When Experience Walks Out the Door: The Retirement Crisis Businesses Face with Dr. Andi Simon with D

What happens to your business when the person who knows how everything really works decides to retire? And I'm not talking about the job description or the procedure manuals. I mean the real stuff. The relationships, the judgment calls, the unwritten shortcuts, and the cultural glue that keeps the place running. Because here's a truth you might find a little uncomfortable. Most companies spend years planning for growth But almost no time planning for when wisdom walks out the door. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, Customer Experience Expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode of Experience Leadership. I am your host, customer and employee experience strategist Marc Haine, and I'm glad that you're here with us today. Because my guest today is Dr. Andy Simon, Corporate Anthropologist and expert on culture change. And today, we're going to be exploring the hidden cost of retirement and how leaders can protect knowledge, culture, and business continuity before it's too late. I do have one simple request though. If there's somebody in your circle who could benefit from the insights that we're sharing with you today, please do them a favor and pass along a link to this episode. Okay, let's talk about something leaders don't often put on the strategic planning agenda— retirements. Now, on the surface, retirement sounds like a personal decision. Somebody works hard for decades, gets their gold watch, maybe buys a fishing rod and rides off into the sunset. What a lovely image. But inside an organization, retirement can create absolute shockwaves. And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, if one of your most experienced employees announced that they are retiring tomorrow, how much of what they know would disappear with them? I'd love for you to share your experience and kind of mull that around. But I'd love for you to share your experience on social media. If you want to go ahead and share the link to this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and become part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today brings a fascinating perspective to business leadership, one that most organizations rarely think about. Dr. Andy Simon is a corporate anthropologist, CEO of Simon Associates Management Consultants, and a globally recognized expert on culture change, leadership transitions, and organizational transformation. Now, if the phrase corporate anthropologist— see, I can't even say it— corporate anthropologist makes you curious, it should because Andy studies organizations the same way anthropologists study cultures by examining the behaviors, stories, rituals, and assumptions that shape how people actually do work. Over the past 2 decades, she has led more than 500 strategy workshops worldwide, helping organizations rethink how they operate, adapt to change, and navigate complex leadership transitions. Before founding her firm, Andy held senior leadership roles in banking and healthcare where she helped guide organizations through high-stakes operational turnarounds in highly regulated environments. She's also the author of several books including On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business, Women Mean Business. And her newest book is Rethink Retirement: It's Not the End but the Beginning of What's Next. And it explores something most leaders have never fully considered. And that is the hidden cost retirement creates for businesses. Andi, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Marc, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for such a nice introduction.

So, Andi, we've done episodes on succession planning about when owners and operators and managers decide that they're going to retire. They want to succeed from their businesses. And The challenge that that provides. But today, we're talking specifically about when our knowledge holders within our businesses want to retire. What are the first warning signs that an organization is really vulnerable to retirement-driven knowledge loss?

What a wonderful way to start the conversation. In some ways, organizations go through the habits of running their daily activities as if no change is coming. Humans hate change, and so it's easier to deny them, resist them, or ignore them. But if you took a look at the demographics, and demography is destiny, I have a hunch in every one of your listeners' organizations, there's a cohort of people who are turning, if not 55, 60, 65, somewhere in that zone, and they're beginning to think about what's next. And it becomes a very interesting time because by and large, organizations ignore the questions. They'll prepare the financial side, but a financial plan isn't really a good life plan for either the individual or for the organization. And so, part of the reason I wrote the book is that as an anthropologist, there's a huge cultural transformation coming. There are 75 million boomers.

Mm-hmm.

So, if nothing, this whole society is going through a tremendous transformation. And unless we begin to understand its impact on the way we do things, culture, And how we get them done and the people who are doing them, we're going to find ourselves with a huge empty hole. You know, who took care of that? Well, so-and-so, but he's gone. And how do we get that done? What project do we have? Who knows how to do it? So, if you have a wonderful organization with great people who have grown along with you, then your future is dependent upon thinking and rethinking, how are we going to manage this great transition? It is not simply a financial transition. They're gone.

Mm-hmm.

