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[Music] this podcast is brought to you by knowled
of [Music] warten hello my name is Stephanie cery
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and I'm an assistant professor of management
at the Wharton School of the University of
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Pennsylvania and I'm delighted to welcome you
to today's episode of the knowledge at Wharton
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leading diversity at work podcast series which
is focused on retiring creating a life that works
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for you two very special guests are joining
me today Dr Teresa amabile is the edil Bryant
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Ford professor amerita at Harvard Business
School originally educated and employed as
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a chemist Teresa received her PhD in Psychology
from Stanford University she is renowned for her
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45-year research program on how the work
environment can influence creativity and
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motivation her current research investigate how
people approach and experience the transition to
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retirement she is co-author of the new book
retiring creating a life that works for you
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which we'll discuss today next we have Dr C
Kathy cram who is the RC Shipley professor in
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management amerita at Boston University qurum
School of Business she received her bachelor's
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from MIT her Masters in management from MIT Sloan
School of Management and her Master's in PhD in
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organizational psychology at Yale University she's
renowned for her research on adult development
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relational learning mentoring peer coaching and
developmental networks she's also co-author of
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the new book retiring creating life that works for
you which we'll also be discussing today welcome
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Teresa and Kathy I am so honored to have you here
with me today for a conversation uh the title of
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your new book is retiring creating a life that
works for you and this is in a collaboration with
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Professor ziti uh L Balin Marcy crer and Tim Hall
uh so Teresa yes can you kick us off by telling us
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a little bit about the motivation for the book how
did this idea emerge well Stephanie thank you for
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having us uh we're really excited to be with you
um for me two things came together uh first of all
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my previous research program had discovered what I
call the progress principle and it goes like this
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uh of all the things that can happen in
a person's workday that can give them a
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great psychological experience the single most
prominent is simply making progress in meaningful
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work and as I pondered that Discovery I
began to think about what might happen to someone psychologically when they leave their
meaningful work behind at the end of their career
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and that seemed to me like a great starting
point for a new research program so that was
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the initial impetus but it turned out that in my
own life I was at that point starting to think
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about my own retirement which I envisioned
happening probably sometime in the next 10
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years so I I had looked at the literature on
retirement and there really wasn't a lot of
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deep rigorous re research Illuminating the
psychological experiences that people went
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through during that time so you know that was a
personal motivation as well now now through my
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collaboration with my wonderful co-authors Kathy
and also lah and Marcy and Tim whom you mentioned
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the scope of the research really expanded uh in
its initial design phases because uh we we went
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beyond the internal psychological experiences to
look at the social relational issues and the life
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restructuring issues of of retiring so that was
the motivation for the research and the motivation
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for the book is that we had just spent 10 years
doing this research we wanted to tell people all
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about it absolutely so just a followup who did you
write this book for and and what at a high level
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do you hope that they will take from it oh gosh
well we wrote the book primarily for knowledge
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workers retiring from corporate careers um so
for people who had worked in professional roles
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in corporations who are thinking about retiring or
going through the transition experience or living
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their early years of retirement but you know
we we've talked about this among our team and
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we really believe that many of the insights
and the suggestions from our research apply
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to people who are not knowledge workers and who
may be retiring from other other sectors of the
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economy for example people working manufacturing
jobs people working service jobs we think that a
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lot of this really will apply to them and and we
hope that they'll find useful lessons here I think
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the most important thing that we hope people will
take from this book is that they will stop fearing
