"Hi Rich,
I am in my 50’s managing a team where some of the younger members clearly know more about AI and new tools than I do. I feel behind the curve and, if I am honest, it is getting me down and thinking that I may ‘encouraged’ to retire early.
What do I do?"
Marie, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Rich’s reply
Marie, what you are feeling is completely normal and far more common than people admit.
New technologies come into our world all the time and they can be intimidating, especially when something like AI arrives with so much noise, hype, and scaremongering attached to it.
But if you look back at your career, you have already lived through so many changes that genuinely transformed how marketing is done:
Email replacing fax and post
Websites replacing brochures
Search engines and SEO
CRM replacing spreadsheets and rolodexes
Marketing automation and nurture
Social media and personal brand
Programmatic and digital targeting
Analytics and live dashboards
Cloud collaboration tools
Mobile and always on internet
Online events and streaming
And each time, you adapted. You learned. You stayed relevant. You progressed. You are now leading a team because of the judgement, experience, and perspective you bring, not because you are the fastest on the latest tool.
At your level, you do not need to be the smartest technician in the room. Your value is in setting direction, making decisions, connecting dots, and creating the conditions for talented people to do their best work.
There is no need to hide gaps or bluff. In fact, the strongest leaders are comfortable hiring people who are better than them in specific areas and then giving them space to shine. That is not weakness. That is leadership.
Your role is to ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, link tools to outcomes, and decide what really matters for the business. Let your team be brilliant at the how. You stay accountable for the why and the so what.
At the same time, stay curious. You do not need to become an AI expert overnight, but you should show that you are learning, that you care, and that you are not switching off from the future. Ask your team to teach you. Create moments for show and tell. Make learning visible and normal. Consider an external coach.
When marketing automation started to become impossible to ignore and my own team were waving business cases under my nose, I realised I needed to upskill simply to do my job properly. I signed up for a two day course and learned a huge amount. It gave me the confidence to ask better questions and make better decisions. That is what matters.
Finally, park any thoughts about being nudged into early retirement. That decision will always be yours and yours alone. Experience, judgement, and calm under pressure do not suddenly lose their value because a new technology arrives.
You have adapted before. You will adapt again.
Head up. Stay curious. Lead with confidence.
Onwards.
Watch the full response to this interview on the B2B Marketing United YouTube channel