And that's something that leaders need to pay attention to now. In healthcare, think of all the doctors and nurses who are going to be retiring. In corporations, how many folks have run organizations or run even the manufacturing of them who are beginning to think about their next stage? And I will tell you that many people, whether they like work or don't, and I've met many who really don't, are thinking about this next stage as a great door opening. And the folks who are left behind are wondering, who knows how to do this and how will I know? And it isn't simply a conversation or transformation. You need to become serious about the learning process of what's coming along. So, that's my thought as we start this conversation today.

It's interesting because I get a sense that most organizations treat retirement like it's an HR process rather than a strategic event. Is that fair to say?

It's an HR and it's a financial one.

Mm-hmm.

That has the 2 sides to it. On the one hand, the HR folks have to process, but on the financial one, often that person is a highly paid individual. And so now you have some freedom from that. And on the other side, from the people who are going through this, yes, there's an HR process, but by and large, HR isn't preparing a person who's been a member of your organization for the next stage. And so that's sort of unfortunate and really sad because there is a responsibility there. And then they too need to make sure they're financially in good shape but don't really know their life plan. And that becomes scary. So, that's the two sides to this that we need to think about at the same time. If you care about your folks both today and in the future, and that future could be really beneficial for you if there's a big gap when they leave.

Yeah. You know, I worked for a municipality which had a lady who was well into her 70s by the time she was getting ready to retire, but she had You know, at the age of 60, she gave no sense of slowing down. And yet I was always amazed at the amount of knowledge she had. Like, you could find her knowledge somewhere in a book, in a binder somewhere, but it was just so much easier to pick up the phone, call Marilyn, because Marilyn knew it all. And now I'm no longer with the municipality, but she just recently retired. And I, I imagine that the transition must be really, really tough now. Why is it that— I guess it's because it's not a crisis, right? We're not thinking about what happens when these people leave because they've always been here. So, this idea of kind of having this tacit knowledge within our environments, how exactly do we start thinking about the problem before it becomes a problem?

By and large, neither the organization nor the individuals have ever practiced retirement.

It's true.

I don't know anybody who tried to sample what retirement was before they actually went into it. Now, think about it. We imagine what we don't know. We create a story about it. It's a fiction, but it makes us the hero. We'll be fine. And we've passed the information down, trained the next generation, but we really have no idea. And on the other side, there isn't an employee who has practiced retirement yet. either, but they're sure they're going to have a wonderful time playing golf, playing pickleball, going on trips, visiting with the grandkids, doing things they haven't been able to do. Ah, 2 illusions coming together in a crashing moment. And hey, humans hate change. So, a little bit of denial, and next thing you know, a year goes by and 2 things happen. Inside the company, they've been struggling, and outside the company, they've been struggling. And so now becomes this aha moment of, Man, how are we going to better prepare for this and also help our folks stay engaged? What's wrong with finding projects they can work on, all kinds of interesting ways to think beyond the workplace as a 5-day-a-week steady job? I mean, it's a time to rethink what we are as a company and how we're going to manage this great transition because it is going to be a huge one. And the youngers aren't quite sure how to handle the elders, and neither do the elders know how to train the youngers.

Right.

It's hard to pick up a lot of this It's expertise, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's interesting because I turn 65 next, next month, and I feel I'm just getting started. I feel I'm still very much in my infancy of, you know, exploring options and, you know, looking at new opportunities and that sort of thing. And I'm tickled to wake up every single day. However, I know that that's not necessarily reality for a lot of people. And what I loved about what you just said was this idea that there's a balance between looking at retirement, looking at the effect on the organization, but also looking at the effect on the individual. Because it would be fair to say that a lot of people who've spent 25+ years in a business, all of a sudden when they were quote unquote retire, it might seem like a nice thing. But I have a sneaking suspicion that some of their identity might be tied into what they've been doing the last 25 years. And they'll leave that door thinking, okay, Now what?

Who am I?

Who am I, right?