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retirement because we found that many people in
their working careers even Millennials even the
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young people that we interviewed fear retirement
find it to be a scary Prospect uh people use
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metaphors like leaping off a clip or jumping into
the void uh to to describe their their sense of
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what it might be like to end their careers and you
know we we interviewed a lot of older adults in
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this research 83 of them many of them were retired
already when we interviewed them many of them
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were in the final years maybe the final decade of
their working careers but with no immediate plans
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to retire but 14 of those people were about to
retire when we were starting our research and we
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thought oh my goodness wouldn't it be fabulous
if we could follow these people through their
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transition and a longitudinal Way by interviewing
them repeatedly as they're approaching retirement
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you know living those final months or years of
their career going through the transition and
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and then living their early years of retirement
so these wonderful 14 people agreed to let us do
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this and uh we ended up with over 100 interviews
on these amazing 14 people over 200 interviews
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in total including all the other people that we
interviewed we call these 14 people Our Stars
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because we feature them so prominently we feature
their stories prominently in our writings in our
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book but you know what all 14 of those people
ended up in a reasonably satisfied retirement
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life that's great they all took different roots to
it so don't be scared but don't think that there's
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a single right way to do it either uh and we also
wrote the book secondarily for people around those
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who are considering retirement or going through
it you know family members friends um colleagues
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even counselors therapists because we think that
the ideas and the suggestions in the book can be
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helpful to them in helping retiring people and
finally we wrote it for organizational leaders
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because there are a lot of lessons in the book
for for leaders of organiz ations we found that
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there's a lot that organizations do that can
impact the retirement experience positively or
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negatively and the effects the consequences are
not just for the people who are retiring there
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are consequences for the organizations as well
so I'll stop there but as you can see I'm super
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excited to talk about all of that I'm super excit
super excited to hear more of the key insights I
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know like when I was recruiting the two of you to
to join this episode today today you know we're
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talking about the Myriad ways in which a topic
like this can often also get overlooked when we're
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talking about diversity broadly I know in the four
years that I've been recording these podcasts I I
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don't believe we' had a single episode where the
focus on Life Stage or age or generation which I'm
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sure all of these things get um you know some some
attention in in the work you're doing we haven't
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had a single episode where we've talked about this
I'm so excited that you're here to to help us all
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have a have a deeper look into a a group of people
at a specific life stage um whose stories I think
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deserve to be told just as much as the rest of us
so uh before we jump more into the insights Kathy
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I want to turn to you and and just talk a little
bit more about your team of authors obviously
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you two are are two of of the five uh wonderful
Scholars who decideed to work together what was
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it like for you as senior collaborators to do this
research and write this book together well I I I
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feel honored and privileged that we evolved into
a high functioning team and we worked for 10 years
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together and it all started when Teresa uh reached
out to Tim um because she was looking to formulate
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a research question at people who were towards the
end of their careers what their life is like how
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they navigate through retirement and Tim said well
I I'll invite Kathy to come because Tim and I both
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are Scholars of life stages and career development
and um we acknowledged that there was very little
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written on people and what they experienced
beyond the age of 65 or 70 because it wasn't
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that long ago uh that there wasn't 20 or 30 years
of life after retirement like there can be today
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so we really didn't know much so the three of
us had lunch and Teresa really was uh looking to
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create a team that could handle what would become
a very big project um we were talking big time
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and that's when we invited L Balon who had done a
