On Tuesday I went with my niece, Rebecca Nesbit, to a talk on Climate Change.  The talk was by Professor Elinor Ostrom, whose extensive credentials are too long to be listed here but can be found on Wikidepia and elsewhere.  After the talk, Rebecca and I shared what we’d taken away from Ostrom’s presentation.  Rebecca presents a brief summary on her blog of what she took away, under the heading Climate change thoughts from a Nobel Laureate.

I confess that, throughout the talk, I was both listening to the content of Professor Ostrom’s talk and reflecting on Professor Ostrom herself.  Born in 1933, she is still professionally active at the age of 78 and a thoughtful and clearly highly intelligent woman.  I am used to singing under the baton of men who are still conducting at a mature age – I sang with Leonard Bernstein shortly before he died, my opportunity to sing with Georg Solti was snatched away when he died just before a concert, I have enjoyed singing under the baton of Sir Colin Davis for a number of years.  (As it happens, Sir Colin has conducted three generations of my family throughout his career).

So much for the men.  It’s largely outside my experience to meet women who are still professionally active in their late 70s and into their 80s.  I hasten to add that it’s not that they’re not active.  My mother, aged 81, is a legend throughout her local community and across my family for her full portfolio of activities, from the domestic (managing her household, tending her allotment, looking after her youngest grandson etc.) to the community and charitable activities (with long service as a church warden, running the bookstall at the village Saturday market, cooking for the old folks – yes, really! – at the village lunch club, and much more besides).  I still remember Mum’s plans to keep the bookstall books in the attic of her new home when she moved 6 years ago.  Needless to say, as a family, we were quick to discourage her.

So, Professor Ostrom was striking to me as an example of someone who maintains an active professional life well into her third age.  This is not new – there have always been people who do this.  At the same time, our context is such that – it seems to me – the significance of this has changed.  On the same day that I heard Ostrom speak I read (in the Metro I think) of predictions that one third of children born in the UK today will live to be 100 years old.  It seems to me that, with this statistic in mind,  the things we’re currently doing to adapt (changes in pensions, changes in employment legislation) may prove to be wholly inadequate.

Is it possible that we need to radically re-think our approach to work?  This is such an enormous topic that I am struggling to put my arms (or perhaps my metaphorical pen) around it.  Here are just three possible implications:

• That we need to think much more holistically about the relationship between things we currently view as separate – work, unemployment and retirement.  We need to exercise more judgement based on accurate assessment of the facts and less judgement (as in “condemnation”) based on dogma in order to reshape the way we view the role of work in society;  
• That we need to re-think our chief measures of success at work and what we want our work to deliver.  Perhaps we need to prioritise sustainability over profit, thinking about how our organisations can contribute to society over time rather than focusing narrowly on “shareholder value”.  (I’m guessing we would make this transition more easily if only we could develop a deeper understanding of the role of money in our lives – what is it we want money to do for us?  For money is never an end in itself and always a means to an end).  Equally, perhaps we need work to deliver people who are not only productive at work but also motivated, resourceful and healthy long after their careers have finished;
• That we need to plan for careers that span as many as 70 years and which are adapted to our age and stage at each step along the way.  Already, levels of workplace stress and absent-from-work illness suggest we are not doing enough organise work in ways which enrich the lives of workers as much as it contributes to bottom-line profits and other business outcomes.  And the more we plan for a longer career, the more we need to sign up for enjoyment at work – it’s hard to sustain the view that we’re “saving for an enjoyable retirement” when retirement is 50, 60, even 70 years away.

I’d welcome your thoughts and ideas.  What are you doing to adapt to a longer career for you and your staff?