4 things we focus on. And as I research this, I can tell you about the research, but things began to pop early. You no longer are your business card. So who are you? Can I go to a business networking meeting and socialize? When someone asks, what do you do? Which is a very common thing. Are you gonna say, I'm retired? Is that something you do or a tribe you now belong to? And identity, going through, I call it, in anthropology, we call it a liminal stage. You're betwixt and between. You haven't arrived yet at the new you, and you're no longer able to look back to the old one either. That's the most anxiety-producing time for people, and they haven't even thought about it. Now, once you get there, and I have now to search for my new identity, and you can prepare for it, but most of the time people don't prepare at all. Because they're not even aware they're going to lose that business card identity. I'll talk about the entrepreneur who sells their business in a moment because they are equally challenged. But then you also don't have a daily structure. You think the freedom is going to be wonderful. I can do whatever I want to. My favorite story is a former client of mine who planned on his retirement systematically, knew when it was going to happen. And then he says to me, now I'm well-planned, but I get up in the morning, I go to the gym, I come home, I have my coffee, and I have nothing to do all day. What do I do? I have everything planned and nothing planned. So you really need a daily structure. The freedom is wonderful, but with just freedom, humans are really lost souls. The third part is, what's my meaning or purpose? Who do I matter to? And that's really interesting. If you're a woman who has retired from a professional job, many times your whole purpose was tied up in what you did. You need to plan ahead for what's happening next. Because unless you're really already involved in not-for-profits or you're on boards, you're going to find purpose missing. Same thing for men. Very often they were very— one great story. I used to go to meetings and I was a speaker. And when the company planned for the whole thing, I knew the hotel. I knew who was going to pick me up, who's going to take me. It was great. And then I retired and I went to speak and I had to go plan my own hotel. I had to plan my own meeting. I had to plan everything. And I never had any idea that that was what I got in that role. And my last thing, one woman said to me, I was full of great friends. I worked as a wealth manager for 38 years, and then I retired. You know, I had helped all these people retire. Couldn't be better. And off I go, only to discover all the friends I had made have nothing to say to me. And then I have no friends.

Hmm.

Who's my community? And I'm watching your face because that was her face. She said, I didn't know. And of course, I wasn't a stay-at-home mom. So, I didn't have a lot of friends at home, and I didn't have any organizations I belonged to. I got on the train, I went to the office, I had all these friends. I never was lonely. And man, am I lonely now. So, the 4 things you need to think about from those who are leaving aren't that different from those who are staying because they need to rethink themselves. Whoever left had a job to be done. Every day they did something. Who's going to do it now? And are they going to do it in the same way?

Hmm.

You know, are they buyers who are going to buy through the same manufacturers' reps? That the gentleman before them or the woman before them did? Or are they going to find their own? Are you going to train them to do that? And how about managing people? Who's going to take over the leadership role? Are they going to do it in a similar way or a different way? The change, remember, humans don't like change.

Yeah.

And the habits are compelling. And so now you have really time to give some thought to what are we going to do to build the new while somebody's preparing to move off? And my last thought, and you mentioned it yourself, I'm a happy guy. The reason I wrote this was that my, neither my husband nor I were going to retire. And I said, what are we missing? It must be something I don't know about that everybody is doing. So I spent a couple of weeks in a senior living community to understand what makes them happy. Interesting conversation. Then I interviewed up to 60 folks and I began to see that each one had a different story. Yeah, there were patterns, but they weren't as different as each individual trying to craft their own next stage. And then I looked at the organizations, and I realized that they were under-planning everything, hadn't thought about it, hadn't had a crisis yet. Nobody came in to give them a pre-plan and to think about now. And so, this is a great conversation today because it is time to begin to think about the great transformation that's coming And it is here already. It is happening one at a time and big. So I'm very fascinated by how people are adapting.

I love that. And I can imagine that the turmoil caused by decades of knowledge walking out the door may not be immediate. It might be, oh, it's good for Steve. He's retired. This is his last week. Oh, congratulations, Steve. It's going to be wonderful. And then, you know, people start kind of going through their day-to-day without Steve around, even maybe mentioning around the lunchroom or the Keurig machine, oh, you know, it's so funny not having Steve here. Right? But then, I can imagine that after some months, some, you know, even weeks maybe, that the signs would start to manifest itself. What does the impact— how does the impact of retirement show up? And when does that happen typically, do you think?

You know, I had one client who bought companies and retired their senior leaders. Each of the companies he acquired were family firms. So, you had the combination of the elder leaving and the retirement party that you had and the celebration of the life well-lived, all kinds of wonderful things. And the rest of the folks kept waiting for the fellow who had retired and built the business to replace with something that could make sense to them because they were in a world built around a particular kind of culture. Maybe they weren't rules-driven, but they certainly were entrepreneurial and collaborative, team-oriented. They understood a family firm and the values that were there. A client I had didn't understand that when he removed that leader, retired, I say removed, but they made it a retirement, which was fine. And others who were in management also retired. He took away the essential elements of a culture. And didn't replace it with anything except his sense of how we were going to be more market-driven, more streamlined, more profitable. And everybody watched. They really didn't know what the words meant. And I can only tell you that a culture transformation like that is fundamental. It's the essence of who someone is. It isn't the clothes they wear. It's how they get things done. Now, once trained on how to get things done, When the leader leaves or your management leaves, we're not quite sure how to get things done because the processes we had were well-oiled and they worked. The new people don't quite know what the processes are and are trying to impose new ones, and we don't know what those are. And so, that is very profound. I can give you other stories. The ones I'm most interested in for entrepreneurs who may be watching is that you sell your company, With great— you're just so happy. And you have enough money in the bank now to do what you'd like. And you take a 2-year transformation transition period. And many of the folks in my book did just that. And they retired and took 2 years. And the symbolism was wonderful. First, they had an office in the newly acquired company, and they were helping to work through the transition. Good idea. And then they had a smaller office. They needed their office for somebody else. And then they had an even smaller office. The symbolism was fascinating. Too many of them told me the same shrinking office stories, not to realize that then they were going to have no office. And then they said to me, but I was here because I wanted the transition to go smoothly for my folks who were there and for the new company who acquired them. And the new company was making their own decisions, weren't really listening to him anyhow. And they were the new folks and he was the old folks. He was the old guard. The conversations are fascinating because people didn't expect that. They wanted to be valuable and have purpose and have an identity. And then they found they weren't needed. And that was not fun. One guy said to me, I have a white piece of paper here and I have nothing on it. How do I draw my next stage? And I said, let's start because you can. But the inside the house, I mean, that company who acquired him were moving off and they were getting the efficiencies they wanted and all the things they needed, but not the way he thought they should.

I can imagine that for the person, quote unquote, being replaced, that especially during a transitional time, however long that would be, that there becomes a value shift in that the legacy effect or the feeling of legacy gets flushed down the toilet pretty darn quickly. And so that in itself must, in itself during the transition, must cause quite a lot of conflict within an organization.

Then whoever left is then seen in a particularly new light, and people project on themselves the same feelings.

Mm-hmm.

And so, if an organization understood what the legacy feeling would be, the people who stay behind aren't necessarily feeling loved. They're watching somebody leave, and they made it, but I haven't made it. I may have 10 years before I make it. What's it going to be like here? During those 4 years? Am I going to learn new things? Am I going to rise? Nobody talks about— if they talk about it, talk about it intentionally to prepare people to grow and to achieve certain capabilities, and then to train the next. I mean, think about it, and to train the next generation at the same time, not own it and control it because it gives you power. But now you find that the bigger thing is to enable, facilitate, educate, the values are changing.

Yeah.

And if they're not changing, you're going to have a really suspicious group that follows wondering, how are they going to be treated? And are they, you know, one guy said to me, it looks like we're just all going to line up and leave the company. And I'm saying to myself, that poor company doesn't know what's coming next, right? One at a time, we're going to trickle out. And next thing you know, there's no knowledge here, no legacy knowledge, no expertise. Maybe that's good. The times are changing. Maybe you need more agility and less intelligence. But it is a very powerful moment in American society to begin to realize what's coming.

Yeah.

And what's here.

And so disruptive. I'd like to get into some strategies that business operators can consider to help smooth out this transition. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back. I am speaking with Dr. Andy Simon and we're talking about, ooh, the effects of retirement. Andi, of course, I've done my shameless plug for my book. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your book?

