The Power Years--Ken Dychtwald

Ken Dychtwald is well known as the living expert on the Baby Boomer in the United States. He is a boomer himself, and as a gerontologist he has studied the Boomers for more than 30 years. The thing I like most about him is the fact that he is so positive about the limitless potential of the Boomer. The Power Years--A Users Guide to the Rest of Your Life was published in 2005 by Ken Dychtwald and Daniel J. Kadlec. I think it is a must read for anybody who is seeking to engage the Baby Boomers in active church ministry and kingdom building. In the first chapter of the book, the authors make the case for why the remaining years of life for the "new old" are truly the Power Years. They list 7 reasons:

1. We'll Be Living Longer and Healthier

"We will live longer and grow old later in life than any previous generation. Incredibly, two-thirds of all those who have made it to age sixty-five in the history of mankind are today walking the earth. We are not just living longer, we are also in better health and enjoy greater youthfulness and vitality. There are more 50-and sixty-year-olds running marathons, buying harleys, starting new careers, going to rock concerts, and getting facelifts than ever before. Our increasing longevity and good health, coupled with our natural desire to remain youthful, are the greatest forces behind the power years...The upshot is that great numbers of people--not just exceptions--are able to work and play as they like far longer than anyone might have expected."

2. The Cyclic Lifeplan Will Replace the Outmoded Linear Model

"The landmark New Retirement Survey that Ken directed in 2004 with Merrill Lynch was based on interviews with more than three thousand boomers. The study found that only 17 percent of them said they intended to stop working for pay forever in their next stage of life. A whopping 42 percent reported that they hoped to cycle in and out of work and leisure for extended periods throughout life; 16 percent expected to continue working part-time; 13 percent were planning on starting their own business; and 6 percent fully intended to keep working full-time right through their retirement years. Incredibly, of the 76 percent who intended to continue working in some fashion, more than half were hoping to do so in a completely new career or line of work!"

"Further, when asked why so many wanted to stay involved with work, the overwhelming response was not money. Instead, two of three said the main reason was to stay mentally active. Members of our highly educated and productive generation simply don't want to live a life of intellectual stagnation and mental irrelevance."

3. We'll Have a Big--and Growing Pool of Role Models

Late achievement, while multiplying in frequence, isn't altogether new. Grandma Moses didn't start painting until she was almost eighty. Groucho Marx launched a new career as a television show host at sixty-five. George Bernard Shaw was at work on a new play when he died at ninety-four. Galileo published his masterpiece Dialogue Concerning the Twop New Scoiences at seventy-four. Noah Webster was seventy when he published An American Dictionary of the English Language. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York at ninety[one. Mahatma Gandhi was seventy[two when he complete successful negotiations with Britain for India's independence..."

"In their day, these remarkable men and women may have been condidered highly unusual. But thest Ageless Explorers have carved new trails ahead of us and represent the first wave of maturity pioneers. We baby boomers will be next, and we'll turn this thorny trail into a superhighway. "

4. We'll Be Wiser about What Matters

"Having climbed much of the mountain, you now have a pretty good view of life. As we accumulate and make sense of life's lessons, most of us have come to appreciate that the joy that money alone brings is fleeting, and that true happiness revolves around love, relationaships, and our sense of fulfillment at work and at play. Most of us reach this basic understanding in our middle years--sometimes precipitated by the death of a parent, our kids leaving home, or the failure of a career or marriage. But for the most part, by the time we're fifty and still young enough to shape our later years, we understand that money, while it's important is not what underlies happiness..."

"Tom Hagan of Covington, Ohio, sold his pharmacy business at age fifty-six. But he didn't retire. He remains employed in the industry; he simply gave up the headaches and rewards of ownership. 'The secret to life is being fulfilled,' Hagan says. 'It has nothing to do with money. I have friends who are worth $50 million who are miserable. They hate their wives; they hate their children. I love my life. I'm still working, and I plan to work until I die. I love my new job. It keeps my mind active. I couldn't imagine sitting around and watching TV every day.'"

5. We'll Have New Freedoms

"The kids are gone or soon will be. College and house are paid for--well, mostly paid for... In addition to braces and summer camp and all the things you put in your house are largely paid for; you don't need a lot more stuff. With many of your biggest parenting-related financial obligations coming to an end, you'll be endowed with greater freedom to do the things you've always wanted. Meanwhile, your busy schedule is beginning to let up, providing you with a windfall of free time that will let you take on new challenges or pursue hidden passions and long-supressed dreams."

