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Interview with Paul Bracken on Midlife Crisis
February 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
Paul Bracken Prof. Paul Bracken, leading expert in global competition and the strategic application of technology in business and defense. 
Should midlife be always a crisis
or can it also be an opportunity –an
opportunity for second life? A new
beginning? Professor, from your varied
experience of teaching, researching,
and working with executives,
can you share with us your perspectives
on this?
People who feel burned out should
embrace some pattern breaking activity.
It can be golf, learning a new field,
like dynamical systems theory, or
even taking a hobby seriously. Community
service and travel are also
great stimulants.I tell my students
that however old they are they should
always be taking at least one course.It may be at a university, or it may be
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over the Internet, or just reading systematically
a new field like risk management.
I have yet to find anyone, for example,
who has failed to be utterly engrossed
by the many reports and books on intelligence,
e.g., the 9/11 Report or
Roberta Wolstetter’s account of Pearl
Harbor. Anyone who works at a large
company will immediately see the
parallels, and from a different perspective
than they had before. What is your assessment of the
possible impact of the US financial
crisis on the midlife careers of millions
of employees across the globe,
let alone US? Do you think that the
financial crisis would have advanced
all the unpleasant experiences that
would normally have come at a later
stage?
Unfortunately this crisis will come as
a great shock to those who thought
they had it made, as well as to young
people starting out. But the key point
is this: we can’t control events, but
we can control how we react to them.
Think of smart people in the depression,
or in other financial shocks.
Some gave up, while others sought
new ways to develop their lives for
the better. What is your advice to all such
people going through such traumatic
times? What are the few things that
they should keep a tab on and keep
working on so that life, if not as it
was, at least does not deteriorate? What is the role of leadership in managingmidlife
change effectively?
My advice is to read, stop watching
TV, and take up a physical activity. It
is to take responsibility for your own
life as a powerful act of faith. Business school professors are no
exceptions to midlife crisis. What
was your experience? What are the
symptoms for any business school
professor to recognize that he/she is
getting intomidlife (apart fromthe age
of 36-58?)
Taking up a new field, or writing
about a new industry is always interesting.
Here’s an exercise I use in executive
education classes. Make a list
of ten subjects you wish someone
would write a good book on. Then
choose one of them and do it. Taking
action, and not just thinking about
things, is the decisive step here. What advice would you like to offer
to a business school faculty for managing
his/her midlife change effectively?
Read outside of your field to get insights
you’ll never get from the specialists
who are writing about it now.
Also, talk to people from all walks of
life. This will surely give you many
new ideas and frameworks even on
your own area of interest.
1.
Crisis Management Case Study
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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The interview was conducted by Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary, Consulting Editor,
Effective Executive and Dean, IBSCDC,
Hyderabad. This interview was originally published in Effective Executive, IUP, February 2009. Copyright © February 2009, IBSCDC
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or distributed, stored in a
retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or medium –
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the permission
of IBSCDC. |