This is my, I'm assuming, my 4th book, Rethink Retirement: It's Not the End, But the Beginning of What's Next. It's a book about 30 people who wanted to tell you their stories about how retirement has transformed them. And so, in the book, I really like to dig into the different topics that people think are coming, their myths about I'll have all this free time. What is it like? I'm going to have so much fun. Really? I have enough money. What else do I need to worry about? What about purpose and meaning? And how do I address those? Community, family, all the time I'm going to spend with my family I haven't been able to do thus far. And the book has a workbook within it so that at each stage you can begin to rethink your identity, think about your daily structure, Worry about how am I going to make sure my day is meaningful and really begin to build that community for your next stage. And I really think it's the beginning of what's next. As I mentioned earlier, most people don't practice retirement. It's a foreign country. You don't have a language. You don't know how to talk to people about it. You can say, I've retired. I'm a retiree. What does that mean? You belong to a tribe of people who used to work. But maybe you now belong to something very different, and it's a community of people who have a very different role to play in a society that's going through a great transformation. So the book is designed both for you to understand it through the stories of others, and remember, as you read their stories, your own story is going to begin to change. And I'm getting wonderful reviews. People who I know for a long time said, I wish I read this before I retired. Then I would've prepared better. I said, that's the idea. Maybe we can start. And it being an anthropologist who works in companies, it has the other side to it. What happened to the company that you left, or the thing you sold, or the place in your life before? Don't abandon it. Some of my favorite stories are people after 2 years decide to go back to business and reopen the business that they sold. They said, I couldn't stand being out of work.

Yeah.

It's work. Why is work bad? It's a good thing sometimes for many people. And it gives them a great place to be every day.

I love that. You know, we've been talking up until now, we've been talking about how this transition, the retirement transition, should be viewed as a business continuity issue. What does that look like as far as how leaders need to change their thinking?

You know, earlier you asked me about strategy. And if you don't mind, I'd like to put it into a strategic thinking process. I'm a blue ocean strategist. And, you know, you can begin to think about this as a better way to compete in your market. But I would urge you to think about this as a great time for you to create a new way of competing in the market. It's a time to begin to think about unmet needs. It's just what we're talking about, about ways to think about value innovation, not simply incremental improvement. So if you could take a moment and step back and think about this slowly, think about this as a blue ocean opportunity where you can differentiate you and your company from others and stop competing with them, but create a different culture where people want to line up and come because of the way they see life developing there, the kind of values you can articulate. I think you're going to find this a growth opportunity as opposed to a problem to be solved. And so, I would urge you, think blue ocean strategy, and that's all about creating as opposed to simply being another that competes. You don't want to be simply you know, a settler that looks just like everyone else and hope you have your share of the market. Use this for a strategic advantage and make the legacy of those who are retiring something differentiating, something important, some story you can craft about how we treat our people and how it's a lifelong journey even after they leave us. There is some, there are some companies who are beginning to hire back the retirees on projects, on training programs, are finding roles for them to play. that are good for them. They don't have to be retired 5 days a week. They can be retired 2 days a week. And finding ways to find continuity inside that makes it a much longer transition than a day where I've arrived. And so, I really urge you to think differently as opposed to simply ask your neighbor what they are doing and mimic it. It's time to stop mimicking each other.

I love that. I got goosebumps, Andy, when you said that because I believe that we talk about aftercare for our customers. And our employees being our first customers, I really think that the more we think about what aftercare looks like for transitioning employees, the more powerful our business and more differential our businesses become because of that.

Well, and I think if you start, you'll be ahead of the curve. And what you'll find is that your story will be compelling in ways that you hadn't anticipated because nobody's telling the story right now. They retired, gone, done. And I'm finding hospitals where they're worried about the doctors who still want to work, but also retire. And I find in a manufacturing client, they're really concerned about what comes next. In a not-for-profit, you have so much continuity. Maybe there's a way of balancing this and thinking about the employee beyond the four— I'll call it the four walls of a company.

Right.

And expand your four walls. It's a really cool way to rethink what's going on.

I love that. Jumping back to kind of this idea of like a transition, what does a phased retirement transition look like in practice?

A phased retirement transition for the individual or for the firm or for both?

For the business dealing with people who are retiring.

If you think about it, you by and large do not prepare for that transition in the company. And I, I was an executive in several companies. Nobody even talked about it. And so now is the time, knowing that you're going to have a very big transition of people, to begin to plan as if you are planning a new program or project or product. One hospital I know has assigned somebody to actually begin to work on the great transformation. What are they going to do when, you know, there are 250,000 doctors who are ready for retirement soon? What are we going to do in our healthcare system? And robots may not be the solution. But it becomes a time for rethinking what you're doing and making it a higher priority than deal with it one at a time. Why not? I mean, if you're really a forward-thinking organization, this is a time to be a catalytic transformation company, as opposed to simply a soft move and let them out. For the person who's beginning to plan on that retirement, It's time to educate them a little bit. They know they have a financial security of some kind. Sometimes they don't even know how to manage that particularly well, but that's fine. We can figure out the buckets they put money into and where they draw the money down. But now, what's life all about? And talk to them about it. Begin to get a life plan. And I've been talking to financial planners who begin to realize that the people they prepared for retirement don't have a life plan. And what would be so hard to begin to Open up the door and create that life plan for when you retire. Begin to inform them. They're not going to believe you because they haven't experienced it. It's like I dropped them in Greece or Spain and said, you don't know anything about the culture, but you're going to survive here. How do I do that? But this is exactly the same. It's an open space. But a little training, a little coaching. There are retirement coaches, an abundance of them beginning to emerge, who are well-trained on how to help people through it. Begin to think of life plan and financial plan and the transformation of planning your organization as one big continuum with different buckets to them. And I think you'll have a better time yourself thinking about how well you have managed the people in transition and your own company. I think you'll take pride in it.

I love that you mentioned the coaching thing. I've been saying on the show for years now that I believe that managers need to become more coaches than they need to be managers. But now, this idea of kind of being able to recognize that you might have a portion of your staff roster going into retirement and being able to bring in some sort of a program to help people with that transition. It sounds brilliant. For the people who are tuned in watching this and this is really resonating for them, how can they get in touch with you, Andi, if they need to, if they want your help?

Well, my favorite friend is LinkedIn and Andrius. LinkedIn has given us a directory. You're welcome. I'm on there under Andrea Simon, although I go by Andy Simon so often. But my websites are simonassociates.net, where all of my business part is, and then andysimon.com, where all my books and programs are there as well.

Mm-hmm.

And I am really delighted to take your calls. You know, let's talk. What you don't know, you don't know, and I'm delighted to begin to share with you. some of our wisdom. But I will tell you, the whole market is teaching me as I'm beginning to share with others because this is so flexible right now. And everybody who's going through their own unique journey is teaching us another way to begin to prepare. And I love to write for Substack, and I have a Rethink Retirement on Substack. And today's was about there is no one way. You know, you got to begin to design your own. And then begin to figure out what works or doesn't. And if it's not working, one of the folks I interviewed said, I failed retirement. I said, it's okay. You didn't have to succeed there. You had to be smart enough to know, this isn't what I want. I'm going to go find a job, or I'm going to repurpose myself, or I'm going to reopen my company. But it's okay to take some time and then rethink what you're doing. And on the inside, you know, if you're trying to figure out how to culturally redefine it, That's our expertise. And part of the thing is how do you change the story so that it resonates properly for the people who stay and prepares people properly for those who are leaving? Makes sense?

Yeah, it does indeed. To that end, for the organizations to think about how this lull is going to happen, are there any best practices to help them create knowledge transfer systems that go beyond documentation and policy manuals and that sort of thing? Are there any best practices you would recommend?

