An outlet for musings, observations and futureneering from the company helping you to transition into the connection economy
One of our colleagues, Raymond de Villiers, is doing formal post grad work in Future Studies. He is particularly interested in future backward scenarios and alternative histories as methodologies of future planning (Google these terms if you’re interested, or contact me for more info). He got me interested in this stuff, and so my radar is always on for articles on the topic of looking backwards to look forwards.
Here is something I found in a recent edition of The Economist.
I received this in an e-mail today….
There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffett, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity Here are some very
interesting aspects of his life:
His advice to young people: “Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember:
A. Money doesn’t create man but it is the man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don’t do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel is good.
D. Don’t go on brand name; just wear those things in which u feel comfortable.
E. Don’t waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on them who are really in need rather.
F. After all it’s your life then why give chance to others to rule our life.”
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One of our family’s favourite luxury holiday destinations has been Mount Grace. My father was a friend of the founder, and so I have known about this hotel literally since attending its opening many years ago. Before our youngest child came, Mount Grace Easter breakaways were a favourite - as children (not normally allowed at the hotel) were catered for spectacularly. This was the hotel I took my wife to on our first “parents only” night away after the birth of our first child. And, as a professional conference speaker and facilitator, I have been a day and overnight conference guest at the hotel many times. A Sunday drive was well worth it - the buffet lunch the stuff of legends. We’ve also made use of the Spa on stay overs and day trips. Sure, they know how to charge for this luxury and reputation, but it has always been well worth it. And so, it was with great anticipation that my family and I (with in-laws in tow) set off for Mount Grace Country Hotel and Spa for an Easter weekend getaway!
Our expectations were rudely shattered. Short version: we shall not be going back to Mount Grace anytime soon! What a disappointing and shocking weekend we’ve had!
You can read the gory details below, if you’re the type of person who tends to slow down to rubberneck at car crashes on the side of the highway. But, for casual readers of this blog, let me start this piece by giving you the lessons that can be learned.
Simple lesson: stay away from Mount Grace - at least until they have their systems sorted.
So, now for our story…
Continue reading ‘Mount Grace Country House and Spa: how NOT to manage a management change’
Policy makers are reassessing the way our country looks after its aged. This article looks at some of the issues demanding their attention.
Continue reading ‘What’s lacking in the care of our senior citizens?’
I have come across a website that I believe understands the market and the thinking of boomers on the verge of a change of lifestyle. Just as the younger generation uses back packing hostels when traveling, this group has identified the need for a similar style for the older generation. The site is www.elderhostel.org.
The site focuses on adventure in lifelong learning. There are more than 8000 all inclusive learning adventures in more than 90 countries around the world. These adventures focus on history, culture, nature, music, outdoor activities, skills and crafts.
Here are a few current adventures to wet your appetite:
Food and Culture of Tuscany
The Ionia Odyssey: In the footsteps of Homer
Birding the hotspots of Costa Rica
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine: A taste of Provence
Opera in Italy: A feast for the senses.
This article is part of the February 2007 TomorrowWisdom.biz ezine. To automatically receive it each month, visit TomorrowWisdom.biz.
We are also building up profiles of people who are close to retyring and rewiring for a new season in life. Add your profile to the list!
Tired of the constant pressure of corporate life Bruce decided he no longer needed this kind of life. With no dependents he and his wife sold-up house and business and moved into a rustic coastal cottage they now call home. Turning to what they love, voluntarily dabbling in a variety of ventures of their choice and simplifying their lifestyle will be the new context in which they life and work.
In different shapes and forms, thousands are doing the same. And it is not only those with the financial muscle or those close to the end of their careers who are doing so!
Continue reading ‘Downshifting - Changing the gears’
The front runners of the Baby Boomer generation are turning 60 and entering a whole new phase “life after 60�. But don’t expect them to maintain the status quo.
Continue reading ‘Baby boomers - are you leaving a legacy?’
There is a unique situation in South Africa as the white Baby Boomer generation head towards retirement in the next few years.
