Our Blog

The Advisor’s Corner

Doescher Advisors Exciting News!

/in /by

Tom Doescher

Tom Doescher

On April 9, 2025, I was meeting with our son, Craig, whom many of you know. At the end of our meeting, he asked me if Barbara & I would be interested in merging Doescher Advisors into his company, Doescher Group (“DG”). If you are a parent and your son asks if you want to join his successful business, imagine how elated you would be.

In extending the offer, Craig related that he and his colleagues would like to add executive coaching to their service offerings. So, Barbara, Claudia McIntyre & I could continue to serve you and also help DG jump start their executive coaching practice. He also felt that some of his colleagues may be interested in having a mentor.

It is so hard to believe that Doescher Advisors is in its 14th year. We are not getting any younger, but we had not been able to come up with a succession plan. His offer could not have come at a better time. He said that we could be involved for as long as we would like to stay active advising clients.

We have sought counsel from several close advisors who are all enthusiastic about this opportunity. Therefore, we are excited to announce our plans to join forces with DG starting August 1, 2025. We will now be able to serve you indefinitely with expanded resources; and remain exclusively focused on you and your future success in the usual confidential manner.

Barbara, Claudia & I are very excited and blessed by this development which facilitates our opportunity to continue to serve clients.

Our next blog post will come from Doescher Group.

Ratchet Down

/in /by

Tom Doescher

Tom Doescher

In the past several years, as I’ve been adjusting to my Fourth Quarter of life, I’ve coined the phrase “Ratchet Down.” It’s the idea that I simply can’t do all the things I could do when I was younger and had more energy. I’ve found I can pretty much stay active in most things I enjoy, but at a lesser level.

While that seems logical, it’s something many people find hard to accept and implement. One of the reasons for that is that we can get caught in a binary trap, and our thinking becomes stuck between two things: Keep doing what we’re doing, the way we’ve always done it, or drop the activity in question altogether.

But ratcheting down isn’t an either/or. Rather, it’s doing a little less — in all areas of our life — a bit at a time. Hence, we’re “ratcheting down” and adapting, not dumping the activities we’ve enjoyed doing.

This concept may especially be helpful for those of us who are baby boomers, although I believe it applies in a slightly different way — and could be equally useful — for those of you who are still youngsters. (Especially those with a Type A/Take the Mountain personality.) I’ve written a little about this in my book, “The Last Life Marathon,” where I highlight my transition from Plante Moran to Doescher Advisors. Along the way, I’ve discovered that the truth is this: More isn’t always better.

For those of us who are baby boomers, it’s important to accept the fact that our energy level diminishes with time. We just can’t do what we used to be able to do. To remain healthy, we need to accept that and learn to say “no” more often. Equally important is the ability to learn to do less of a certain thing. In other words, we need to learn to rachet down.

If you’re still counted among the younger folk, it helps to realize that you’re in the “Perfect Storm” of life — you’re likely to be married, you have young children who require a lot of your time, you have more responsibility at work or you’re building your own business, your spouse is assuming more responsibility at work or building their own business, you’re trying to maintain a certain level of fitness, and you’re answering leadership requests at church or your club. I think you get the point.

Time is a fixed commodity, and each of us only gets 24 hours a day. My advice is to invest in those hours wisely, and try ratcheting it down a notch or two. Just because you may be approaching the Fourth Quarter of your game, there’s no reason to completely give up on the things that bring you joy.

The Great Depression of 2030

/in , /by

Tom Doescher

Tom Doescher

Several of my clients are members of industry trade associations and have retained ITR Economics as their outsourced economist to advise their member companies. These clients, who are successful and seasoned business owners, and aren’t easily impressed, speak very highly of ITR. One of them told me that advice from ITR saved his bacon in 2008. So, me being me, I went to Amazon to determine whether anyone had written any books about the subject. I discovered that in 2014, the founders of ITR, Brian and Alan Beaulieu, published Prosperity in the Age of Decline. 

For some time, ITR has been predicting the “Great Depression of 2030.” The Beaulieus believe there are demographic trends that are dominant and will cause significant financial distress for the United States. These trends include:

  • Aging Population — We are an aging nation. In 2020, the U.S. population was 337 million; individuals aged 65 and older made up 55 million, or 16 percent, of the total population. The forecasted 2030 population is 365 million, and it is expected that 72 million baby boomers will account for 20 percent of that population
  • Government Debt — The U.S. has a serious cumulative outstanding debt issue. In 2014, the debt exceeded the GDP, and the U.S. is the second highest-ranking debtor nation of all major countries. (Editorial comment: The U.S. debt increased significantly during and after the Covid pandemic. As of November 26, 2024, the U.S. national debt was $36 trillion. This is the total amount of outstanding borrowing by the U.S. federal government over the country’s history.)
  • Social Security and Medicare payments account for 21 percent of the U.S. annual budget. In 2023, the federal government spent $1.35 trillion on Social Security, which is the largest single item in the federal budget. As of the end of 2023, the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASI) trust fund reserves were $2.6 billion. This was a net change of -$70.4 billion from 2022. In other words, it is bankrupt. 

