Dive into the archives.
- Learning From Cases: 1. Emotional Learning as Value
Recent consultations with clients have converged in an exciting empirical finding. Focusing upon significant emotional and vocational transitions at midlife, we have often inventoried both material assets and knowledge assets at different life stages. With the financial markets bubbling up 50% above their recent lows, clients seemed curious about looking back over adulthood and quantifying [...]
- New Research: “The Anguish of Unemployment” and Midlife Professionals
Just released: a new study called , “The Anguish of Unemployment” from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Midlife professionals represent about one-third of the unemployed workforce • 32% of the currently unemployed workforce is over 45 years old, evenly divided between men [...]
- Millennial Mash-Up and William James
All the honor to you! To you, millennials, beginning or continuing college this year, toiling in late middle school, rebelling in high School under the harsh rod of Algebra 3…… All the Honor to you! I’ve just shown an antique to one of you: a prized, early album of Dave Von Ronk, alluded to on [...]
- From Unemployed to Self-Employed
We met in the dog run, Sean and I. Sean had a mastiff—big guy, rolling around with a bloodhound; and my terrier wanted to break up the fight. After vetting one another, sniffing about and introducing ourselves via the names of our dogs, we got to talking about the work we did. Sean is 26 [...]
- “Daisy Daisy”: A Reflection Upon Adult Learning
Reflecting on a recent shift between stress and resolution, I can discern the effects of adult learning. I’ve rarely recognized an example so brightly, so distinctly. At its center was my I-phone, upon which I’d become increasingly reliant. Already a generation out of date, it suddenly indicated that I could only access my “favorites”. How [...]
- Retirement Tsunami
Those of us who have worked in organizations know that as individuals leave their roles in departments, or on committees, vital knowledge is often lost. With single departures, we find that certain problem dimensions are not addressed. My colleague Angela, for example, paid particular attention to economic trends in the staffing of R&D departments. With [...]
- The CEC: Stacking the Middle-Aged Deck To Failure
The developmental effect of the “Current Economic Climate” upon the under-employed middle aged worker, is to force the normative later-life crisis of generativity vs stagnation before its time. The crisis itself is to be expected– worked through across the years in contemplation of one’s lifetime of accomplishments and failures. But the additional external pressures of [...]
- The Real Shift in Middle Age Development
The current economic climate in the United States serves as a catalyst for a shift in the normative developmental tasks of middle age. The popular twentieth century pattern of career leading to retirement has ended. Partly obscured within the spiraling numbers of unemployed workers of all ages, is the high incidence of professional knowledge workers, [...]
- No Country for (Perceived) Old Men
Well, a colleague did comment as it turned out, but by the cautious and conservative, old school method— email (LOL) And the question of interest was: AGE. Specifically, my experiences of ageism as the oldest member (I began when I was 53) of my “executive mba” class. My sudden awareness of age did mark that [...]