I try to tailor each to the organization. So I'll answer with maybe. Because you need to know the way your own organization responds to different things. A couple of things about people, though. When you tell them or have them read something, they will create a story in their own mind about what that means. So you need to begin with a story. Start with a huge visualization. If you want to begin to see this, have people draw pictures. Have a workday where we all begin to visualize what it's going to be like when Andy leaves the company. You'll be amazed at how many different ways people are going to visualize it. So I'm giving you my bias as an anthropologist, because if you can't see it, you can't be it. And you need to start with a visualization, not just a vision, a visualization. Be granular about the parts. Now, once you've got it down and you've got the granularity, begin to backward plan it. It's not hard. The military does backward plans. They will tell you when they go into battle, those are all shot to heck, but it's not a bad way to begin to think about how am I going to make the transition. And then if you're going to have people absorbing, let them mentor or shadow whoever's going to be leaving. Have them spend a day in the life or several days in the life of the person who's leaving. And watch what they do. Listen to the conversations. Be a student of the person who's going to be leaving so you can begin to absorb it. And last, accept the fact that it won't be identical. They're not twins. It's going to be a new way. And encourage them to take some risks, to design something new, be a little entrepreneurial and creative. Do it as a team because nobody's going to be alone in the process. Talk to people. One thing I find best practice though, put a team of 7 to 10 people together who are going to be impacted by the transition and let them have weekly talk sessions about problems, about how they're solving them. Teach each other about the transformation and how they are adapting to it. It's safer for them to be able to talk about it and to begin to share best practices on how they are beginning to find things that work good. And my very last one is small wins win. Do not turn the battleship in an oar. And it's going to feel that way. Do it a little at a time with a destination of how things are going to be better. And visualize that better because it will be better. It'll be different. However it'll be, together we will get there. It's much better than trying to make it a solo. Solos don't work well.

I love that. And right there was the value that if anybody paid admission for today, That's the value they just got, Andy. Thank you so much for sharing that. When we come back, I'd like to talk about some cautionaries and pitfalls that we should be aware of as we try to look at our culture change, this lull in knowledge, and so on. Let's talk a little bit about that right after this.

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Welcome back. We are having such a great discussion. I hope you're getting tons of value from it today. As you can tell from our discussion, Andy and I are deeply dedicated to supporting business leaders just like you. So, if you're in the midst of planning a leadership retreat, an industry conference, and you're looking for some amazing content, or you're just needing some expert guidance, we're just a message away. Feel free to reach out to us for a conversation about your unique challenges or maybe even to discuss how we can help collaborate with you to achieve your goals. Our link is in the show notes. Feel free to reach out. So, Andy, what advice would you give business owners to avoid kind of the common pitfalls that we're seeing?

First of all, you've never gone through this before. And so, be patient and humble. Talk to people. I think the most important thing— remember the old idea of managing by walking around?

Mm-hmm.

Couldn't be more important. People need the comfort and confidence when you don't have the competence, and they don't have the competency either. So, they're going to be consciously incompetent. That's a state of anxiety-producing. You don't want people to get depressed or feel uncertain. Do not underestimate the way humans respond to change. And so they're really going to need an additional time to talk about it, to reach out and think about it out loud, to assure them that they're not in jeopardy. And so as you're doing it, the biggest pitfall is to assume everything's fine, but it's never fine. And because you have a vacuum and it's going to be filled. The second thing is if you don't tell the story about how this organization is ramping up or succeeding despite the retirement, or however you want to craft your story, they will make one up. And humans are wonderful creators. They're meaning makers. And they are always the hero in their story, not in yours. And so, as you begin to think about it, what's the story we're going to tell? Do not be casual about it and play it out a little bit. Because what you think is the right story may be underwhelming, may be self-serving. You know, there's a real— in your videos, you talk about service to others.

Mm-hmm.

This is the place to be of service to others who are going to be uncertain about what's happening. And the human brain hates uncertainty. It wants to protect its status. It's really in need of autonomy and fairness and a relationship. So the brains of all those folks around you need you to lead. In a very collaborative fashion and tell a lot of stories, celebrate what's going, move on. And don't think it's that watch you put on the person who left or the cake at the party. It's much deeper than that. And people are going to be sobbing. They're going to be bereaving.

Yes. Yeah, I guess the, the whole idea around grief, losing somebody within the organization is going to be likewise to losing anybody, I guess.

