Stay out of decisions if one won’t be around to help bail out the organization.
An employer should have in place a policy for the over-sixties in managerial and professional ranks. The basic rule, and one that should be clearly established and firmly enforced, is that people beyond their early sixties should ease out of major managerial responsibilities. It is a sensible rule for anyone, and not only for the executive, to stay out of decisions if one won’t be around to help bail out the company when the decisions cause trouble a few years down the road—as most of them do. The older executive should move into work one performs on one’s own rather than be the “boss.” This way, he or she specializes and concentrates on one major contribution, advises, teaches, sets standards, and resolves conflicts, rather than works as a “manager.” The Japanese have “counselors,” and they work very effectively, sometimes well into their eighties.
ACTION POINT: Develop a retirement policy for senior executives. Make sure these executives are not the sole decision-makers in decisions whose outcomes will occur beyond the tenure of these executives.
The Frontiers of Management
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker