033: Bridging the Gap: Succession, AI, and the Future of Co-op Leadership (with James Tanneberger)

And there's a coming wave of retirements and there's how do you manage the knowledge transfer? How do you manage creating an institutional memory and to make sure that there's continuity and a successful operation of a co-op? Yeah,

Pablo, big problem across our country.

I wouldn't call it a problem as much as a challenge.

I'm going to have to find new ways to do things.

Pretty big difference in the baby boomer generation and Generation X.

So some challenges to work through to be able to keep our business continuity clean and keep us moving forward.

It's interesting.

One of the things

that I come across a lot is you have.

A lot of co-ops who have executives and leadership who are maybe within, call it, five years of retirement, right? And they're maybe less willing to try new things because they don't, you know, they just want to make sure that they see out their time in an orderly fashion.

And then you have an entire sort of, I mean, they're certainly millennials and people who are, the next wave of leadership of co-ops and they grew up with devices and they grew up and they're maybe more likely to try new things how do you see that that the tension and that opportunity yeah

i i see plenty of plenty of baby boomers who are willing to do new things and who are willing to explore new things but what you said on the average is true So as the generations that have been in leadership leave, it does open the door maybe to a little bit more energy and a little bit more desire to chase new technologies and to take on new challenges, right? I think the idea of starting something new when you're very near retirement, you know, it can definitely be a driver that you don't necessarily want to create a bunch of waves that you want.

I think it's a feeling of responsibility.

You don't want to start something major that's going to put the company in a difficult position and then walk out the door.

Of course.

I mean, this all makes a lot of sense.

Certainly, I'm just trying to figure out and for us to dig into...

How do you think about that? And how do you think about succession planning in general? I mean, you've been in leadership in the utilities industry for a long time.

Yeah, so

what we have to do as cooperative CEOs, the very first thing that is top of mind is you need to figure out how to replace yourself.

And that can mean, in this case, bringing in that person sooner.

so that you know that there is going to be continuity of effort and unity of thought.

So if you can bring that person into your organization sooner and you can find out where you agree and and get on the same page and pursue that, then you know that there is going to be continuity and that person will be living with the same passion about particular things.

And we have lots of challenges to face.

that person will then enter into those challenges on the same page with you.