Leading Team Members Who Retire Before Retiring

An unspoken epidemic exists in many organizations, especially in large enterprises with a sizeable swath of senior team members. To preserve the peace, this disease is commonly ignored and only talked about in hushed tones. The dirty secret everyone knows is that some leaders and team members retire before retiring. 

Some team members essentially stop working long before their expiration date. Sometimes years before they are set to exit the organization!

Even though they have a tremendous amount to offer, these team members sit on their hands, stay below the radar, and dial back their contributions while they wait until retirement actually occurs. Of course, this drags down the entire team’s productivity, morale, and progress, and presents an infuriating challenge for leaders.  

Leading team members who retire before retiring requires strong resolve. It is always easier to ignore the problem and let sleeping dogs lie, as they say. Unfortunately, the path of least resistance is exactly what happens in most organizations. Simply encouraging these team members to step up and back into the game usually results in little difference. Good leaders do more. 

Promoting more engagement with those who have lost their initiative begins with designing challenging assignments that utilize many of the skills these team members have developed over their careers. While leaders may be hesitant to put important projects in the hands of those who have declared through their actions that they are disengaged, it is exactly what is needed to reenergize them. 

These assignments should be meaty, important, and require full engagement. Milestones that reflect significant progress to measure success along the way are also essential. 

Occasionally, these assignments or projects include a change of scenery. Relocating the team member to a new team, division, or location may be just what they need to start fresh and deliver on the high expectations set by the leader.  In addition to a new assignment, new colleagues often reenergize team members who have lost their desire to contribute fully. 

Identifying those team members who have essentially retired before retiring is obviously the first step in this reinvigoration process. Leaders must be honest with themselves and admit it when all signs point to a senior team member who has given up and has decided to wait things out. Allowing them to disengage and buy time is never the right answer. 

The best leaders never accept anything but full engagement, especially from those who have the skills, wisdom, and experience to contribute. Who has retired on your team before their due date?