Expendable? Not on your life!
It was announced recently that forced retirement at 65 is to be abandoned due to a shakeup in the pension system. Well, thank God for that. Those of us silver foxes who still have a lot to offer business now can’t be shown the door just because we’re old.
Maybe you’re of a different opinion: you’ve done your time, and now you want to focus on the grandchildren, golf, that book you wanted to write, etc. Excellent. I wish you a long and happy old age of self-indulgence and diminishing brain capacity. Turn the page.
For those of you still with me, this country needs you. The UK, if not on its knees, is definitely genuflecting in the direction of disaster.
There are currently about 7.3 million people over the age of 75 residing here. In 2050 (by which time I shall be dead, smelly or both) there will be over 17 million. That’s a lot of old people. A lot of old people without much money. The average private pension fund in the UK is now just £30,000. That will deliver the princely sum of about £1200 a year as income. Is that retirement sounding quite as cushy?
Who is going to help? Government isn’t. They’ll chuck a bit of money at it and give it to the wrong people who will use it to feather their nest while the chicks starve.
Don’t look to big business either. They’re too busy setting up the Monaco tax shelter (ask Philip Green, he’ll give you some pointers).
So, who will? Business – but not as we know it. One-man bands, small, nimble firms with remote workers – these are the true entrepreneurs and innovators. Small really is the new big.
But, Houston, they have a problem. It’s bone-crushingly hard starting a new business and only a tiny few will fly. They might know how to produce something but many don’t know how to run a business.
But the expendables do. We’ve worked for decades, built businesses for others and ourselves, and learned what to do and what not to do the hard way. Still, think now is the time to slip into some gardening clothes? I don’t think so.
2011 and beyond is not about survival of the fittest, it’s about the survival of the most flexible. And boy, are we flexible. We’ve lived through some of the biggest changes in the history of the world – the internet alone has transformed life as we know it.
We, the expendables, can help the next generation of leaders enable Britain to be great again. We know how-to guide, educate, and inspire.
We have got one last assignment, and it’s our biggest and most important yet. It’s to help SME owners over the bridge from entitlement to responsibility, from confusion to hope. Help them run their businesses, get cash-rich and profitable – so that we all benefit.
Those of you who still have something to offer and want to help – what are you waiting for? Stop whining about the next generation and help them. Grumpy old men and women might be amusing for five minutes on television. But not in real life.
Volunteer, mentor, advise, engage, do something. Get paid if you can. If not, do it anyway. Don’t tell people you’re not expendable. Show them.
As Jimmy Reid said in 1972 when they tried to shut the Clydebank shipyards
‘I challenge the right of any man, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.’ Damn right Jimmy. We’re on it.