Instead of wanting to leave a legacy behind them (which is probably the global Boomer desire), South African white Boomers just can’t wait to get the hell out of the organisations that have sidelined them over the last 15 years in the wake of Affirmative Action and Empowerment policies. This is a precarious position as businesses begin to realise that there are not enough Xers to replace them and they run the risk of losing core skills, experience and wisdom. This risk is compounded by the reluctance to engage in transferring their wisdom prior to leaving the organisation.
It was a telling moment when sitting with a client in the electricity industry yesterday who told me directly that we won’t get anything out of these guys - in terms of transferring their wisdom to younger employees - until someone from the organisation stands up and says, “Guys, we’re sorry … we’ve f&*ked this Affirmative Action thing up and messed you around”.
I wonder if the Corporate Ego will allow this to happen?
There are more and more cars on the road, and the complexity of these cars is ever increasing. Who is going to service them? Who is going to fix them when they break? Already, you have to book a few weeks in advance to get your upper-end car in for its regular service. And the quality of the servicing leaves something to be desired. This is a worldwide problem, as a report in “Tire Review online” suggests. Its in the 11 Sep 2006 edition, and is entitled: “Shops in Crisis? The Tech Shortage”, by Steve LaFerre. Read the report here.
Some extracts appear below, and you will see my interest in the matter, as it relates to generational perceptions of the automotive industry, engineering and mechanics as well as the need for knowledge/wisdom continuity from the soon to retire Boomers. If this isn’t dealt with, we’re going to see a trainwreck in this industry in a few years time.
Joshua Schachter once sent me an email. At the time, I had no idea who he was – his response had come from a request I’d sent to the del.icio.us ‘support team’. Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site, I needed some help figuring out how to use it (being new to the concept) and support@del.icio.us seemed a good place to start.
His email was dated 11 October 2005. Not two months later, on 9 December, Joshua announced on his personal blog that Yahoo! had snatched up his fledgling Web 2.0 startup as part of their extreme 2.0 makeover. Nobody is really sure what was paid, but considering the bulk of the rumours estimated the price at USD30 million, give or take ten percent, Joshua did ok.
I’m not sure what it is about del.icio.us. It certainly isn’t pretty. In fact, it’s arguably one of the ugliest darn sites on the web. It might be the name – the name is downright smart, using the .us domain to complete a sublimely catchy Web 2.0-ish lilt. At least I got excited about that. Perhaps it’s all the extensions and plug-ins the del.icio.us community has created to integrate functionality into popular web browsers and blogging platforms. Then again, it might just be that I have found del.icio.us to be the least flashy, most functional, most valuable, most sustainable Web 2.0 application (and information resource) on the internet.
A Reuters report indicates something that most Africans already know: “Africa, an increasing supplier of global energy, may be unable to expand its output as fast as expected in coming years due to a shortage of industry skills. Inadequate schools and relative poverty mean Africa is badly placed to compete for the expertise it will need to develop new fields, a situation only made worse by a wider international shortage of oil and gas engineers and geologists…. Nobody’s talking about it in Africa. What they’re talking about is creating jobs generally. But creating something like a petroleum engineer takes 10 years. As they start developing the big fields, you don’t just go create a petroleum engineer job.”
But this report of 30 June (read it here) goes a step further and indicates that the issue of an ageing workforce and knowledge continuity - such critical issues in many Western countries - is equally a problem in Africa.
Africa’s race for oil talent is replicated in other regions of the energy sector, an industry with an ageing workforce suffering a lack of skills after years of cuts and layoffs with consolidations and mergers. The workforce’s average age is 48. But Africa’s relative poverty means it is less able to keep talented people. Poaching of staff is a constant problem.
Conversations about knowledge continuity often relate to succession planning and the retirement of key older leaders. While these considerations are obviously important, they can mask the fact that, these days, business critical expertise and knowledge often reside lower down in the organisation and with younger employees. And when these younger people leave, they can threaten the life of the business itself. New thinking and strategies are required to ensure that businesses find out who knows what, understand how they know, create processes for transferring what they know, develop communities rather than stars and secure their future success by enabling business continuity.