"And because the economy will want to simuntaneously prevent a brain drain and declining consumption by keeping all of us earning and spending longer, it will become easier to stay at work or start a new career. The vacuum of workers maturing means that older adults will be in demand and more able to choose our own schedules, and still remain valuable. With the rise of flextime and part-time schedules and contract and project jobs and job sharing, there are millions of exciting paths for us to explore in the work world--throughout the world. With online universities, we can retrain at home or pursue a life as a writer or artist or some other dream."

6. We'll Still Have Clout in the Marketplace

"Our huge numbers and often free-spending ways have ensured throughout our lifetime that anyone with something to sell would be inclined to tailor it to our wants and needs. Our demographic and financial wells of influence won't run dry as we mature. We will live longer and healthier and remain active consumers... While we are just 30 percent of the population, we control more than 70 percent of all the wealth and account for more than 50 percent of consumer spending. As we mature and collectively inherit an estimated $20 trillion, we will be as cherished as ever in the marketplace."

"Advertisers will need to break free of their addiction to youth. Many wrongly believe that all adults have already chosen the brands they will stick with for life, while young people have yet to choose their cola, sneaker, cell phone, or whatever. This flawed view will stop paying off; marketers will increasingly come to realize that at fifty or sixty we not only have money to spend but also are eager to ditch our old lipstick for the latest colors. As we age, we will remain interested in new adventures and experiences, and we will spend freely to reach our full potential in the power years."

7. We'll Be Open to Change

"Personal growth and self-improvement are the new order, and as this mind-set blossoms, it will open the doors to fulfillment and achievement that might otherwise have been stifled. The world of continuing education may best illustrate the appetites of a generation that loves to learn and grow. Already a thriving adult-education industry has begun to flourish, including magazines, books, audio, video, Internet learning programs, and adult-education seminars, workshops, and courses."

"About forty million adults participate in one or more educational activities each year. As the need to continuously upgrade skills becomes a requirement, lifelong learning will become commonplace. In response, colleges and universities have begun to aggressively pursue adult students. USA Today recounted: 'admission officers and financial-aid directors from campuses across the USA echo the message: Older students are as desirable--often more so--as the traditional 18-24 college crowd. And they're just as eligible for grants and loans as their younger brethren.' Adults, they say are better motivated, usually have educational goals in focus, and have experiences to share with younger students."

I think Dychtwald and Kadlec make a pretty compelling argument for why the remaining years for the boomer aged American are accurately characterized by them as the power years. But at the same time, I wonder who is getting this message out to these very people? A friend of mine recently met with a man who was just laid off from a large company that he helped start with two others some 20 years ago. The man is 60 years old, and his company has pretty much told him that his value to the organization is no longer great enough to warrant him staying on the payroll. He expressed to my friend that even though his work culture is telling him that he is no longer valuable, he has never felt like he had more to give in terms of wisdom, expertise, and even energy.

I wonder how many millions of boomers are feeling a similar kind of dissonance. While the culture is trying to tell them they are finished, they don't at all want to feel like they are. And in fact they aren't. Could it be that this is a prime opportunity for the church to rise up and bring this information out of the closet and thereby affirm to these oncoming millions of mature adults that perhaps the best years of real life and significant contribution are still ahead of them?

Questions to ponder:

How should this information influence the way our churches seek to connect with the Baby Boomers?

What are some of the differences you notice between the boomer and the builder in their perspectives on aging?

What kinds of things might need to change in the way you do ministry with older adults in order to engage the boomer more effectively?

'Me Generation' becomes 'We Generation'

I read an article in the August 4th USA Today with the above title. It is written by Daniel J. Kadlec, who co-authored The Power Years: A User's Guide to the Rest Of Your Life. In my opinion, this book is the best source of information available on the "new old" in America. For people seeking to reach and engage the Baby Boomer, this book is a must read.

Kadlec in the USA Today story profiles the "new old" in this nation. "Many prosperous Americans are choosing to give while they live so thay can control how their money is spent or enjoy watching it do some good. As boomers seek to give something back and stay at work longer, they will begin to blend the two by developing personally rewarding businesses designed to serve the greater good. Like Robert Chambers, 62, who retired to start a non-profit that makes low-interest car loans to the working poor in New Hampshire, and Martha Rollins, 63, who has a furniture company staffed by former convicts in Virginia."

"The challenge is not, as many have argued, how to pay for an aging society. It's how to harness the skills of a vast, willing and able new crop of maturing Americans who want to stay in the game longer, give something back and help cure society's ills. If we can do that, our aging society may pay for itself--and then some."

This is a golden opportunity for the church in America that "gets it" with what we in Leadership Network are calling the Encore Generation. But will the church find new ways to "harness the skills" of this massive cohort of mature adults, and find significant ways to "keep them in the game" and impact the Kingdom of God?

