Reflections on the Later Stages of Our Careers

I recently read “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think,” an essay in The Atlantic by social scientist and author Arthur C. Brooks.  Brooks essay is a personal reflection on professional careers.  In particular, the essay explains why in July of 2019 at the age of 55, he concluded that it was time to resign his decades-long position as president of the prestigious American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to join the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School.  I found Brooks’ essay particularly intriguing as a lens through which to reflect on the later stages of my own career; - when I turned 60 in 2005, I started the transition toward my 2007 retirement from my long IBM career by becoming affiliated with MIT and starting to write my weekly blogs.

The essay references the work of Dean Simonton, professor emeritus of psychology at UC Davis, who’s conducted extensive research on the trajectories of creative careers and is one of the world’s leading experts on the subject.

Over the years, Simonton developed a mathematical model that explains the long term variations in the career trajectories of different individuals, as well as the differences in career trajectories across disciplines and domains.  A few parameters account for most individual differences: the age at which the career starts, the career’s initial creative potential, the rates at which new ideas are generated, and the rate at which the ideas become finished results as publications or products.  This simple model can then predict the trajectory of each individual’s career, including the ages of their first, their best and their final contribution.  Simonton confirmed the validity of his model by analyzing the creative output of the careers of over 2,000 scientists and inventors, as well as the output of musicians, painters, authors and other artists.

“[S]uccess and productivity increase for the first 20 years after the inception of a career, on average,” wrote Brooks summarizing Simonton’s results.  “So if you start a career in earnest at 30, expect to do your best work around 50 and go into decline soon after that.  The specific timing of peak and decline vary somewhat depending on the field.”  Other research has found that the likelihood of a major discovery by scientists and investors increases steadily through their 20s and 30s, and then declines through their 40s, 50s and 60s.  While there are outliers, “the likelihood of producing a major innovation at age 70 is approximately what it was at age 20 - almost nonexistent.”

Literary achievement follows a similar pattern.  Poets peak in their early 40s, while novelists generally take longer.  Authors are likely to reach the top spots in the NY Times fiction best sellers list in their 40s and 50s.  A few novelists have been famously productive well into their old age, but the chances of writing a best seller decline rapidly after 70.

“After earning fame and fortune in their 20s, many tech entrepreneurs are in creative decline by age 30,” noted Brooks.  “In 2014, the Harvard Business Review reported that founders of enterprises valued at $1 billion or more by venture capitalists tend to cluster in the 20-to-34 age range. “In sum,” he adds, “if your profession requires mental processing speed or significant analytic capabilities - the kind of profession most college graduates occupy - noticeable decline is probably going to set in earlier than you imagine.  Sorry.”

Why does that happen?  A potential answer lies in the research of psychologist Raymond Cattell, who in the 1940s introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence.  Fluid intelligence is the ability to quickly learn new skills, adapt to new environments and solve novel reasoning problems.  It requires considerable raw processing power which generally peaks in our 20s and starts diminishing in our 30s and 40s.

Crystallized intelligence, on the other hand, is the know-how and expertise which we accumulate over decades.  It’s the ability to use the stocks of knowledge and experiences gained in the past.  It generally increases through our 40s, peaks in our 50s, and does not diminish until late in life.

The specific timing of peak and decline vary depending on the career.  Careers based primarily on fluid intelligence tend to peak early while those more based on crystallized intelligence peak later.  Simonton found that poets, - a highly creative and fluid endeavor, - have generally produced half  of their lifetime creative output by age 40.  Historians, on the other hand, - who rely on their crystallized stock of knowledge, - don’t reach this milestone until about 60.  Scientists may produce their major research in their late 30s, but generally remain great teachers, mentors, and administrators until quite late in life thanks to their accumulated knowledge and expertise.  And, while entrepreneurs typically peak and decline fairly young, CEOs and general managers, - professions that require the knowledge, understanding and wisdom associated with crystallized intelligence, - achieve their most productive years significantly later.

In his teens and 20s, Brooks pursued a career as a French-horn player.  But, in 1995, at 31, he abandoned what he called his “faltering musical career” to get a doctorate in public policy.  After earning his degree in 1998, he had a successful career as a university professor, first at Georgia State University, then at Syracuse.  In 2009, he was appointed president of the American Enterprise Institute.

In 2015, shortly after his 51st birth, Brooks said that “my professional life was going very well.  I was the president of a flourishing Washington think tank… I had written some best-selling books.  People came to my speeches.  My columns were published in The New York Times.”

“But I had started to wonder: Can I really keep this going?  I work like a maniac.  But even if I stayed at it 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at some point my career would slow and stop.  And when it did, what then?…  [F]or the past four years, I have been on a quest to figure out how to turn my eventual professional decline from a matter of dread into an opportunity for progress…  I embarked on my research with the goal of producing a tangible road map to guide me during the remaining years of my life.  This has yielded four specific commitments.”

Jump.  “The biggest mistake professionally successful people make is attempting to sustain peak accomplishment indefinitely, trying to make use of the kind of fluid intelligence that begins fading relatively early in life.  This is impossible…  So: I’ve resigned my job as president of the American Enterprise Institute, effective right about the time this essay is published.”

Serve.  “Time is limited, and professional ambition crowds out things that ultimately matter more…  Fortunately, an effort to serve others can play to our strengths as we age…  I am thus moving to a phase in my career in which I can dedicate myself fully to sharing ideas in service of others, primarily by teaching at a university.  My hope is that my most fruitful years lie ahead.”

Worship.  “I do strongly recommend that each person explore his or her spiritual self - I plan to dedicate a good part of the rest of my life to the practice of my own faith, Roman Catholicism.  But this is not incompatible with work; on the contrary, if we can detach ourselves from worldly attachments and redirect our efforts toward the enrichment and teaching of others, work itself can become a transcendental pursuit.”

Connect.  “Throughout this essay, I have focused on the effect that the waning of my work prowess will have on my happiness.  But an abundance of research strongly suggests that happiness - not just in later years but across the life span - is tied directly to the health and plentifulness of one’s relationships.  Pushing work out of its position of preeminence - sooner rather than later - to make space for deeper relationships can provide a bulwark against the angst of professional decline.”

Comments

[Franz J. Walkow]

Thanks Irving, I appreciated the synopsis , very interesting. My dream in life was to retire and buy a sailboat. Thanks to my spouse, Janis, who has great leadership skills, it became a goal with a schedule. i.e. retire at 50 , with a 30 yr old pension plan retirement from IBM.
Which WE did, and it kept us very active and busy for 10 years.
Post sailing, we traveled on "other peoples" boats, and then did the RV thing with a goal of visiting Yellowstone and 120 other national parks, that was achieved in one year. Then we took trips to visit relatives in Germany and Poland to connect with our lineage. So now we cruise along with thousands on the big ships. We have started flying to other places and ending the cruises in our home port of Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately, Janis is now battling lung cancer, so that is a trip all in itself. Stage two, surgery, chemo and radiation later, we are recovering but it is tough going. Hope you are well.

[Franz J. Walkow]

OOPS that is 10 national parks in one year, not 120 !