For the past few decades this function has largely been delegated to “Knowledge Management� (KM), who in turn thought of it primarily as a technology solution. The amount of raw information that has been captured but not properly utilised or transferred into companies is frightening (and, very often, overwhelming and confusing, and therefore fairly useless). It is time to move beyond KM to “Wisdom Management�. Wisdom is knowledge that is not time-bound or linked to specific experiences. Rather, it is transferable and has the ability to be used, adapted and applied wherever it is needed.
The problem is that wisdom can’t be bought. It takes time. Or does it?
We live in a world of constant change. In particular, the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in staff turnover and voluntary employee churn. This has been driven mainly by a younger generation who tend to move every three years on average – and move not just within industries, but to entirely different careers, on a regular basis.
Continue reading ‘Business Continuity in Age of Constant Change’
In times of change, leaders who are prepared to learn will succeed, while those who consider themselves to be learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. We live and lead in a sea of constant change. Anyone who needs to be convinced of this reality is most likely just visiting from another planet. However, it is one thing to acknowledge the constant change that surrounds us and quite another to be able to unlearn, relearn and learn in this tumultuous sea of change. According to Alvin Toffler in Future Shock, “the illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”
In my experience, many leaders are not coping well with the need to change. In fact, several are swallowing unhealthy amounts of water as they struggle to stay afloat in the turbulent swells that surround them. After all, attempting to swim in such conditions is certainly not for the faint-hearted or those in need of water-wings! However, here are four reminders - or perhaps lighthouses that serve to warn of peril - for leaders everywhere when it comes to leading in today’s world:
Be prepared to change.
Savvy leaders realise that in such times even Chuck (Norris) has to change. Continue reading ‘‘Even Chuck has to Change’: Leading in a changing world’
“The ageing of Australia’s population is a well known phenomenon. It has been particularly apparent since the 1960s and is attributed to falling mortality and fertility rates combined with the effect of a baby boom generation as it moves into the older age brackets. For similar reasons the workforce has also been ageing, but over the past two decades the workforce (and especially the full-time workforce) has been ageing at a rate faster than the general population.”
The implications of this rapid ageing are discussed in a short 2 page government release on the issue, that highlights the demographic problems. Download the PDF release here. Or see some additional demographic data, and some work I recently did in Australia with TEC groups here.
The Mercury today is highlighting some of the problems for the government:
“A CRITICAL skills shortage in local government has prompted an unprecedented recruitment drive. Faced with an ageing workforce, councils around Tasmania are concerned the situation could become dire unless young talent is added to the ranks. The skills shortage is hitting the key areas of town/urban planning, environmental health, engineering and building surveying. The Local Government Association of Tasmania is the first in Australia to embark on a recruitment drive.”
Read more on this report here.
The first Baby Boomers will turn sixty this year and they will do what no other generation has done before them: Re-tyre.
There are a number of factors that are already causing futurists to look at the effects of this upcoming change. Many predict that it will bring about a societal change of Tsunami-like proportions. In America, 70 million Boomers will retire over the next twenty years. One of the factors that have changed the Boomer world is medical science. Many more people are living much longer. The generation behind the Boomers, the Xers, are not as large in number as their predecessors. In the States there are approximately 46 million in Generation X – 35% less than the Boomers. Continue reading ‘Retirement vs. Re-Tyrement’
The ability to extract critical information from about-to-retire Boomers is absolutely essential. And now, the big boys are weighing in with consulting services to assist companies in the process. IBM is the latest to join the party.
From the Atlanta Business Chronicle of January 13, 2006, written by Randy Southerland.
The employees behind the desk and on the shop floor are a lot grayer than they used to be. And, this aging work force is starting to worry a growing number of companies as baby boomers near retirement and get ready to take years of experience and knowledge with them.
“They’re facing a risk that demographically they have perhaps the largest group of individuals who are going to be approaching retirement age that they’ve ever faced before,” said Eric Lesser, associate partner with IBM Business Consulting Services.
In 1990, Peter Senge wrote one of the most influential business books of all time. “The Fifth Discipline” revolutionised many companies’ approach to knowledge management, and introduced the business world to systems thinking in an accessible way. (Get it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).
There is a great summary of the five core disciplines, and, in fact, the whole book, at: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm#_The_core_disciplines.
