Individuals who have achieved tremendous professional success are rarely motivated simply by wealth—rather, the work and perseverance they demonstrated to get to the tops of their professions usually derived from an inner passion and drive that is core to those people. I have long been fascinated by the intersection of long hours and effort combined with joy and fulfillment that I see in successful entrepreneurs, and I wondered how they continue to find purpose and joy when they are no longer in the “driver’s seat” and leading their enterprises day to day.
Exploring this topic for my most recent book, Transitioning From The Top, I was fortunate to interview about a dozen successful leaders of family enterprises who had left their leadership posts but continued to find purpose in other projects, new ventures or philanthropy.
Dick DeVos, for example, once led direct-selling giant Amway. Later, he combined his passions for flying and education to found the West Michigan Aviation Academy, an airport-based four-year high school that launched in 2010. “We have 600 students today,” DeVos says, “and provide kids with a great education strong in aviation, robotics and engineering.”
DeVos is a great example of a former family business leader who found fulfillment after retirement and was guided by his interests to identify and work on meaningful projects. While many former leaders have followed similar paths, others report much less positive post-work experiences and struggle with a loss of identity and meaning.
Frank Schurz is the former CEO of Schurz Communications, a company that enjoyed hundreds of millions in revenue at its peak. When he observed others in the post-retirement years, he didn’t like what he saw.
“I had observed people retiring … and then a year later they would drop dead, and that was not how I wanted things to go,” says Schurz. Inspired by those observations to think ahead, Schurz pursued his passions for fishing and waterfowl hunting while still working. “I figured once you retire you can convert this hobby into a passion and then eventually to a total compulsion,” he says. That’s exactly what he did—becoming part owner of a fishing lodge and joining several conservation organizations, making great friends along the way.
A person’s success in business comes at a cost—mainly in the way his or her sense of self, or identity, becomes defined by a profession. Think of pro athletes who are unable to turn their success and drive on the playing field into a life of great accomplishment later.
If 80% or more of your waking hours are consumed with one role (as a ballplayer, CEO, doctor, etc.), you may feel a great emptiness or lack direction when it’s time to relinquish it. This can have great consequences, especially for family businesses. Why would healthy, capable and driven people let go of the powerful roles they enjoy if they have nothing to move to afterward?
It’s one thing for successful people to lose their identities, but that’s compounded by more practical losses. They also lose perks when their leadership roles are gone, as well as their authority, privilege and status. Here are a few other things to consider:
Office and administrative support: Typically, successful professionals have a nice office arrangement, as well as a capable staff of administrative employees who know them well and may have given them personal help in addition to work support.
Decision-making authority: When you have long been a key decision-maker, it’s hard to swallow the idea that others will now make decisions without your input or guidance. You may understand rationally that someone else is stepping into your role, but grasping it emotionally can be very different.
Loss of status: Retired CEOs still enjoy a great deal more status than the average person, but nevertheless they feel subtle shifts in their community standing and access to decision-makers when they leave work. Hard-to-get dinner reservations are now hard to get.
I asked retired CEOs about their non-work-related commitments, and found they still have strong passions and outside interests. Many talked about their lifelong engagement with faith-based organizations, among other commitments outside work. These things gave them platforms for activity and purpose.
The bottom line is—you need to create a vision for your future life that has meaning for you, start to invest your time in activities and projects that draw on your talents beyond your “day job,” and then plan for the practical realities as well.
A Few Tips
There are a number of things you and successful clients should do to prepare for a life after work.
1. Ask yourself: Are you too committed to your current professional identity? Is your identity so wrapped up in your professional role that you fail to develop other meaningful roles and pursuits? Even if you recognize your overcommitment to one role, addressing it immediately may not always be practical. At the very least, you should find ways to enrich and broaden your professional roles when you can. For instance, you should make opportunities for yourself in your current position to engage in both analytical work and mentorship (at the team or individual level).
2. You must develop other interests. To do this, extend the roles you play in work or family. For example, get involved in leadership positions with your industry trade association or serve on the board of your kids’ school or at a small, local nonprofit. Ideally, over time you can broaden your outreach to invest yourself in athletic interests, hobbies or civic organizations that are fulfilling to you.
3. Take planning seriously. You should give real time and thought to how you will fill your days when you are no longer leading the business. Saying you’ll just play golf is not sufficient, unless you are a passionate golfer with friends who share interest in the sport and can push you to keep growing your skills.
Sit down and think through your daily routine, asking yourself serious questions. What goals will you pursue? How will you pursue them? Who will it involve? Where will you go and how often? How will you feel you are making a meaningful impact and leveraging your knowledge and contacts productively?
4. Understand (and plan for) what you will lose. As you plan your transition out of leadership, take stock of all the perks and benefits that come with your current role and consider which ones you need to replace. Bear in mind that this can impact your personal income. Take honest stock of the personal work your administrative team supports today and think through how you will get this work done going forward.
5. Formalize your role. Give yourself a post-work title. That may sound funny or contrived, but it will help you think through the ways you want to describe what it is you do now. You can make this lighthearted if that is in keeping with your personal style: “Retiree in Training” or “Designated Troublemaker” may go on your business card.
6. Practice your pitch. Just as you practiced for countless presentations and speeches in your profession, it can be helpful to practice describing what you do in your post-work life. Ideally, you will have started to envision a role or series of roles for yourself now that you have the new bandwidth to deploy. Think through how you would articulate this to an old friend at a reunion or to a person you meet at a conference.
Successful professionals understand that significant changes require planning. Yet they often fail to understand that what’s true for their companies is also true for themselves. When you consider how long retirement is going to last for many people in developed countries, it is surprising how little planning people typically do for this phase of their lives.
This article is only a brief glimpse of the deep insights provided by CEOs who have successfully managed Transitioning From The Top. It is my hope that sharing their stories can foster empathy and understanding about this aspect of the continuity planning process.
Stephanie Brun de Pontet, Ph.D. is a senior consultant with The Family Business Consulting Group specializing in succession planning.