Warren Bennis On Geeks and Geezers

For their 2003 book, Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders, Robert Thomas and Warren Bennis interviewed almost 50 leaders,”geeks” — leaders between the ages of 21 and 35 — and “geezers”– men and women between the ages of 70 and 93. Despite the differences in age, the two groups of leaders had some important things in common.

The research led to a model of leadership development. Successful leaders had four essential competencies: the ability to engage others through shared meaning; a distinctive and compelling voice; integrity; and adaptive capacity. Of these adaptive capacity was the most important.

For the perennially enquiring Bennis, connecting with the younger generation was clearly an opportunity to learn. But, we asked him, aren’t the geezers inevitably more interesting than the geeks?

I would hate to say that as I am one of them. I would hate to sound biased or judgemental but they have lived longer and gone through an awful lot. I think what the geeks haven’t experienced are the crucibles like World War Two, and the depression. They have had formative years of almost uninterrupted prosperity, growth and success. They are often children of affluence.

9/11 was the first collective shock to the world view they grew up with. It was a jolt to them.

You talk of the geeks being smothered in possibilities.

Yes. I think it does create anxiety. The world’s their oyster and they can choose what they do. They have so many options and possibilities.

I teach a class on the art and adventure of leadership every year to a class of 20 year-olds. They are our best and brightest but they are so confused they end up going to law school. I think of a third of our class go on to law school because they don’t know what else to do. The Asian students are highly vocationally oriented because they are first generation Americans. They tend to go into science or medicine. They absorb uncertainty through the professions. You see also with other groups – think of the Jewish expression “My son, the doctor”.

But the geeks and geezers appear very certain of their view of the world?

The work-life balance issue is a real split between the generations. I asked one of the geeks what he would be doing if there wasn’t such a thing as a computer. He paused for a long time and said I don’t know then said he would have been a miserable accountant.

What about the people in between geeks and geezers. Isn’t it a kind of no man’s land?

When I was thinking of the readership of the book I think it is probably exactly that group in the middle. They should be the buyers. The geeks don’t read and the geezers don’t buy books in the business category. I don’t think of this as a business book.

My co-author kept saying what about me. That group is not just the one which will buy this book but they are an articulating point. They have the responsibility I think to be the translators, the people who will help each group.

I was talking to my son-in-law who is 40 and a lot of his friends who are just a little older struggle with the internet and the technology. So it is the people who are in the middle group who are comfortable with the technology but a little wiser and older who have to be the articulating point.

Do you detect that same level of self-awareness in the geeks you talked to?

I think they feel that they have more licence to talk about themselves and their inner feelings that comes through. Unlike some of the geezers who would never dream about talking about their relations with their family and so on. There is a real restraint among the geezers, a kind of reserve while the younger generation are more free with their feelings, aspirations and things like that.

What about the way we develop leaders. A lot of people go on MBA programs without a bedrock of self-awareness.

Some universities in the US have two weeks of induction which concentrates on teamwork and they do Myers Briggs so they become quite aware of who they are. You’ve got to realise that most business school faculty have not actually run anything. They have not done the heavy lifting of actually leading.

I am glad now that business schools are taking people who have worked for three or five years. In many instances they have more experience than the faculty.

I am totally in favor of a national service system. It is badly needed. The youth are all dressed up but have no place to go. This would not be military service – though I wouldn’t exclude the military – so they could get experience before going to law school or business school.

There is a required course on ethics at Harvard Business School but not at most business schools. It’s a very difficult topic but we need to think about the purpose of education. We have to ask the question at business schools is there something more important than money? Do corporations exist for something more than money and the bottom line? Of course they do, but we have to explain it better.

Was there a difference between the geeks and the geezers in terms of their attitudes to money?

The geezers were brought up in Maslowian survival mode. Often they grew up in some poverty with limited financial aspirations. They thought that earning $10,000 a year would have been enough. Compare that to the geeks who some of them made a lot of money when they were young. They are operating out of a different context. If they were broke they would be more concerned with making a living than making history.

How can you bridge the gap between the geeks and the geezers?

We must. It would be interesting to hear families discussing the book. I think the geezers may have a more difficult time with changes underway – such as technology. You start to think about mortality in your 60s and there is a certain envy towards youth. In your 60s you are no longer promising.

Dialog between generations is important. A number of companies, including GE, have reverse mentoring where young people mentor older people to acquaint them with the e-world. There is a lot of ageism which I probably wouldn’t be sensitive to except for the fact I am in my eighties. People see me in a car and see white hair and behave differently. These will be profound issues for society in general.