Greymatters, because it does
I’m sure I’m speaking for many of us back edge baby boomers and early Gen X’ers when I say that the gray hair we’ve all earned is the first outward sign of the wisdom that supposedly comes with aging--even to those who hide it. We’ve gone through the war called maturing, fighting the battles of mistakes, misplaced trust, aches and pains, outright failures and occasional success. It’d be a shame to not take all of this wonderful learning and figure out where to invest it in the last ten or fifteen productive work years we have in front of us. How and where to apply this new found wisdom often doesn’t match the market, and those looking for this wisdom are often looking in the wrong places. There are things we have done at least ten thousand times with more than ten thousand steps.
I’ve seen that movie too
I’ve had the underground and backstage tour of Disney World--talk about fantasies crashing to the ground. Many of us are tired of the games corporate America plays, and are equally unenthusiastic about start-ups staffed by 25-year olds. Do any of us really want to be treated like the digitally ignorant farting old aunt or uncle, unable to grasp the brilliance of fill in the blank widgets, apps, SaaS, and disruptive things? These movies are not in black in white, they are always a multitude of shades of gray. There are new endings to them--there has to be. After all, products are not for inventing, they are for monetizing.
Sideways is the most expensive direction
In 1995 the original big 3 long-distance companies--MCI, ATT and Sprint--employed almost 200,000 people and spent over 100B/year fighting each other in some bygone business called long-distance telecommunications. All that remains of MCI is a portion of Verizon Business. Sprint is a wireless only company having shed everything, including long distance and local. The former Southwestern Bell Company is now ATT and it’s a lot of different things. Sideways cost a whole industry and scores of thousands of jobs. In larger numbers and less fanfare, start-ups fail as they continue to go sideways building products and teams without adequate revenue. (And, thanks to Paul Giamatti, Sideways also killed Merlot).
Inventing, refining, monetizing
In big companies assigning any team of people involved in creating any issue to come up with the solution has limited chance of viability. In start-ups, with few players on the bench, the continued refining of the widget by the same team that built it with a hope that the one of the senior team can sell it rarely succeeds. The exact opposite approach is hiring a sales force without refining the value proposition. Target market identification and the completion of adequate sales support effort cannot be accomplished by the same senior team trying to refine what they invented before it is marketed. This burns cash and is never really a great “product” investment.
Discerning the various shades of gray
How many times in your career has bringing in consultants or teammates for a fresh perspective or skillset helped? How many times have you fought that direction and failed? Inventing, refining, and monetizing are all distinctly different functions. There are times and functions in every business that can benefit from a fresh perspective they often don’t get. Fresh, experienced eyes can notice the details immediately—much faster than those that look at it every day. The world of working in the same company, with the same people, and the same customers, selling the same products over and over makes the world smaller and smaller. New blood, outsiders, and yes, gray hair, can provide clarity that helps businesses mature and move business forward. Even the book claimed there were 50 shades of grey.
Applying gray hair to grey matter (with an understanding of color)
Executive recruiters talk about the retraining of C level executives to be more digitally savvy. But there already are tech savvy execs that were groomed in the initial tech boom of the 80s and 90s. Not to mention these gray haired executives have the well rounded business experience to boot. Start-up companies are often afraid of hiring the more experienced person because of a so-called cultural and generational difference. Yet over the past 4 years, we’ve watched highly educated millennials stand firmly behind a 79-year-old Jewish socialist. Why? He brings with him the wisdom of time, experience and gray hair. If it takes ten thousand times to be an expert and ten thousand steps to be healthy, then adding experience to smarts with a refined understanding of your opportunity, could be everyone’s wisdom side of the equation. A proven case of time exceeding money.