Get Younger. Get Smarter.

When it comes to strategic thinking, organizations address numerous time-honored questions, appropriately. What’s the economic outlook? The market conditions? The industry trends? The geo-socio-political landscape? The competitive environment? The game-changing technologies?

These queries notwithstanding, today there are two new questions that are not time-honored at all; rather, they are time-sensitive and perhaps even more important: How do we get younger? How do we get smarter? 

Why is that? Because a transformation is upon us.

#The need to get younger

The data are clear. According to the Pew Research Center, over 10,000 baby boomers reach the age of 65 each day, and will—every single day—for the next 15 years. The vacuum created by retiring baby boomers automatically forces a talent transformation. Millennials – the largest age group since the baby boom generation—are expected to become 75% of the professional workforce by 2025. In addition, Transitioning Service Members—many of them Millennials—are separating from the military at the rate of 200,000 per year, adding to the total. Indeed, the baton will need to pass to them. 

The need to get smarter

To fill the vacuum, organizations will need to rapidly assess, rapidly hire, and rapidly train and develop the contributors and leaders of tomorrow—far faster than we have in the past. Surprisingly, the timing is propitious. Millennials are bright, highly educated, and skilled in technology; they are confident, high-energy and love to multi-task. Military Service Members are imbued with attributes that are vital to a private sector that places increasing importance on delivering value and improving customer experiences—commitment, collaboration, relationship building, empathy, sacrifice and service.

Combining smart, motivated talent with a system that supports rapid learning and knowledge transfer will not only bridge the generational gap, it will likely unleash a new era of innovation and intellectual property creation. Because Millennials and Transitioning Military naturally prefer to work in teams—rather than as individuals—and that is the key to ideation and innovation.

Technology itself cannot fill the gap of lost human capabilities. Organizations that get younger and get smarter will prevail. And the rewards will be abundant.