Reinvention or Renovation?

Bill Gates said many years ago that he had 4,000 jobs he needed to fill. Unfortunately, those jobs will not go to Americans. Specifically stated, he is not hiring anyone from the United States.

Why you may asked? Because in the country that invented The Internet—The United States—we have 90 million people who were never prepared for the Digital Age. mainly, baby Boomers.

I have this problem all the time. Especially since I am a Baby Boomer as well. Many simply cannot comprehend how much has changed business wise. Very shortly we will be facing a new world where 30 years of business experience becomes meaningless when technology is brand new. And 20th Century thinkers apply models, law and structure to 21st Century people.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot
read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
                                   - Alvin Toffler

Go back over 130 yrs ago. What could a farmer tell his son as he was leaving the farm to head off to the big city? How could that farmer, who never learned to read or write give advice to a son who was educated and went to college and was heading off to the big city to get a newfangled job as a Stock Broker?

The only advice he could give was "remember where you come from, stay true to the values we taught you and don't forget to write your mother."
Now let's face today's world.

Baby Boomers were raised to work hard, study, respect authority, obey the rules, and when you pass the test, you can move up in the world. We took that model out into the real world and applied it to our careers.

At one point, through hard work, we were going to get the corner office, a good salary and young people would look up to us and respect us for our knowledge and experience.

So, how's that working out for you so far?

It doesn't. That's because the world has changed around us. Something came along that Boomers didn't pay attention to in the slightest...and that was video games.

This has created a Digital Native, prepared to work in a virtualized work environment, or a Cloud Network, or even work from their laptop anywhere in the world.

To keep pace with today's work environment and methodologies will require something that Baby Boomers need to take seriously: reinvention.

Right now there is a race. A race you may not know is happening. And that race is to create the very first Information Age Business Model that works consistently.

Time for reinvention and a complete over hall of what we are clinging to...like hierarchy.  

“At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that
they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.”
                                          – Bill Gates

You can't micromanage innovation.

Thanks for reading,

Brad Szollose

Brad is the award winning, international bestselling author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia: Multigenerational Management Ideas That Are Changing The Way We Run Things ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Mr. Szollose writes a monthly column on business and marketing techniques that reach Generation Y for A Captured Mind Newsletter and is part of The Mind Capture Group faculty.

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York