Fine Wine

Wine is food, right?  So today’s Foodie Friday post is on a wine theme.  I don’t profess to know much about really good wine but I do know enough to recognize when a wine is too young to drink.  You can taste the tannins, the stuff from the stems and seeds of the grapes, which are bitter but which mellow over time.  In fact, I’ve always thought that if a wine has the characteristics of being really good (nose, body, etc.) that noticeable tannins are a good thing – it means the wine is only going to get better.  That’s a wine you want to hang on to as it gets older.  Why do I bring that up?

Because many businesses seem to have the exact opposite thinking when it comes to people.  Yes, another over-50 friend was offered “early retirement” this week and I’ve run out of digits to count the number of experienced, intelligent friends I have who have been cast aside.  Companies think they’re cutting costs but they’re losing a lot more.

I can understand the premium put on youth in sports – we’re talking about skills which deteriorate with age.  Business isn’t that way.  Skills get better over time (at least with the good ones) and developing those skills in a manager over time is an investment.  The interest on that investment is the institutional knowledge, a Rolodex of senior executive peers, and other experiential value that can’t be found in younger folks.  That’s why we oldsters manage them.  We have a perspective that generally only comes with age and time on the job.  We have more going on in our lives that adds to that perspective.  Yes, that’s why we’re more expensive but if you need an explanation of cost vs. value, you shouldn’t being making decisions about people’s lives.

Throwing out a wine just as the tannins mellow and it reaches peak quality is stupid.  So is tossing your most-experienced staff just because they’re less cheap.  Then again, it does mean there are a lot of terrific free-agents out there ready to share all that experience and competitive knowledge.  Don’t sit there shaking your heads about this – hire one!