Baby Boomers changed the world once, says Harvard Business School professor (and Boomer) Rosabeth Moss Kanter. Now they are ready to do it again — in “retirement.”
“The generation that marched in Washington in the 1960s is marching into elementary schools, high schools, hospitals, and homeless shelters seeking opportunities to serve,” Kanter writes on her Harvard Business Publishing blog. “Activists in civil rights and women’s movements four decades ago now want to eradicate diseases, transform education, reform health care, or alleviate global poverty.”
The challenge for the nation is how to harness this energy and accumulated wisdom. “For a nation still reeling from the economic meltdown, this is a huge opportunity.”
Kanter is doing her part, serving as chair and director of The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. The program brings together 15 faculty from Harvard Business School, Law School, Kennedy School, School of Public Health, and Graduate School of Education, to teach the Boomer class ways to bring about significant change in education, health care, community development, and the environment.
“‘Connection’ and ’sense of purpose’ loom large as reasons why all 50-to-70-year-olds want to get involved in their communities,” she says. “These motivations drive boomers toward leadership roles with potential for impact on big problems. In many ways, their biggest impact will be on eliminating the term retirement and inventing a new stage of life, one with public and community service at the core. That could indeed change the world.”
Are Baby Boomers up to the challenge of creating positive social change as they enter their 60s and 70s?
