a prospective client who wanted to change the company culture, but the firm was up ...
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Is your company trapped in “meeting hell”? Here are three things you should consider
June 23rd, 2009 by Sam Smith
Hate meetings? Who doesn't?
Not that it isn't important to get the right people together in a room to talk about important issues, but let's face it, in most organizations (and by "most" I mean "virtually all") the average meeting probably lasts longer than it needs to. When it does drag on too long, productivity takes a hit and we all wind up spending more time to accomplish less.
So when I saw a link earlier today ...
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When goals attack! Setting objectives that work for you, not against you
May 14th, 2009 by Sam Smith
We can probably agree that it's good to have goals. In business, especially, it's good to know where you're going and to have some mechanisms that help you chart and evaluate your progress.
Increasingly, though, we're presented with more and more evidence suggesting that our goal-setting can easily go awry, and with dramatically counter-productive results. If you've read Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's outstanding Freakonomics you probably recall their investigation of teacher-fueled cheating on standardized ...
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America’s looming macro-succession crisis: Boomers, Xers, Millennials and the future of your workplace
April 30th, 2009 by Sam Smith
I was recently re-reading a Seattle Times story from a couple years back on how men in their 30s are earning less than their fathers did. An interesting story top to bottom, but the concluding section drew me back around to something that I really haven't talked about enough lately - the looming generational macro-succession nightmare facing corporate America. It's impossible to say precisely how many businesses are going to feel the bite - ...
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