The Kirby Wiese Question

Early in my career, my mentor was a wonderful woman named Maria Wiese. She was married to Kirby Wiese and he was “a guy”. “A guy” in that he had a strong technical and leadership skills. While I didn’t get to work with Kirby much since I was in the sequestered VM/CMS systems group, I knew of his reputation. He knew things. One day I found myself in his office. I don’t recall exactly why, maybe it was to ask a question, maybe he saw me on the floor and asked me in. I have a strong impression of his office. Large (for tech), perfectly rectangular, with a large desk centered in the room. He sat behind the desk, also centered, and we exchanged some small talk. I was young and despite my obvious limitations was performing really well. It was possible I could eventually become “a guy”. A Kirby Wiese.

I’m not sure how it came up and it seemed out of nowhere but he asked the question:

How is it that someone who was a star when young can become just “ok” as they get older?

It was somewhat of a rhetorical question. Surely, young me had no idea. Surely, wise Kirby had some ideas but he didn’t share them. He just let the question linger. I felt he asked the question to raise my awareness. I naively left his office thinking it’s the company that changes the young star into the experienced retread.

The question has haunted me ever since. I think about it often. Both as a manager of people and as someone who’s managed. I don’t have a simple answer. I have some thoughts.

• Early in career people outperform their level relative to their peer group because when they were hired, they were already able to perform at that higher level. Eventually, members of their peer group that survive catch up to them.
• Perception of the employee changes when management changes especially if there isn’t a chain connecting managers.
• Life happens. I know firsthand how much easier it is to work long productive hours in my 20s compared to 30s, 40s, and certainly 50s.
• Burnout happens. Burnout is a continuum - at one end is a lack of passion and on the extreme end is total loss of interest. It’s implied that there’s a correlation between performance and perceived passion. Not sure that’s even remotely true.
• The organization changes. An employee who’s skillset was once valued becomes less valued as the organization focuses on different things (ie, a 10 person org acts a lot different than a 100 person org).

LinkedIn stylized leaders, including one I have in mind would say this is all bullshit. Maybe it is.
That the real reason is not pushing yourself, not always learning, not always striving, not always staying relevant, not taking risks. I call this out as bullshit. It is the evil twin of victim mentality, it is hero mentality. It is the lie someone tells their successful self in order not to deal with what happened to the lost ones.