In my November 11, 2024, post, I mentioned the Masters Forum, an executive development program. One of our presenters was Lester Thurow, the famous MIT economist. He was a fabulous speaker and was able to really connect with his audience. I’ve always remembered his answer to the question “How do you predict the future?” His answer was, “I don’t predict the future. I study current existing trends, determine if they will continue, and then mathematically calculate the impact 10, 20, and 30 years from now.” That’s exactly what ITR does.

Based on the Beaulieus’ book, they are very data-driven and compare many different very well-known and highly-quoted forecasts to the actual results. Shockingly, many of these forecasts aren’t very accurate, but they continue to be quoted in financial publications and the media.

Candidly, the book was a struggle for me due to the volume of data, but in light of the endorsements from my clients and their trade associations, I would recommend that, at a minimum, you visit Brian and Alan Beaulieu’s website and at least become aware that a very contrarian economic/financial prediction exists. 2030s Great Depression – ITR Economics

Considering Others

/in /by

Tom Doescher

Tom Doescher

At this time of year, when many of us set New Year’s resolutions, I would like to offer a theme for your consideration: Others. My daily devotional, The Word Among Us (TWAU), offers some advice on this idea.

According to an old Chinese proverb, “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” Similarly, St. Francis of Assisi professed that it is in giving that we receive. Leo Tolstoy observed that the sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.” Robert Louis Stevenson noted, “You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.”

The value of giving ourselves — our time, talents, and money — isn’t just a nice proverb or a word of encouragement from a well-known figure. Research tells us that giving is a powerful means to personal growth and happiness. MRI technology has shown that giving activates the same parts of the brain that are stimulated by food and sex. The research indicates that when we help someone who is in need, we ourselves experience deep pleasure. Not to mention the fact that countless psychological tests reveal that the more generous a person is, the healthier and more productive they are.

So, if you’re setting goals for 2025, I would encourage you to contemplate this advice from TWAU and see what happens when you focus on “others.”

Humanocracy

/in /by

Tom Doescher

Tom Doescher

“Humanocracy” is the title of a book (“Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them”) and a new word conceived by authors Gary Hamel, a longtime business consultant/advisor/guru, and Michele Zanini. In 1993, Plante Moran — through the leadership of my partner, Dennis Blender — launched an executive development series, The Masters Forum. Hamel was the keynote speaker, and I had the privilege of meeting him.

Now, 25 years later, he has invented a powerful concept and recommends that businesses adopt a humanocracy vs. a bureaucracy structure. With millennials now representing the largest generation in the U.S. workforce, at 35 percent, I believe the time for Hamel’s concept of “humanocracy” has come.

Here are just a few of his observations:
1. Bureaucracy is dispiriting and debilitating, yet it persists.
2. Since 1983, the number of managers and administrators in the U.S. workforce has more than doubled, while employment in all other occupations is up by 44 percent.
3. Bureaucrats are inclined to defend the status quo.
4. In a bureaucracy, your power and compensation are the product of head count and budget. No one downsizes their empire voluntarily.
5. Sixty-two percent of the respondents to a survey said they believe political skills “often” or “almost always” determine who gets ahead.

Hamel provides many independent surveys and research studies to support his position, and developed the following Bureaucratic Mass Index Survey:
1. How many layers are there in your company (from frontline employees up to the CEO, president, or managing director)?
2. What percentage of your time do you spend on “bureaucratic chores” (e.g., preparing reports, securing signoffs, complying with staff requests, and participating in review meetings)?
3. How much does bureaucracy slow the making of decisions and the ability to take action in your company?
4. To what extent are your interactions with your manager and other leaders focused on internal issues (e.g., resolving disputes, securing resources, getting approvals)?
5. How much autonomy do frontline teams have to design their work, solve problems, and test new ideas?
6. How often are frontline team members involved in the design and development of change initiatives?
7. How do people in your company react to unconventional ideas?
8. In general, how easy is it for an employee to launch a new project that requires a small team and a bit of seed funding?
9. How prevalent are political behaviors in your company?
10. How often do political skills, as opposed to demonstrated competence, influence who gets ahead in your company?

I would highly encourage you to do a self-assessment of the bureaucracy in your company — and then have the courage to do something about it. I think Hamel is really on to something important for businesses today.

p.s. Hamel’s advice applies to small companies, too. Sometimes a company, even though it’s small, can have too many rules. I refer to it as “corporate” thinking. Because of Hamel, I’m going to switch to “humanocracy.” Recently, I’ve been helping a client and, in my opinion, they were being too rigid and not flexible enough to solve their current issue, due to bureacracy.

© 2021 - Doescher Advisors