Here is another tidbit I saw this morning on the Leadership Journal website:

Fewer Kids Among Us: Children under age 18 made up 26% of the U.S. population in the year 2000. By 2020, that number will decline to 24%. By contrast, at the end of the baby boom in 1964, kids made up 36% of the population. With fewer kids and longer lives, expect greater need for senior adult ministry.

Did you catch that? "Expect greater need for senior adult ministry." People who really get the current demographic in the U.S. are coming to the same conclusions with respect to church ministry. We need to give more focused attention to the Older Adult population in our churches and in our communities.

Plugging the Brain Drain

This past week I read a good article in Hemispheres Magazine by Catherine Fredman with this title, Plugging the Brain Drain. You can read the article by going to http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/aug06/executivesecrets.html. Like many others who are writing about the "new retiree", she affirms the value of the older worker in view shortage of laborers among the Gen-Xers. "There are only 46 million Gen-Xers to replace the 76 million Boomers. Though that gap can be filled to some extent by productivity gains, labor-saving technologies, immigration, and offshoring, the issue isn't so much a labor shortage as a talent shortage. 'The problem won't just be a lack of bodies,' writes demographer Ken Dychtwald, a co-author with Tamara J. Erickson and Robert Morison of the recently published Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills and Talent. 'Skills, knowledge, experience, and relationships walk out the door every time somebody retires--and they take time and money to replace.'"

One of the things I pick up from reading this article is that more and more people are changing the way they are looking at the older Americans. Fredman makes several references to YourEncore, a company that was created by executives at Proctor & Gamble for the purpose of finding temporary part-time work for retired professionals. YourEncore hires are evaluated after each project, and they rate about a 4.8 on a 5-point scale. Many companies have operated with the assumption that they need to push the older workers out in favor of young, more energetic workers who are quicker to learn and innovative on the job. As reasonable as this sounds in theory, it simply has not proven to be true. Fredman writes, "A 2003 Towers Perrin study of 35,000 workers in the U.S. found that employees older than 50 were more motivated to exceed expectations on the job than were younger workers."

Fredman goes on to say that companies that want to stay competitive are turning to their aging and retired work force. Corporations are beginning to view older workers as assets. Mounting evidence shows that mature workers bring unique capabilities and performance advantages to the job:

• Accumulated wisdom. “Experience counts more than any other factor” in pleasing clients, says Greg Thomopulos, the CEO of Stanley Consultants. “The more experience our members have, the more knowledge they have about what worked and didn’t work in the past. Our clients actually prefer that we assign project managers with many years of experience.”
• Rich relationships. The U.S. economy increasingly is based on service, and much of the service sector is based on rela-tionships. The more seasoned the employee, the richer his Rolodex. “Take a senior banker who is rendering advice to big companies or wealthy individuals,” Van Horn says. “When that person goes, that relationship goes along with him or her.If you’re Company X and you lose that person, you’ve potentially lost a client.”
• Market mirrors. Employees aren’t the only ones who are aging; so are custo-mers. “You’re seeing organizations like Home Depot, Borders, and CVS actively recruiting older workers to match the experiences of their employees with the experiences of their customers,” says Eric Lesser, an associate partner in IBM’s Global Business Services Group.
• Motivation. Ditch the picture of retired boomers heading for the golf course and quilting circle. Recent studies from Merrill Lynch, AARP, and Rutgers University consistently find that 70 per-cent to 80 percent of boomers want to work past the traditional retirement age. Though money is a component in the wish to stay on the job, the overriding factors are intellectual and social. “Work allows people to express and challenge themselves, to make friends and keep friends,” says Dychtwald.
• A lifetime of learning. The myththat older workers are inflexible and uncreative simply doesn’t hold true. Economist David Galenson of the University of Chicago posits two types of creativity: conceptual innovation (new ideas that break the mold) and experimental innovation (new ideas that evolve from current practices). The former springs from unconventional approaches to a problem; the latter comes from a lifetime of observation. Companies need both, says Darren Carroll, the executive director of Eli Lilly’s new-ventures division. “New workers bring fresh perspectives and the latest techniques, but the accretive nature of knowledge, particularly in industries like ours, makes older workers valuable.”

Isn't this a powerful affirmation of all that we have been seeing with the Encore Generation? The secular business sector of America is waking up to this current Age Wave. Where is the church in this discovery process, and what, if anything can we learn from information like this? I would like for some of you who lead among Encore Generation folks to chime in by making some comments related to some of the following questions:

• How should the church in America respond to the realities of older adult capacity in view of its mission?
• How can the professional experience of the older adults in our congregations be leveraged for the expansion of God's Kingdom?
• How can the church help leverage the success of older business professionals for significance in their second half?