What to do with the second half of one’s life?
Knowledge workers are able physically to keep on working into old age, and well beyond any traditional retirement age. But they run a new risk: they may become mentally finished. What’s commonly called “burnout,” the most common affliction of the fortysomething knowledge worker, is very rarely the result of stress. Its common, all too common, cause is boredom on the job.
In one big and highly successful company top management said to me: “Our engineers are slacking off. Can you try to find out why?” And so I talked to about a dozen very competent, very successful, very well paid people in engineering. And they all said: “My job is important to the success of the company. I like it. I have done it now for about ten years and I am very good at it and I am very proud of it. But I can do it now in my sleep. It no longer challenges me. I am just plain bored. I no longer look forward to coming into the office every morning.” Yet the obvious answer, that is to rotate people, would have been the wrong answer. These people are topflight specialists. What they needed was to regain some true interest. And once they had that—one of them, for instance, started to tutor high school students in math and science—suddenly their work, too, became again satisfying.
ACTION POINT: Set goals outside of your current work. Begin to pursue these goals now.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
Managing Oneself (Corpedia Online Program)
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker