Are You Headed for Life’s “Dinosaur Floor”?

There’s a story told by author Mitch Anthony in his book “The New Retirementality” of a Fortune 100 company in New York City that has a floor at their executive office complex that is referred to as the “dinosaur floor.”  Reportedly, it is a floor where executive managers in their 50’s or 60’s whose contributions are considered as static are assigned to hang-on until retirement age.

Sort of a purgatory warehouse.  No doubt a better option for the company than the time loss and expense of hassling with a bunch of age discrimination suits.

It’s interesting that there don’t seem to be any surprises for the occupants.  If you go there, you know why and accept it.  Or maybe you don’t stay and come back to life, bail out, resurrect, re-energize, and redeploy your experience and talents elsewhere.

The path to this floor?   Irrelevance.   Apparently a floor of talented folks who didn’t stay current and who decided to stop learning.

Are you headed for a “dinosaur floor” in your life?

Is there the equivalent of a dinosaur floor looming in your life?

If you’ve moved into your second half, there’s definitely a chance that you may have.

Think about what could put you there:

1. Intellectual laziness
2. Resistance to change
3. Entitlement attitude
4. 20th-century thinking
5. Lack of career ownership
6. Visions of early retirement

If your only resume is on a floppy disk and the most complicated thing you’ve read in the last 10 years is Sports Illustrated – ah, forget it.  You wouldn’t be reading this blog anyway.

Who owns your career?

The 20^th century offered up cradle-to-grave possibilities – an environment in which one relied on managers and human resources to guide a career.  Work hard, don’t upset the cart and the rewards will be there.  But the 21^st century got in the way and all that is bye-bye. However, many still cling to the illusion that their company has their interests at heart and will nurture them along.

Never has a thought pattern been more dangerous.

If you have awakened to this, you’ll like the advice offered up by Master Certified Career Coach, Janine Moon, in her book “Career Ownership.”  She cleverly contrasts home ownership with career ownership, asking the poignant question “why do so many of us own our homes but rent our careers?”

She points out that we will go to pretty extraordinary lengths to make sure our home purchase is the right one and done optimally but ignore the very engine that enables us to own it in the first place.   It’s as if we are asleep to the fact that we are giving up our main source of security to someone else.

With both the magnitude and pace of change accelerating, career ownership becomes paramount. But what does that mean?  Again, we can turn to Coach Moon for some solid advice.

I’ll cherry pick a few of her suggestions and encourage you to invest in the book.  She packs a lot into 100 pages – and it’s coming from someone who can back up her advice as a veteran of “corporate wars.”

Here’s a partial list of Moon’s questions to ask yourself:

• When did you last do serious research to educate yourself about the future of your industry and the skills needed to succeed in this changing marketplace?
• When did you last assess your skills, abilities, and goals to determine how you could get the most satisfaction out of the workspace in which you spend many of your waking hours.?
• When did you last write out your 3-year career plan (on your own) along with your 12-month learning plan?
• When did you last devote personal time and funds to upgrade your own skills?
• When did you last consider requesting a job rotation that would help you build a relationship and impact your marketability inside or outside of your organization?
• When did you last review and align yourself with your organization’s top two strategic growth areas?
• When did you last identify a weak area in your skills or performance and take personal responsibility to address the problem?

But they think I’m over the hill!

There’s no denying that ageism is alive and well within corporations.  But we can bring it on ourselves.

If you are in your late 40’s or into your 50’s, you’ve stepped into ageism territory so it’s best to not give it a foothold.  And that ageism foothold happens when one fails to stay relevant and current with upgraded skills and deep engagement with corporate initiatives.

Oh, and don’t forget politics. You should know by now how the political game is played and can leverage that to your advantage.

If you are 55, there is a 70% chance you will have a younger boss.  The choice is to resent them or learn from them.  Get to their level technologically and adapt to their communications style.

All this is taking career ownership.  Don’t rent your career out. Own it.

It’s as Janine Moon says: “When was the last time you washed a rental car?”

Ending up on a “dinosaur floor” is a threat for us all to be aware of.  How are you avoiding that threat in your job or your personal life?  Scroll down and leave us a comment.  We’d love to hear how you are safeguarding yourself against ageism and irrelevance.