Inside the company's Emeryville, Calif., offices it is hard to tell exactly what Age Wave owes to Esalen and what it owes to entrepreneurship. When managers gather every two weeks to thrash out the allocation of resources and the coordination of work among themselves, it is sophisticated "matrix management" or the out-growth of an encounter group? Is companywide profit sharing primarily a motivational personnel policy or the legacy of the values of the new age? The Age Wave staff meets regularly at Dychtwald's hillside house, sprawling over the couches for freewheeling discussions: "safe openness," Farmer calls it, "the healthiest culture of any company I've ever been associated with."
Given the demands of cash flow, Dychtwald isn't around the offices as much as he'd like; he's on the road about half the time, although he stays in touch by phone twice a day. But while he's there he exchanges the role of student for the role of mentor, teaching the staff the lessons he's learned over 15 years in the field. That's the way he'll get off the road, after all; unless he teaches his managers to become experts in their own right, Age Wave will never get beyond the Ken Dychtwald show.
Life on the stump is numbing, hours of tedium punctuated by the adrenaline rush of performance. If this is Tuesday, it must be Dallas. Dychtwald's weekly road trip is almost half done: two speeches down, two more to go. Two more days of taxicabs and hotel rooms, of dining on nachos at an airport concession stand before strapping himself into seat 2B for the flight to the next performance.
Dychtwald makes the best of it, sustained by a sense of mission. "Fifteen years ago, I dreamed there was a job for me to do in this life, to change the way Americans think about growing older. Now, I have a chance to do it. If all else fails and that succeeds," he says, "it'll be a win."
But Dychtwald doesn't contemplate failure much; it's not in his nature. And he can see the Age Wave momentum building, just as his board promised. A meeting with Larry Tisch leads to a contract to appear on the CBS program "This Morning," and to help develop a TV special on aging for this fall. A speech to the Magazine Publishers Association is followed by stories about aging in Business Week, Time, and Advertising Age. Three years ago, he was getting 15 calls a month to talk about aging; now, Age Wave gets 150 a week.
His collection of mentors is growing as well. Bob Beck, the executive vice-president of Bank of America National Trust & Savings Association, for example, is helping develop a more formal human-relations program, with systemized training and incentive procedures. A $100-million salable assets is still at least four years away, but the foundation and structure are being put in place today.
"It's a trap to think running a business is something anybody can learn about." Dychtwald realizes now. "It's every bit as challenging and difficult as learning about any subject. I find the learning of it very exciting, watching a business form right before my eyes. It's almost like the business is a swaddling blanket in which my baby can grow. It's going to allow my dream to become real."
For that, he owes his mentors. "I've learned to see the world through their eyes. They give me the perspective of a lifetime. The most important lesson they've taught me is that building a business can be an art and a craft. It's like Zen -- the art and the perspective of it, not just the skill element."
Freed from day-to-day operations, Dychtwald has targeted 20 new potential joint-venture partners. He's considering developing exercise equipment, an educational series with a publishing company, a national chain of retail health stores with a hospital-supply house. Health care remains the most promising shot at an annuity product, however: Age Wave has 20 different health-care consulting protocols in development with a Big Eight accounting firm. While the initial fee is $700,000, long-range forecasts project $30 million to $50 million in sales a year, with 10% of all fees to Age Wave.
Age Wave products are still a tough sell, though. Most people still can't get beyond "old -- ugh," and fewer still can grasp the opportunities in his demographic vision. While audiences of CEOs seem to get the message instantly, when he actually tries to negotiate terms with their middle managers his zeal sometimes makes them uncomfortable. But building a business has taught Dychtwald about rejection, just as surely as it has taught him about Lotus 1-2-3.
It's given him a focus, too. Age Wave is a lever with which he hopes to move the world, but he's discovered it's also a way to change himself, to take the next step in his evolution.
"As much as I'm the process of learning to build a business, I'm in the process of learning how to become the leader of a company. Every inch the company grows, I grow as well."
He's at it every morning, no matter what anonymous hotel room he finds himself in. Johnny Appleseed has become the new-age chief executive, tuning in his business with fax and phone, turning on his Toshiba portable computer and modem. Password . . . yoga.
"We all need to find something that lets our hearts sing," he says.
"I also think we're going to make a lot of money."