Yes, it is. And if the organization was well-oiled, you're going to be challenged. For thinking through and do it intentionally, make it a transition. In fact, before the person retires, begin to transition the roles to someone else. Give them the confidence and competence that you have from the person who's leaving.

Yeah.

Don't wait till the last minute.

And make the retiree the coach.

And they might find it wonderful to begin to share rather than to hold on. They're going through anxiety as well.

Right.

They know they're going to But they have no idea what's coming next.

Yeah, what a great way to alleviate some of that legacy thinking as well, right? That, oh, you know, I've been doing this for 25 years now, everything I, I used to— everything I did doesn't matter anymore, right? So making them the coach could help that. Are there any other cautionaries we should be aware of as, as people try to move into that transition?

Well, the human one is the one I tend to focus on.

Okay.

But often the customers were connected to the person who's retiring as well. And I would take a good look at their customer relationships. In one firm, accounting firm I had for a client for 8 years, as the people were retiring, they very carefully worked with the clients to move them to whoever was replacing the person retiring. And this was very intentional. It took several years to begin to move it over. They had so many clients. It was a very successful firm. But do not think that the clients don't notice how you treat the person retiring.

Yeah.

And how that implies things for them as well. And so if you think lickety-split, you have now somebody new to take care of you, that may go over well, or it may not go over at all.

Mm-hmm.

And they need to build the trust that came with whoever was their client representative, their accountant, their lawyer, whoever might be the person they counted on. And don't think they don't go shopping around for somebody to replace them because you haven't treated them well. And so, transitions matter for a client. And I think those two would be the two I would worry about the most.

Yeah.

You know, the operational stuff, you probably will work your way through. The engineers will figure out how to make the engineering work fine, but the people stuff is what'll haunt you.

Yeah. And hurt you at a greater level. This has just been such a great conversation, Andy. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today? Have we missed anything?

Well, last thoughts are always interesting because people remember the ending even better than the beginning. And so, this is a wonderful time to rethink retirement. And I think that you should think about it in a new way because you can't practice it, but you can begin to explore it. Find some people who could be your role models. Begin to think about your own stage in your life, but for your business, don't wait. Get yourself a strategy that's going to differentiate you in the market because I think you can really find a unique way to add value innovatively inside To the clients that you have and to the folks who are going to be retiring and may like to work a little more. Think of it bigger ecosystem as opposed to an event with a person. I think it's a time to think big. And I think what you'll come out with is really cool ideas on how your folks have the ideas. They're already trying to tell you them.

Listen.

Love it. Andy, could you remind everybody one more time how they can get ahold of you?

LinkedIn is my favorite. It's Andrea Simon. And you'll find all my information there, my contact stuff. And SimonAssociates.net is our business website. And Andi, A-N-D-I, AndiSimon.com is where you can find all my books and the programs that we run with the books. And I'm offering a masterclass and workshops coming up that are tied into Rethinking Retirement because what I've learned is a book is fine, but doing stuff that helps you is even more fun.

Yes.

And having conversations in a community around that as well.

Yes.

Pretty magical, I think. Yeah. Well, Andi, I wanna thank you so much for talking about this today. Like I said, we've talked about succession planning before, but we've never really talked about, in 293 episodes, we've never talked about this idea of dealing with retirement and the lull that that creates. And this has been such a high-value conversation. It's absolutely been brilliant. So thank you for that.

Thank you, Marc. It's a good time and I've enjoyed it, every minute of it. Thank you.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book time on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It would be my honor to be of service. And of course, if you think now that you have this idea of transitions and you need help, feel free to reach out to Andy because I know she's going to be a great resource for you. While you're at it, since you're here, why don't you leave a comment or review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value to you? Did you get any nuggets? I'd love to know that this was a great use of your time. And of course, if you haven't done so yet, please make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. By doing so, you'll get notifications when I bring you new content each and every week. I want to sincerely thank you for joining me today. It's been a blast having you and have blast having this discussion with Andy. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you're one of the ones out there that dare to be the exception. See you next week.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com for a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found today's If you found this content valuable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Marc says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.