lifetime of work on work family issues and gender
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issues and life St AG development as well as Marcy
crary who had also looked at uh midlife issues and
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life structure issues so we brought five different
uh personal and professional histories into one
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group and we worked hard at developing our group
um I think that's an important thing to say I
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think as exciting as the results of the study
are it's also cting that through uh reflective
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processes all through the 10 years we were able
to understand each other's perspectives build
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on them disagree and come up with even better
interdisciplinary approaches that's what made
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our team so special um so we're now trying to
figure out how do we let go and move on you know
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and but I'm sure we'll continue to to uh talk
about this project because it's so meaningful
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for all of us so I actually remember when you all
kicked off this project uh because I was in Boston
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at the time and there were different um you know
sessions that we had where you know we call Brown
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Bags or or field research conferences where each
of you would individually talk about about this
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research and I forgot that it was 10 years ago
uh that you started on this collaboration it's
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just been so wonderful to see how it's evolved now
into this fantastic book uh Teresa I would love to
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get your perspectives on some of this you know I
just wanted to add one one little thing to to what
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Kathy said um and and I want to respond to what
you just said H honestly those brown bag sessions
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where the research group that you were part of
Stephanie gave us feedback on our research design
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and how to make sense of the initial data we were
seeing those were valuable weren't they Kathy yes
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absolutely really wonderfully helpful and I wanted
to add a little something to what Kathy said about
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our team over these past 10 years we've become
really good friends I count Kathy now as one
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of my dearest friends and I had never met her
before that lunch with Tim wow really I knew of
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I knew of her work yeah yeah yeah yeah I find that
fascinating so again um had been in Boston for so
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I've lived in Boston three times the first time
for six years which was not in this this business
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school Community um that I became part of in the
second uh stint in Boston I was there for 10 years
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from 2005 to 2015 and that's when I met all of you
all and you know as a PhD student I bounced around
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from institution that was the lovely thing about
Boston is that uh people's communities uh research
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development communities were were open uh to to
everyone in ways that I've actually never seen um
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in many ademic uh cities or towns but nonetheless
as I I remember bouncing around to these these
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different groups so because I feel like I knew
all of you that you must have known each other
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so that's that's new learning for me but I think
the one thing that I I want to make sure that our
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listeners um here because you two are are way too
humbl to even say this but this is not just a team
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of five people working together this is a team
of five academic powerhouses who are renowned
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in their own respective uh research streams um and
so the fact that we have these five um really you
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know these academic rock stars uh coming together
for 10 years working together and producing
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something like this H that's not something that
typically happens so I I don't want that to get
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lost in our conversation around yes you all are
friends and we think it's great but I think it's
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a testament to True collaboration and willingness
to uh work together as part of a diverse team that
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doesn't know what's going to produce um at the end
of the the end of the day but I think what you've
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produced is something that's really really quite
wonderful um so let me just ask one more question
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before we dive into some of the the insights
in the book just follow up for Kathy as you all
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embarked on This research were there any specific
myths or misconceptions that you were trying to
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challenge about retirement as a life stage or what
it means to uh retire in general yeah I think we
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all started as curious academics with a thought
that if we were successful at this work we would
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find out what's the right way to retire that's
the myth that we brought in if we interviewed
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enough people we would see which way worked and
which way didn't work and instead what we found
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was there really is no one right way some people
continue working part-time some people leave work
