So when you coined that phrase, what particular kind of loss or risk did you want leaders and professionals to picture?

So I would say that I think one of the lines I use is wisdom is to the experienced dividend what oxygen is to fire.

And if you're trying to extinguish a fire, which is, again, trying to say, well, you know what, we're always going to have people around here.

We're always going to be able to tap into that wisdom, that intelligentsia, etc.

Again, that's an assumption that you're making as a leader.

And quite frankly, what I'm really worried about, and you start digging into some of these stories, you're like, when's the next disaster that was preventable because we weren't capturing wisdom or we were eradicating ourselves of the rubies prematurely because quote, they're expensive.

So whether that's Boeing, whom in their after-action reviews of certain issues between the 737 MAXs, as well as the door that blew open on an Alaskan airline flight in 2024, in the middle of a flight, that was fun.

Well, up and out.

[laughs]

So book one is called Flat Army, and that was written in 2011, 2012.

And I was just basically making the shift from, from running into cycling.

And now I'm, like, really interested in sort of the mechanics of cycling, i.e., not just you as an individual rider, but when you're riding in packs and how things like the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia, like how does the whole teamwork thing work? And I'd had never heard of concepts like peloton or drafting.

And it became pretty evident to me as I started to research and learn more about cycling when you're riding in a team about the concept of, of the peloton, and how a peloton basically is a team, group of whatever, 8, 10, 12 riders.

And you s- you...

What you don't see really that well on TV or even if you're on the ground, is the rotation of leadership that occurs when they're moving from point A to point B.

And so do you feel like you have any words of encouragement to anyone that has an and but they feel like no one cares 'cause it has nothing to do with my job?

So tell us about about this book.

Well, that book came out in May in North America, 2026, and then just finished a global tour.

And that came out in June internationally.

And there's a couple of things going on with the title.

So everyone has a future of work book or so it seems.

And I come from the opinion that there's far too many leaders in those organizations that have their head in the sand about the future of work.

because they're basically thinking it's technological.

What would be the end? Like, what would be the optimum or what what can you see from where you're standing as a as a change?

Totally.

So I'm in Palo Alto a lot.

Like I'm down in the valley riding that 101 a lot.

Just.

Anyway, so SAP purchases business objects and I try, it's kind of one of my failures in life, I think, I take umbrage with this on myself, but I tried really, really hard to help the senior leaders of SAP see that, yes, they bought now a 11,000 person, $1.1 billion revenue company, but what they inadvertently acquired was like the best damn culture that you should repeat.

And yeah, it just didn't work.

They didn't see it that way.

be kind

And you liken it to almost like the climate crisis.

Yeah, well, no one likes debt.

I don't think anyone should like debt.

And so what I was thinking about, again, in my past practice and then when I went out and did a whole slew of research and interviews, basically age data, at least I call it, coincides with the sort of organization's inability to see four big issues that are encroaching their processes, their operations, their culture.

So in no particular order, first, there is a demographic disruption.

Like it or not, birth rates right around the world are plummeting.

And I'm not a pronatalist, but just the math maths on this one, Dr. Mason.

And my question to you is, is that a useful construct?

Of course.

And so if you're a CEO or a senior leader or a leader or HR line leader, it doesn't matter.

What I found in the discovery work of this particular book, which was about two and a half years of research, is that leaders have their heads in the age sand, essentially And, and the analog- analogy, sorry, is when many of us we're like, "Oh, climate change, whatever.

It's not a big deal." Except when your house burns down in LA from, you know, a drastic fire or, you know, for six months of the time in British Columbia and Alberta in Canada in the summer, you can't see the sun because the sky's filled with smoke.

Or anyway, you get the idea.

So we didn't really pay attention to climate change.

Now we're like, "Oh, actually we should do something about this," and we are trying to make up for lost time.

Thanks.

your book you you have this really interesting model these three archetypes uh rivers rocks and rubies and i'd love for you to explain the difference between these three archetypes versus generations and what the difference is and why the distinction matters.

So I'm all for a good meme and trope.

What I love is a good joke sometimes.

And so the memes and tropes that come with being a Gen X, who I am, 1971, but I don't want that inside the workplace.

Just before the pandemic, we went through that Hey Boomer era and that infiltrated organizations.

Like it's not their fault they got born.

And so why are we making fun of them in the workplace? It just, it really irritated me.

So what are some strategies for harnessing some of these benefits, the positivity that you talk about?

At the same time, we've got all this AI stuff going on and people saying we don't need as many workers as we used to have, and maybe the math will end up working out for them, but it's a big gamble.

Yeah.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, to me, it's A, too early to tell.

B, it's a bit of a red herring because tech had overhired during COVID and post-COVID, and so now they're just sort of trimming the books, I would say, and that's getting all the mainstream media headlines.

And if you look at the actual data that says, "Is AI doing anything to replace young, middle-aged, or older workers?" It's nowhere near that.

It's, in fact, complementary rather than replacement.

That being said, there are actual examples whereby organizations are not hiring young people.

Talk a little bit about rivers and rocks and rubies.

What was it like for you? What was that 48 hours like for you? In terms of your own thinking about yourself during that window.

So here was a guy that had reread one of his books, and I'm not trying to sell books, by the way, but it's called The Purpose Effect.

And I had written it in 2014, 15, and then released in 2016.

The entire premise of the book is that there are three types of purpose.

There is personal purpose, role purpose, and organizational purpose.

And so I reread the book just to make sure it was still sort of apt for 2018, just a couple years later.

It was kind of like the, so who am I? And I was questioning my identity in that year of 2018.

But personally, what's that adventure been like for you?

So let us listen to that conversation right now.

For me, what it came down to was four key, I suppose, categories of debt that accumulate this overall age debt.

So very simply, number one is demographic apocalypse slash demographic disruption.

There's a age debt blindness for leaders and organizations that just are not listening to the tarot cards of demography change.

So we can maybe tackle that a little bit.

So demography change, number one.

Number two, to the point of this wonderful podcast and what you're digging into, ageism.

let's

Tell us how that, that works.

So I guess one of the things, being this former talent leader in organizations but still doing it on a consultative basis, is I get very personally frustrated when I hear the terms of generations used in the workforce.

I mean, it's such an arbitrary thing, like, when you were born.

Like, just because, you know, someone was born between '46 and '64, it may make them a baby boomer, but it's just a classification.

If someone was born between '65 and '80, it's just a classification that you're a Gen X.

So we all have different tendencies because of the places and times in which we were born, but in the workplace, it's not right.

It's an ageist thing.

So how does, how does your experience dividend work?

You mention in your book some of the benefits, the benefits of experience to keeping or at least encouraging older workers to remain in the workforce can have a kind of an intangible benefit.

Yeah.

I mean, I call it the experience dividend.

So what we talked about prior to this, Dan, what I call the age debt.

So our organizations have their, as I say, heads in the fog here in the Halifax Harbor, and it's not great.

But there is hope.

So, in fact, the book actually is written like an album.

How do we avoid that?