Institute of Interim Management (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If you’re over fifty, or indeed or forty, this is a brilliant, MUST READ article, from the Harvard Business Review.
via How to Reinvent Yourself After 50 – Dorie Clark – Harvard Business Review.
Personally, over my long career, I have re-invented myself many times. Timing is everything. The trick is to catch the wave early and not just become another “me too!”
Many “over fifties” feel that they can turn their hand to interim management but as I have often indicated on this blog, that’s probably unrealistic. For some of of my most popular blogs on interim management open this link.
Personally, I have little time for redundant executives who feel that they can try interim management for a bit until a real job comes along. These people are deluded and potentially crowding an already commodity-driven market place. They should see the writing-on-the-wall, when their careers are at their peak, and make provision for effectively reinventing themselves.
What reallly saddens me is when I think about the millennials. They don’t even stand a chance of getting to the first rung of the ladder!
Let me turn this to an open question:
What can the millenials learn from the baby-boomers who have successfully re-invented themselves?
Any thoughts?
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Dr Alf's Blog 
Reblogged this on Dr Alf's Blog and commented:
This one of my most popular early blogs
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Dr Alf poses an interesting question.
Many of the conditions which prevailed when these successful “baby boomers” reinvented themselves no longer exist and 50% of everything that happens is now unquantifiable, random and a “Black Swan ” event.
Millennials operate in a different world but have to assume:
–That there are no jobs for life
–That what was right yesterday may not hold good today
–That to survive and prosper you need to be able to create linear income streams
–The need to either marry well or function well alone with ring fenced assets
–That the pace of change is much faster
–Language skills in useful languages are essential
–That they need to know how to sell,persuade and network
–That they should make no useless acquaintances
–Small differences make a difference
–That they should practice “ordered flexibility”
–You are only as good as today’s results
From those who have successfully reinvented themselves the Millenials can learn self discipline, the application of the golden rule, focus, time management and how to evaluate propositions, situations and circumstances with perception, how to manage money and possibly relationships and then take action.
For the rest they need to learn “How to leave the tribe” yet still appear to be of it.