Burnt Out at Work? You're "Middlescent"

Is "middlescence" hurting your career? Or your company?

And what is it anyway?

Last things first. "Middlescence" is the name created by "age wave" thinker Ken Dychtwald, consultant Tamara Erickson, and consultant Robert Morison to describe the bored, unmotivated 35 to 54 year olds staffing the middle tiers of many companies. To some degree they've checked out. And that impacts both the employee -- the time they spend at work is not making them happier -- and the business. According to Dychtwald, Erickson, and Morison in the Harvard Business Review article "Managing Middlescence," employees who aren't emotionally engaged in their work and work life impact fellow staff, customers, and even overall corporate creativity.

In their Harvard Business Review article "Managing Middlescence" ($6.50 from Amazon here; here's a free summary) they offer a range of solutions to remotivate these potentially key people: sabbaticals, of course, but also different types of career paths, new challenges, or roles in in-house teaching and managing development.

If you'd like to learn more, there are several sources:

HBR's IdeaCast podcast has an interview with Erickson. It's at about the 12:50 mark of "HBR IdeaCast 4: The Joys of Deliberate Mistakes and Middlescence." If you have iTunes, the HBR IdeaCast page is here.

You can download an audio copy of the article for $1.95 at iTunes (search for "middlescence")

The same authors talk about the middlescence problem as part of the larger issue of the aging boomer workforce in "Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills And Talent".

"Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills And Talent"