Revolutionize Your Retirement Radio

Relieving Pre-Retirement Dread and Post-Retirement Turmoil with Dorian Mintzer and Teresa Amabile

• Dorian Mintzer

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Surprisingly, many older adults approaching retirement feel a sense of dread – even when they have sufficient financial security and are reasonably healthy. In a project sponsored by Harvard Business School, Teresa Amabile’s research team spent a decade researching retirement to understand people’s attitudes toward, decisions about, and experiences of retiring. 

She and her colleagues, Lotte Bailyn (MIT), Marcy Crary (Bentley University), Douglas T. Hall, and Kathy Kram (both of Boston University), interviewed 120 knowledge workers in successful companies, including some who were still working, some who had retired, and some who were about to enter the retirement transition. The 14 people approaching retirement in the near term became the “Stars” of this research because they agreed to be interviewed multiple times as they finished their careers, officially retired,

In this episode, you’ll discover: 

  • The “work” of retiring and how to approach the necessary tasks in a way that increases the likelihood of a smooth transition into a satisfying retirement life. 
  • The major identity challenges people face in retirement, and some creative ways you can meet those challenges. 
  • The upheavals to personal and professional relationships that can occur during this life transition and how you can maintain and build a mutually supportive relationship network post-retirement. 

About Teresa M. Amabile:  

Teresa M. Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration, Emerita, at Harvard Business School. Her most recent book, Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You, presents insights from a decade of research on the psychological, social, and life restructuring challenges of retiring. Her colleagues Lotte Bailyn, Marcy Crary, Douglas T. Hall, and Kathy E. Kram collaborated on that work. Before turning her research interests into retirement transition, Teresa devoted over 40 years to researching creativity and innovation. Extending that work, she studied how everyday life inside organizations can influence people and their creativity by affecting inner work life - the confluence of motivation, emotions, and perceptions. The findings of that research appear in her coauthored book with Steven Kramer, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. 

Teresa's work has appeared in over 100 scholarly journal articles and a variety of other outlets, including Harvard Business Review. She has presented her work to audiences in a variety of settings, including Pixar, Genentech, TEDx Atlanta, Apple, Pfizer, and the World Economic Forum in Davos. She consults with companies and nonprofits, and has served on several boards. She has received a variety of awards, including the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Management's Organizational Behavior Division, and election to the 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. 

Get in touch with Teresa Amabile: 

Buy Teresa’s book: https://revolutionizeretirement.com/amabilebook   

Connect with Teresa on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresa-amabile-8542727/  

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