Transformation: The 100 Year Life, are you ready?

There is a great book by Gratton and Scott entitled, The 100 Year Life. It helpfully brings together a number of perspectives around the topic of human longevity. Whilst not a new story, the implications of a longer life are still not very well understood. As yet, society has not adapted to handle this significant increase in life duration.

End of the traditional three stage life as we know it

Gratton and Scott argue that we are products of a society whereby you are 1) educated 2) work 3) retire. A simple system that has been in place since the industrial revolution and one which sees the middle stage, work, as by far the longest and dominant period, albeit rather predictable. It remains firmly in place today and is not really questioned. However, that needs to change.

Living a 100 year life and following this current system would mean, for example:

• 0 to 21 years – education
• 22 to 65 years – work
• 66 to 100 years – retire

There are some problems with this:

• It will be difficult to afford to be in retirement for 35 years and still have a reasonable quality of life
• People need meaning and purpose and achieving this over an extended 35 year retirement is challenging
• What we learn in our first 21 years of our life will be insufficient to allow us to stay relevant and employable during the next 44 years
• Individuals need to increasingly rely upon themselves to navigate an extended life and less on any one institution

The new approach

Instead of the traditional three stage life, a better approach is needed. The authors suggest a hypothesis that still sees the work period book ended by distinct periods of education and retirement. However, the ‘work’ period will look quite different.

First of all, the work stage of the model is likely to last not until 65 but more likely well into your 70s. Therefore young people currently in education need to plan for a work period of 50+ years. This represents at least 10 years longer than mid age people today currently in employment.

Secondly, the work stage is more likely to follow a new pattern as follows:

• Explorer – Do we really know what we want to dedicate our lives to at the age of 18 or even 21? This becomes an even more important question when considering our work life will be longer in a 100 Year Life. Therefore, subject to finances, expect more people to invest time in travelling, ad-hoc working and generally looking around to find out who they are and what are their passions. A sort of elongated ‘gap year’.
• Independent producer – before following the standard approach of joining an organization, we may increasingly work for ourselves, particularly against a backdrop of a growing gig economy
• Work – following a period exploring and/or being an independent producer, we will join or establish an organization. However, we are unlikely to believe that this will be the only organization we will be part of during our working career
• Transition – recognizing that even continual professional development is insufficient (at least by historical standards) in the face of accelerating change, we will need to go through a period of transition to re-train/re-focus in up and coming areas of the economy. This means instead of using spare time just for recreation, some of this time will need to be invested in re-creation. Maybe this will be done whilst in employment but maybe it will require us to drop out of work to give sufficient time and focus
• Work – following the period of re-training/re-focusing, we will be ready to change our position in our existing organization or to join a new organization
• Transition – in a 100 Year Life, one period of re-training/re-focusing is unlikely to be enough. Several more transitions are likely depending upon a number of factors such as 1) financial well being 2) relevance of skills 3) health 4) network of friends and contacts
• Work – the number of organisations we join or establish will vary though are likely to be higher than previous generations
• Portfolio – before moving into the retirement phase completely, we will be interested in creating a portfolio of activities, some earning money, some not. This phase keeps us active and allows us to leverage our experience and legacy for the benefit of others

Staying relevant

On the one hand, it is clear that life is getting longer for people and unless something drastic happens, the gift of extra years is unavoidable. On the other hand, the change we see in the world around us is accelerating. Within this extended working life, it is almost certain that we will become obsolete, at least once, maybe several times. Therefore we will have no choice but to re-invent ourselves if we want to stay relevant, economically valuable and feeling good. This is both scary and exciting at the same time…several lives in one.

What to do about this? First, let’s raise our consciousness about the topic and create awareness and debate. Secondly, we each need a plan. Third, we need to learn how to learn against a backdrop of a rapidly advancing society.

For individuals, example questions to answer include:

• Am I willing to avoid going straight to university and invest a few years after high school exploring?
• How will I recognize when I am becoming obsolete?
• Am I willing to invest my time to re-train, multiple times over my 50+ year career?
• Do I recognize that I am likely to need to work into my 70s?
• Am I willing to take junior jobs after senior jobs to stay economically productive and to keep busy?

For organisations, example questions to answer include:

• How will we ensure we have a workforce fit for the future?
• Are we willing to fundamentally re-think our employee policies?
• What support will we provide our staff to re-train and what is our role in keeping our staff relevant?
• Will organisations continue to see staff over 60 years of age as ‘old’ and economically less interesting?
• Will we stop connecting age with career stage?
• How do educational establishments change their offerings to support people needing to re-invent themselves several times over?

This 100 Year Life is already with us so there is no time to lose. We all need a plan, what is yours?