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immediately behind and jump into other things
they want to do but there's no prescription the
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the what we did come up with instead is uh the
idea that a person needs to examine his or her
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own values and priorities and needs which tend
to shift over the life course and to do that and
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really ask is the life structure I'm in right
now uh aligned with what I want and need in my
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life that's that's the big question uh for people
and what we learned are there are different ways
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to answer that question and each person will have
a unique answer depending on their history their
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current priorities vision for the future okay
all right so let's let's unpack uh some of what
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we've generated so far coming back to you Teresa
uh what are some of the key insights that you
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had while undertaking This research as you know a
Hallmark of interestingness in academic researches
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about surprises and and things that might feel
surprising so you know was there something that
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was surprising to you um as you uh undertook This
research well I I just want to mention one that
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just struck me as Kathy was talking we busted the
myth that this is a a time of Decline and and and
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um and distancing from Life mhm this is a time of
vital engagement in life for almost everyone that
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we interviewed we interviewed 120 people 83 of
them older adults at some stage of this and that
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that breaks The Stereotype of of Aging which I
think is still out there I think older adults
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tend to get marginalized in the workplace
and at after they've retired there are very
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negative associations to the word retiree because
we did that in our interviews we did a little word
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association thing and people had associations
like old disabled out to pasture so that's just
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wrong so that's at the highest level I guess
that's that's a big Insight second big Insight
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I want to mention is that retiring actually takes
work so stopping working does take a different
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kind of work it can be very enjoyable it can be
fun and engaging work but it does take knowledge
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and attention and effort to have a smooth
transition to a satisfying retirement life in fact
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we discovered four developmental tasks that people
have to engage it um as they're retiring and you
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can't avoid these tasks if you do want to have
a satisfying retirement life uh the first one is
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simply deciding how and when to retire the second
task is detaching from work of course tangibly you
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know wrapping up your projects handing off things
but psychologically detaching from your work which
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we discovered is way more difficult for many of us
uh the third task is exploring and experimenting
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with new elements of your life new contexts uh
activities relationships places to spend your
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time as you build a provisional retirement
life in those early months or early years
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and the fourth task is figuring out which of those
elements from the provisional retirement life seem
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to suit you well as as Kathy was talking about
suit the person you are now your identities your
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values your priorities your needs which of which
elements of that new life seem most suitable for
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you and which seem viable for the foreseeable
future and settling into a relatively stable
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retirement life that's that's really the
fourth task the fourth phase if you will
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they don't necessarily happen in that sequence and
sometimes people are still detaching from their
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work psychologically even as they're consolidating
a retirement life but but that that set of four
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tasks showed up really in every story so I think
that that's that's a big one and and as Kathy said
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there is no one right way to do it we found so
many different approaches to engaging in these
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four tasks that can work different ways that
can actually work so we had one person that we
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call Irene who went from working incredibly long
hours full-time job in a a prominent Tech firm she
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retired and the next day she didn't have any work
in her life at all and she reoriented her Focus
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toward moving and renovating the vacation home she
and her husband had had as they're now permanent
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residence engaging a whole lot more with friends
and family that she felt she really had been
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wanting more time with exploring new activities
so that was that was her way of doing it uh
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guy that we call Bob by contrast had a more
gradual transition he reduced his work week by
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one day a week uh and after living in that to him
it was a semi-retirement mode for several months