There is a high level executive summary of most of the key concepts related to “Learning Organizations” available at: http://www.skyrme.com/insights/3lrnorg.htm.
“The oldest baby boomers are six years away from retirement. Will your company continue to thrive if they take their knowledge with them? Here’s how to identify who has key knowledge and how to keep it within the company walls.” So starts an article in the CIO magazine (Australia), written by Sussanah Patton. Read it here.
The article outlines three distinct steps in the process:
A similar article cites a survey by Accenture: “Companies Urged to Lay Plans for Boomer Retirement Wave“, by Keith Regan in the E-Commerce Times. He says, “A recent survey by consulting firm Accenture found that fewer than half of the organizations it looked at had formal knowledge-transfer programs in place. And a third of those that did were seen having short-term programs that may not be enough to capture the depth of a retiring workers’ critical knowledge.”
We would highly recommend the Aussie team at SageCo, who specialise in this type of knowledge transfer. Check them out at http://www.sageco.com.au. They’re based in Australia. We’re hoping to be offering something along these lines in South Africa in the near future. If you’re interested, please contact Lynda Smith: lynda@tomorrowtoday.biz.
New research has proven what we’ve been saying for some time: that technology (and innovation) is not the key to successful corporate renewal or knowledge management. The real key to success is PEOPLE. Intellilink Solutions puts it this way:
Knowledge management is not only about information; it is also about the people you have recruited, trained, developed, and promoted within your organization. KM involves not only the implementation of a software system; it involves understanding your business needs, your organization’s culture, and your personnel. To succeed, any KM initiative requires that you know your people and clearly define the behaviors that need to be changed or reinforced.
(read full report here).
From: http://www.stepstone.com/solutions/talentmanagement.htm
Enterprise Talent Management
Historically, even the largest organizations have been forced to adopt a largely tactical approach to recruiting.
Companies with strong brand recognition operating in well-defined markets could use targeted media campaigns to build awareness amongst potential recruits. However, these were both expensive and lacked long-term impact. Hence most recruitment assignments were and still are driven tactically, starting afresh each time in attracting appropriate candidates.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have led the way in allowing organizations to build a long-term relationship with their actual and target customers. CRM systems show their full potential when used in conjunction with Internet technologies allowing cheap, efficient, interactive and engaging communications with their targets.
These same principles are now being applied to building relationships with Talent, a company’s potential employees. Targeted Candidate Marketing campaigns are used to attract candidates to a company’s talent pool and to educate and inform potential recruits. The talent pool then provides the ripe community of candidates from which to draw as specific recruitment needs arise. Automatic searching and matching technology can be used to create short-lists of candidates against a job profile, and these can feed directly into the recruiting process.
Continue reading ‘Talent Communities - the latest recruitment concept’
I was recently recommended a book that sounds fantastic (its on my Christmas stocking filler list). Its “Finishing Well” by Bob Buford (Integrity Publishers, ISBN: 159145395X). (Purchase it online at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).
It is written from a Christian perspective, but the focus on a spiritual legacy is but a small part of the overall message of the book. That message is on how to ensure that you leave a legacy as you head towards the later years of life. I believe the book includes a series of splendid interviews with well known people who are “finishing well”.
As the first of the generation of Baby Boomers born after World War II start to retire (and re-tyre) in 2006, this type of information is absolutely critical. I’m looking forward to getting the book.
For a taster, consider the following:
# Volkswagen of America administers a flexible-spending program that allows employees to allocate $5,000 in pre-tax earnings annually into elder-care accounts.
# Hoffmann-LaRoche runs an on-site “temp agency” that places retired employees in short-term job openings. The program is designed “to meet the personal work/life needs of retirees,” while taking advantage of “a wealth of experience that new entrants do not have.”
# Pitney Bowes, along with several other companies on the list, makes special accommodations for employees with age-related health problems. In one typical instance, a Pitney Bowes worker who developed a chronic heart condition received training so that he could move from a physically strenuous position to a desk job that called for computer skills.
# Principal Financial Group, rather than focusing most of its training efforts on new hires and young employees as most companies do, offers lifelong learning, emphasizing leadership development for workers over 50.
