Boomers won’t “just move on.” And they shouldn’t.
Paul McCartney turns 70 this June. Twenty years ago, when he was fifty, his manager suggested that 50 was a good age to retire, saying, “You really don’t want to go beyond 50. It’s going to get embarrassing.”
Brian Hiatt reports in the March 2012 issue of Rolling Stone:
McCartney has no plans to stop touring or recording, He says, “You get the argument, ‘Make way for the young kids,’ and you think, ‘Fuck that, let them make way for themselves. If they’re better than me, they’ll beat me.’”
McCartney’s right; the date on your birth certificate shouldn’t determine how long you get to keep contributing.
And that’s the rub. McCartney is still contributing. And he works in a fiercely competitive industry. When Sir Paul runs out of hits—and fans’ nostalgia for them—he'll have to stop, because no one will come see him, or buy his stuff.
But that’s not how it works for you and me. We toil in organizations where some of our elders hang out—sucking up resources and biding their time—well past their expiration date. They hide behind a smokescreen of success that veils the hollowness of their contributions.
And that’s not about to change. Boomers are running scared. They haven’t saved nearly enough to retire, and their confidence in their investments is low. Plus, many of them LOVE to work. Life at the top is pretty good, thank you very much.
So, here’s the deal, next-gen. DO NOT WAIT FOR BOOMERS TO MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. That’s not the way the world works; power never moves out of the way. Xers and Millennials, you’re going to have to take the reins yourself. You’re going to have to be better than the Boomers you want to replace. You have to out-hustle them. Out-wit them. Out-innovate them.
You have to make a way for yourself; don’t expect Boomers to do it for you.
