Page 219 - The Drucker Lectures

200 [ The Drucker Lectures

What is more, they will have more than one career. Let me
say, the working lifespan of people is now close to 60 years. In
1900, you got 20 years. Actually, our working lifespan has grown
much faster than our overall lifespan. And one of the first things
to see is that in a very short time, we will no longer believe that
retirement means the end of working life. Retirement may be
even earlier than it has been, but working life will continue. It
is predictable that within the next 25 years, even in the United
States, most people will still keep on working—perhaps not as
full-time employees of a company, but as temps or part-timers—
until they are in their seventies.
Part of this is out of economic necessity. My grandchildren
will not be willing to give 35 percent of their income to sup-
port older people who are perfectly capable of working. Very few
people will be able, no matter how much they put into their re-
tirement accounts, to live without some additional income.
But knowledge also gives choice.
When I talk to the students in my executive management
program—successful people who are 45 years old on average—
every one of them says, “I do not expect to end my career where
I am working now.” And every one of them says, “I have a Rolo-
dex in my bottom drawer with 20 names of people to call once
I want to change. And I call them once every two months just
to keep in touch with them, in case I want to.” This is not be-
cause they’re unhappy with their employer. Rather, they’ll say,
“At present this company needs a good organic chemist. But I
can see that in a few years, our products, our markets, are chang-
ing where they won’t really have a need for the likes of me. And
I am not willing just to sit there and read memos.”
So we will have to learn, first, who we are. We don’t know.
When I ask these students of mine, “Do you know what you’re
good at?” almost not one of them knows. “Do you know what you
need to learn so that you get the full benefit of your strengths?”