The Grizabella Principle: Cats in Organizations and the Cost of Forgetting Our Elders
“You can push someone to the margins, but you can never silence their memory.”
I didn’t know what I was watching. Cats, staged on a Royal Caribbean ship, was all movement and shimmer and sound. It felt more like ballet than story. Cats danced in moonlight, sang their names, vanished behind scenery. And somewhere in the whirl of fur and fever, a choice was made. I couldn’t follow the plot, but I remember the moment the sad one stepped forward. She moved differently—worn, guarded. They hissed at her, turned their backs. Her fur was tattered. Her song—if that’s what you could call it—was more like remembering.
I didn’t understand the story, but I understood her.
Later, I learned her name was Grizabella. Once glamorous, now cast out. The plot, such as it is, centers on a ritual: each cat performs to earn a new life, a resurrection. And the one chosen is her—not because she out-danced them, not because she out-sang them, but because she remembered and because she suffered.
I realized I wasn’t watching a musical; I was watching ageism in motion. I was watching how we discard those who’ve already built the house and still keep the lights on. I was watching succession planning.
The Jellicle Ball Is the Modern Org Chart
Every organization has its Jellicle Ball: annual reviews, leadership pipelines, executive grooming programs. Fresh faces with polished smiles, data dashboards, buzzwords. Potential is rewarded; performance is performed. Meanwhile, the Grizabellas—scarred yet steady—are told they no longer fit the culture.
We celebrate innovation while elders clutch their coats of experience like armor, waiting to be remembered.
Who decided innovation belongs to the young? That’s not strategy; that’s bias wrapped in PowerPoint. It sinks deep—so deep we believe gray is decay, heaviness is lethargy, baldness is burnout. We never say it aloud; we enact it in hiring, mentoring, who gets the keynote, and who carries the coffee.
The Price of Forgetting
The cost isn’t just emotional; it’s structural.
Boeing replaced engineers with cost-cutters, and planes fell from the sky.
Theranos chose a youthful myth over seasoned science and imploded in criminal fraud.
WeWork crowned charisma, silenced seasoned dissent, and watched valuation evaporate.
In every case, organizations chose image over memory, hype over history—dreaming they were building the future while digging a grave.
Grizabellas in Real Life
But Grizabella isn’t just an opera cat on a cruise ship. She shows up every day in your org.
She’s Colonel Sanders, who franchised KFC at 65 after decades of rejection.
She’s Ray Kroc, who transformed McDonald’s in his 60s after selling milkshake machines for a lifetime.
She’s Vera Wang, who designed her first dress at 40 and built a half-billion-dollar brand on refinement, not youth.
They weren’t late bloomers; we were late in noticing.
Succession Is Not a Reset Button
Succession is not clearing a stage; it’s preserving a choir.
Ask yourself:
• Who are we not promoting because they “already had their turn”?
• Who was brilliant in ’97 yet invisible in today’s strategy meeting?
• Who got boxed into mentorship while someone less qualified got the crown?
Equity widens memory. Count soul-years, not just LinkedIn bullets. Create returnships. Fund reinvention. Name experience a strategic asset, not an afterthought. And stop searching for your next leader in a mirror.
Memory Is a Strategic Asset
Organizations that forget become brittle. Organizations that remember become legendary. Cats is a warning: ritual without relationship is emptiness; strategy without story is peril. Grizabella didn’t audition—she testified. And someone finally listened.
If your next leader is already here—in a grayer suit, a heavier body, a quieter tone—don’t wait for the farewell sheet cake to recognize their brilliance.
You chase away a cat, and it walks off. So do people.
Final Question
What would your organization look like if every forgotten elder were treated not as a relic but as a rebirth waiting to happen? And how many more years would they, could they, give you if you hired them with dignity and respect for their complete leadership competencies?
Citations
Gelles, D., Kitroeff, N., Nicas, J., & Ruiz, R. R. (2020). Boeing 737 Max Crisis: How Leadership Failures Contributed to a Global Catastrophe. The New York Times.
Carreyrou, J. (2018). Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. Knopf.
Griffith, E. (2021). The Cult of the CEO: WeWork and the Cost of Charisma. The New York Times.
Smith, A. (2020). How Colonel Sanders Made It After 65. Entrepreneur Magazine.
Love, J. F. (1995). McDonald’s: Behind the Arches. Bantam Books.