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he decided okay I'm ready to fully retire and
when he did that he didn't change much about his
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life he didn't move didn't take on new activities
he continued engagement with friends and family
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and church um he did add some caregiving to his
toddler grandson which he loved and he just waited
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to see what would emerge and soon invitations
came in from his church Community for him to
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step up into some new roles there take on some
important jobs um in the church governance and
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he was very happy to do that a very different path
from I but it worked for him and there was a guy
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called W that we call Walter who went from working
full-time one week retiring and then the next week
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starting a part-time job totally different from
what he had done he had been an engineer in a
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firm and he went from that to working part-time in
a cycling shop because he was an avid cyclist he
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wanted something to structure his week so he was
working I think three days a week in this shop
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and his wife had asked him to find something
else to do rather than hanging around the house
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the whole time so he he foresaw this he got this
job lined up before he retired and he was having
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a ball all three of these people within the first
year after they retired had Consolidated a really
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satisfying retirement life for themselves so
uh something came up for me as you were talking
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uh Teresa and it was it won't be surprising to
you that I thought about identity and certainly
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thought about you know your population of
people you're studying knowledge workers
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and corporate organizations who spend as we
know from the research that you've done and
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others that they spend a considerable amount of
their hours their time in these formative years
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invested mostly in the tasks and relationships
associated with this work identity at this maybe
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you know for some people if they've stayed at that
Institution for a long time right it becomes they
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not only become identified with the job but also
the organization and now it's trying to find some
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ways to emotionally cognitively physically attach
to something else and it sounds like youve got
00:24:04
a great number of stories around some people I'm
forming those attachments with family and some of
00:24:09
them forming it with like another type of a hobby
that becomes a source of employment Kathy I would
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love to get some of your perspective on this any
other stories that you thought were interesting
00:24:19
yeah I you're absolutely uh accurate Stephanie
that the shift in identity that's necessary
00:24:28
when people decide they want to move out of uh
their full-time job is so key to what we observed
00:24:39
the task of detaching is so unique and some people
it took five years some people it was easy as uh
00:24:49
Teresa showed um I think about the fact that some
people and one I think of in particular we call
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Simon um he had so many activities in his life
although he loved his work he also had a strong
00:25:08
identity as a father um he loved tending his
garden and growing vegetables he was very active
00:25:17
in his church he was not the kind of professional
that invested all of himself into work the way so
00:25:26
many of our others did so he actually had to wait
for a lawsuit to resolve regarding um a former
00:25:36
marriage to get the finances worked out and as
soon as that was done he was out the door he never
00:25:43
looked back his wife and we found this in a lot
of our cases spouses can be very important um and
00:25:53
Simon's wife had retired a few years earlier and
she ENC encouraged him don't rush into anything
00:26:02
just see what you have going on what you enjoy
give yourself a year because he's such a doer
00:26:10
and a problem solver he might have done what I
did which was to jump into a new research project
00:26:17
that would take me take my time for the next 10
years um but he didn't and he waited and during
00:26:24
that reflective period he figured out and I ended
up nine months later uh taking up a volunteer job
00:26:35
at an organization to to help the underserved um
regarding house maintenance and Furniture building
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and so on and and he he said in our last interview
all the talents I used at work I'm now using
00:26:53
in this context um and that is what we called
identity bridging and we had a lot of people in
00:27:01
our sample uh like the one that Teresa mentioned
who went to work for the bicing uh company you
00:27:10
know that they find other activities which give
them purpose and meaning uh the way the work
00:27:17
identity had done for so many years so that that's
one example other people um had more difficulty
00:27:25
because they didn't have the other activ ities
and relationships and so the idea of letting
00:27:32
go of work um we had a woman who had a really
hard time Margaret um now she had in addition
00:27:41
uh unique circumstances she was not married like
our other 14 13 stars were she had the beginnings
00:27:50
of a chronic illness she had no children so and
she was one of our strongest in inverts um we
00:28:00
actually collected personality data and and other
effective uh data on our participants so for her
00:28:10
the prospect of being a couch potato when she
let go of work was a really negative image and
00:28:16
yet she was very contented just being at home with
her knitting and her cats and her garden and her
00:28:25
dog um but she realized herself self-reflection
that she was isolated and she started building
00:28:32
new activities and relationships at the gym doing
um other kinds of spiritual practices volunteering
