European Management Journal Vol. 21, No. 6, pp. 707–716, 2003  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Pergamon Printed in Great Britain 0263-2373 $30.00 doi:10.1016/j.emj.2003.09.009 The Retirement Syndrome: The Psychology of Letting Go MANFRED KETS DE VRIES, INSEAD This article analyzes a problem that can be described as the retirement syndrome. In exploring the difficulties many leaders face in letting go at the end of a full career, it reviews a number of the bar- riers to exit: financial, social, and psychological. It looks at the physical and psychological effects of aging, in the context of retirement; examines the experience of nothingness that single-minded careerists often feel after retirement; describes the talion principle, a subliminal fear of reprisals; and discusses the ‘edifice complex,’ the wish to leave behind a legacy. The article concludes with sugges- tions as to how individuals and organizations can develop more effective and humane disengage- ment strategies.  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Retirement, Letting go, Psychological and physiological effects of aging, CEO blues, Depression, Nothingness, Talion principle, Edifice complex, Power, Disengagement The years teach much which the days never know — Ralph Waldo Emerson Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at the close of day, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. — Dylan Thomas Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alterna- tive. — Maurice Chevalier Introduction In an Oscar-nominated bleak comedy called About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson stars as Warren Schmidt, a European Management Journal Vol. 21, No. 6, pp. 707–716, December 2003 707 67-year-old Omaha, Nebraska, insurance executive who is set adrift following retirement. The film is the character study of a sad, aging man who is face-to- face with mortality and the emptiness of a life near its end. Schmidt’s retirement party is the first of the movie’s painfully bittersweet ceremonies. The party, a somber event for Schmidt, portrays quite clearly that he isn’t looking forward to his retirement. He doesn’t understand why he has to be put out to pas- ture, and he doesn’t like the idea of being replaced — especially by a person he doesn’t respect. Given his career single-mindedness, the future prom- ises no golden sunset for this retiree. Schmidt seems to have cultivated no interests outside work. He is at a total loss as to what he might do. Upon his retire- ment, he reassesses his life, wondering how all his hopes had come to this. He has grown to loathe his dowdy wife. His treasured but alienated daughter, who lives what feels like a world away in Denver, barely speaks to him and is set to marry a man he regards as a total nincompoop. Searching for some kind of meaning, Schmidt decides to contribute $22 a month to the welfare of an African ‘foster’ child. His frank letters to six-year-old Ndugu appear to be the only place where he is able to establish human contact, where he feels a degree of authenticity. When his wife suddenly keels over while vacuuming their home, the rest of Schmidt’s world falls apart. Unable to take care of himself, he begins to deterio- rate physically. Not only does he neglect his appear- ance, it doesn’t take very long before his home is messier than a pigsty. On an impulse, Schmidt — uncertain about his future as well as his past — packs up his 30-foot Winnebago