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The Knowledge Transfer Crisis

MusingsYou could sense it was coming. On the one hand, Boomers who have been senior managers at companies have started to retire, either by choice or circumstance, taking their considerable knowledge and experience with them. On the other hand, Millennials are stepping into senior management roles, lacking the knowledge and experience of the managers they replace, namely Boomers.

This creates a fascinating dilemma for American businesses: a knowledge transfer crisis. Dorothy Leonard, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, tells Bloomberg Business, “Many large, older companies are caught up in a tsunami of baby boomers retiring and are unaware of how much tribal knowledge they are taking with them." Chip Espinoza, director of organization psychology at Concordia University Irvine, adds, “In the next 10 to 15 years, we’re going to have the greatest transfer of knowledge that’s ever taken place.”

Bloomberg Business cites the telling example of a Boomer at Deloitte, chief marketing/chief content officer Jonathan Copulsky, who mentors younger executives at the company. One of his mentees, a Millennial, commented about Copulsky,“I see how he approaches clients. Millennials bring data and analytics, but boomers have experience they can rely on when the data isn’t sufficient.”

Now here's the real tragedy: The mandatory retirement age at Deloitte is 62, so Copulsky will be forced to retire in June 2017. Really Deloitte... 62?? Isn't that precisely the time in one's life when the incredible wellspring of knowledge could be of most value to a consulting firm? Yet Mike Preston, Deloitte's chief talent officer, tells Bloomberg Business he thinks the company will probably have no Boomers left in top management within ten years.

As a society, we seem to laud youth over experience in every way, even to the extent of forcing talented, knowledgeable, experienced individuals to leave their jobs because they reach an arbitrary retirement age. It isn't good for American businesses, it isn't good for Boomers, and it isn't even good for young up-and-comers who could greatly benefit from mentors like Jonathan Copulsky. But until companies change the way they do business, and Americans change their perceptions of aging, Boomers who should be showing Millennials how to take over will more than likely be shown the door.

It doesn't make sense to me.

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