00:28:42
for a hospice and she built quite a nice life
structure for herself but as you see Simon had
00:28:51
it all there when he started and Margaret
started with very little in terms of a post
00:28:58
retirement life structure so what this reminds me
of is is is a research on identity Transitions and
00:29:05
I think what came up for me particular was the um
herminia Bara and roxan barbales wrote really was
00:29:11
Academy of management review piece in 2010 and it
was looking at um like macro r transitions but it
00:29:17
was how do you it's like a narrative identity
um logic flowing through the paper and it's how
00:29:23
do you narrate your your Cross organization or
your interorganizational move so let's say you
00:29:28
quit one job or you get fired and you hired at
another job how do you story yourself in a way
00:29:33
to help make sense and so this idea I believe you
said as of Simon of saying these are transferable
00:29:39
skills if you will is something that's common
when people move between organizations asly
00:29:44
employed workers I see like some nice overlap I
also see some nice distinctions there but sort of
00:29:49
that's what was sparked for me um as as you were
telling his story well yeah and just in response
00:29:56
to what you said the transition position and how
people navigate it is so unique to the individual
00:30:04
because of what they bring to that task the four
tasks actually you know for some it's easy to make
00:30:11
the decision for others it's not but either way
they then have the task of detaching and figuring
00:30:20
out a new life structure and depending on what
you bring to those tasks it will take different
00:30:26
kinds of psychological work work which is that
was our goal was to get at the psychological
00:30:32
work underneath the transition Journey um and
I think we achieved that goal so maybe call me
00:30:41
naive or maybe it's just because of where I am at
my mid-career stage I I was actually was surprised
00:30:47
to hear you say that some people fear retirement
and some people resist retirement because I'm
00:30:53
actually looking forward to retirement which
is not going to happen till some decades from
00:30:58
now because I'm thinking about oh you know and
again could be naive I'm gon to get off plane I'm
00:31:02
going to travel the world no one has to like know
where I am so I I'm just curious about the people
00:31:07
who who fear and or resist retiring Teresa what
did you learn about uh sort of what was underneath
00:31:15
some of this these concerns or or this resistance
it was different for the different Generations
00:31:21
Stephanie W so um the the older adults who were
still working had not but knew that they were
00:31:29
approaching retirement within the next few years
just felt that there was a lot Unknown about what
00:31:36
life on the other side would be so there was a lot
of uncertainty about that and and their their word
00:31:43
associations we made a word cloud out of their
word associations to the word retirement and
00:31:48
the more prominent words were things like scary
unknown uh far away even though they knew it was
00:31:54
approaching they kept thinking of it oh I I I'm
not going to spend too much time on it it's far
00:31:59
away or never they they said the word never many
of them I'm not going to do this I can't think
00:32:04
about it the and of course others said words like
freedom and happiness and relaxation it wasn't all
00:32:12
negative but we were astonished by the degree
of of of fright and fear around this for the
00:32:20
Millennials in the study the more prominent by by
far the most prominent word association was money
00:32:28
worries or or some synonym uh not surprisingly
especially in this country um with uncertainties
00:32:35
about social security and and uh and job security
uh there there was a lot of concern about that but
00:32:43
there was also the sense that there was it was
a huge unknown for them they also had positive
00:32:49
stereotypes but there was a lot of negativity
you know remember Irene whom I mentioned who
00:32:54
moved and renovated the vacation home and got
engag enged in all these new activities she had
00:33:01
a terrible time making the decision to retire
she didn't even think that she identified that
00:33:07
closely with her work because we asked these
questions in the interview but she struggled
00:33:13
with that decision if you can believe it for four
years she kept thinking she was going to retire
00:33:18
because she wasn't liking the the direction that
the corporate culture was going she was finding it
00:33:24
more difficult to help her team get great work
done in this new um organizational environment
00:33:31
she loved her team and she really respected the
organization but it she just she used the words
00:33:37
uphill battle to descri to describe her experience
of working and there were so many other things she
00:33:43
wanted like travel you talked about travel she
wanted to do more travel she wanted to spend more
00:33:50
time with with the friends that she loved the
family members that she loved she wanted to try
00:33:55
her hand at Art and writing something that had in
the back of her mind for years so she was in this
00:34:01
crazy pushpull thing for four years she tiptoe
up to the decision and then she'd back off for
00:34:06
another year once she actually made the decision
she said I walked away and never looked back and
00:34:18
she and when we asked her why do you think it
was so hard for you to make that decision she
00:34:23
said people do respect you when you're working and
after maybe not so much so that's another piece of
00:34:33
identity right and it has to do with your your
social identity your identity that you present
00:34:38
to others or that you imagine um others have of
you yeah so Kathy would love if you um had any
00:34:45
reactions to the things that Teresa is is sharing
here but I also W to um turn this back to the
00:34:52
personal to you all um again I've I've described
you as academic powerhouses rock stars Superstars
00:35:00
all these words that we can use to to to explain
that your contributions to our field have been
00:35:07
immense to your institutions of which all five of
you were at your respective institutions for for
00:35:12
some for some time right you're identified with
those institutions I identify you as part of the
00:35:19
institution whether you like it or not you to me
are the institutions that you created the positive
00:35:24
sides of these institutions and so I can imagine
that things came up for you emerged for you as you
00:35:31
were doing this work and reflecting on your own
retirement processes can you speak about doing
00:35:38
research on something that you were experiencing
yourself while this research was underwear start
00:35:45
with you yeah I mean you know Steph that I
throughout my career I've always been attracted
00:35:53
to study phenomenon that are close to me that
I'm experiencing so I studied mentoring when I
00:36:00
was young because I was seeking mentorship for my
own growth and development and as my life went on
00:36:08
I moved to looking at peer relationships and other
kinds of relationships that become essential later
00:36:16
throughout the life course and this study happened
to come to us as Teresa noted when I was also
00:36:24
thinking about retirement in fact in 2014 when we
first met I was already in a what do you call a
00:36:33
transition period of not I was teaching less than
full-time so I was trying out what it was like and
00:36:41
I did not realize until we started doing these
interviews how difficult the identity transition
00:36:49
from uh and a professor a chaired professor
at Boston University simply Kathy crra who has
00:37:01
interests and pursues questions with curiosity but
I think that was one of the gems of This research
00:37:10
we were all going through our own transitions
very uniquely I mean I ended up retiring two years
00:37:20
before Tim who had been my early career mentor
and his 10 years older than me and it felt kind
00:37:29
of crazy to me in fact I almost was uh worried
about how he was going to react but in fact
00:37:38
we each have our own story and We examined our
stories as as we went along and I think towards
00:37:45
the end I'll mention this now but I think towards
the end each of us did have a better understanding
00:37:53
of the challenges that we were facing because
we observed so many others in our interviews
00:38:01
we could bring their the insights we developed
on our interviewees to our own experience so it
00:38:10
was very rich I am much more patient today when I
retired I thought I'm studying retirement I should
00:38:18
have this figured out you know but it actually
the discernment came as we did the research and
00:38:27
develop our understanding of others I could then
apply it to myself so um as you know Tes I'm G to
00:38:34
ask you the same question but as as Kathy um
you know finishes how what this was like for
00:38:39
her personally I'm going to share with each of you
how unretired I feel that each of you is relative
00:38:45
to the role that you played in my life so Kathy
during your retiring or retirement period you've
00:38:52
not only gotten on Zoom with me to talk through
an early stage papers I was trying to figure
00:38:58
out what was the contribution of this work Rel
relative to your own work but we also belong to a
00:39:03
group positive relationships at work community
and you're like this active participant like
00:39:08
responding and encouraging um uh all these Junior
Scholars and midcareer Scholars who are trying to
00:39:14
do uh work that I think complements your own but
also Builds on your own and I see you in that uh
00:39:20
in that feed that that group quite often um I also
see you on Facebook quite often and I think about
00:39:27
your your son and and your daughter-in-law and all
the work that they're doing on Broadway and you've
00:39:33
just I think such a fantastic Champion uh for them
and the things that they're accomplishing so again
00:39:38
demystifying the idea that once one leaves
one's institution that they're home watching
00:39:44
soap operas that I don't think you're doing um if
you are have a lot of time on your hand it seems
00:39:51
to me like you're really busy in contributing
such amazing things uh Teresa so how about your
00:39:57
story what does this how did this feel as you
were um talking about this topic doing research
00:40:03
on this topic which was something that you were
experiencing yourself partly I was really nervous
00:40:09
that that I would allow my own uh preconceptions
about retirement or my own experiences to um
00:40:17
somehow bias the interpretation the even the
questions that I was asking the way I was asking
00:40:23
them in in the interviews or my interpretation of
what I was seeing in the data and I know that my
00:40:31
my colleagues felt the same way but so we set up
guard rails for ourselves we had regular meetings
00:40:36
where we discuss we listened to each other's
interviews or read the transcripts of each
00:40:40
other's interviews gave each other feedback
if we felt we were straying a little bit and
00:40:46
interjecting our own experience too much into it
I believe that we did that effectively we helped
00:40:53
each other interpret what we were reading in these
in these interviews because sometimes I would be
00:41:00
baffled by something that that an interview he
had said but always someone else on the team at
00:41:06
least one person would have had an experience
themselves or someone close to them where they
00:41:12
could interpret what was going on for this person
and that was extremely helpful the other thing is
00:41:17
I think we had an advantage because we were agees
more or less stage of Life mates to the people we
00:41:23
were interviewing uh we had we had our research
Associates interview the the younger participants
00:41:31
in our study so we felt that age matching
engendered a lot more trust with the people
00:41:37
we were interviewing and I personally gained so
much from seeing these stories these different
00:41:44
paths it helped me a lot for example my husband
and I when I was transitioning to retirement we
00:41:51
were thinking about moving a 100 miles away from
our home a different part of the state to be close
00:41:59
to our daughter and her family we only have one
child we thought oh wow we'd love to be more part
00:42:05
of their lives and have them more part of ours but
this one participant named Lawrence had had a very
00:42:15
difficult experience after he and his wife made us
a move to be near one of their kids his family as
00:42:23
they retired they moved a thousand miles away to
a place they had very little acquaintance with and
00:42:29
they they didn't really engage with the community
there except for this little nuclear family they
00:42:35
were going toward and wow some upheavals there
led to a very very difficult experience for
00:42:42
them and I took that as a cautionary tale and it
really informed what Steve and I did as we were
00:42:49
considering making the move which we did make uh
six years ago and it worked out extremely well
00:42:55
for us it has worked out well so thank you for
asking that absolutely and so Teresa I think it
00:43:01
was probably January 22 I I received this lovely
note from you um via email that told me that you
00:43:10
had nominated me for a fellowship at Harvard
Business School for the institute for business
00:43:15
in global society and the fellowship was focused
on you know racial equity and and diversity equ
00:43:20
inclusion people who study these things and I I
knew Teresa clearly like everybody knows Teresa
00:43:27
but I didn't know Teresa that you knew me well
enough to to actually nominate me for this this
00:43:32
wonderful amazing opportunity which gave me a
year and a half to work on my own research and I'm
00:43:37
and I'm thinking I actually didn't know you were
retired at the time because you were so active and
00:43:42
still nominating Junior Scholars for for amazing
scholarly opportunities and so I think that's
00:43:49
definitely one of the things that that I remember
about you and I think about you and I think about
00:43:53
what retirement can look like particularly as
an academic is still still understanding that
00:43:59
you know you play a role in the future of the
academy and the future of Science in equity and
00:44:04
opportunity and I think as you still continue to
commit yourself to that you know to me it's it's
00:44:09
so important to know that you don't have to give
that up and as a matter of fact I don't know where
00:44:13
I would be if you actually had given that up at
the time um so it it speaks to we might not need
00:44:19
to engage in these roles full-time but when we do
them some of the time or the parts of the roles
00:44:24
that we still care about how much we can still
make a meaningful impact on someone else's life
00:44:29
and I think that when I what I from know about the
two of you is that's been critical part of your
00:44:33
identity as Scholars so I'm quite grateful that
you all haven't taken quite literally the notion
00:44:39
of uh you know Couch Potato retirement stereotypes
so uh and you've continued to engage at least in
00:44:45
the world that we share um so I want to before
we close uh just get to the advice pieces here
00:44:53
I'll start with Teresa and go back to Kathy as
you think about retiring and particularly for
00:44:59
older employees um what advice do you have for
older employees and and perhaps their family
00:45:04
members and friends or the organizations they're
working for um when we think about advice about it
00:45:09
retiring well first of all learn about these four
tasks of retiring really learn about what what's
00:45:16
involved in each of them the challenges and the
great things the opportunities that arise as you
00:45:22
go through each of these and think about how you
can meet those challenges with with energy and
00:45:29
and reap those Joys and we we discovered what
we call the fouras as being really important
00:45:36
to people in making a good transition having a
smooth transition to a satisfying retirement life
00:45:42
that works for them unique to them uh the first
a is alignment you need to work toward alignment
00:45:50
between who you are now not your vision of who you
used to be but now and what your life is now and
00:45:59
maybe exercise agency the second a to to tweak
something about your life or maybe make a major
00:46:07
change or even something about yourself to get
better alignment between yourself and your life
00:46:14
structure and for that you need the third a which
is awareness try to develop better self-awareness
00:46:20
and awareness of your life structure and what are
the Dynamics within it that might be affecting you
00:46:25
negatively or positively and finally because there
are always so many things in life that we cannot
00:46:31
control we need to develop adaptability and we
found that the people in our study who were able
00:46:39
to adapt to positive and negative things that
happened in their life that they had no control
00:46:45
over those people were able to do better through
this transition thank you Teresa Kathy your
00:46:52
thoughts your advice for retiring yep what Teresa
said um just reinforces the fact that uh I would
00:47:03
like people to know the process of retiring is
not just a decision to retire but it's a journey
00:47:12
that takes time and so being patient with oneself
is very important I wanted to have I know from my
00:47:20
own experience I wanted to have it all figured
out um and honestly I feel like I'm entering yet
00:47:27
another stage of retirement now that book project
is done so the work is never done you know the
00:47:36
the psychological work but if you use the um four
tasks as a structure for creating alignment it um
00:47:47
it really works well and another thing is not do
it alone we found that um relationships are really
00:47:57
very important of course the spousal relationship
is very important and we found there people needed
00:48:04
to negotiate navigate really understand each other
and certainly if you're beginning on this journey
00:48:12
it really is useful to create a dialogue with
your spouse whether he or she is retired or still
00:48:20
working and then all the other people who can
also be helpful like former colle colleagues at
00:48:27
work friends people in your church Community there
is no reason to have to go through this journey
00:48:35
alone and we we found I think for almost everyone
that relationships were critical in helping one
00:48:43
to detach and to create the new life structure
absolutely well you know this has been I knew
00:48:52
this was going to be a great conversation this
is a fantastic conversation and I'm so fortunate
00:48:58
I think to have had both of you as as you know
part of my community as as senior Scholars but
00:49:04
also in different ways as as mentors as supporters
as Champions and then for your willingness to come
00:49:09
on the leading diversity at work podcast series
to talk about your latest um Innovative uh piece
00:49:15
of scholarship um I love that it's a book um I
love that the five of you have have have finally
00:49:22
brought this to us and look forward I believe it
comes out in October right October October 2 yeah
00:49:29
October 2nd you can pre-order it I already have
I'm looking forward to reading it um and so I I
00:49:35
appreciate your your openness to to talking about
this topic that is both scholarly and personal for
00:49:41
you um I I appreciate your willingness to uh share
that with our audience and that you continue to
00:49:48
see yourselves as part of these communities coming
in whenever you want to dipping out whenever you
00:49:54
want to because I think those of us who have
benefited from your support for all these years
00:50:00
we miss you and so we like seeing you so thank
you for continuing to engage with us in the ways
00:50:06
that you are thank you for joining me today thanks
for sharing your insights and your expertise uh so
00:50:11
that's all for today uh we appreciate the audience
for joining us and listening to this episode
00:50:16
of the knowledge at warten leading diversity
atw work podcast series goodbye for now thank
00:50:21
you for more insight from knowledge at Wharton
please visit knowledge . Warton do.edu [Music]