Re-applying for your own job
03/04/2014

Last night was the Gala dinner associated with the Leadership Summit at Cranfield. I was told an interesting story over dinner which I think should be a lesson for us all. One of our MBA alumni is now a director of a private company employing around 3,000 people and he was telling me the tale of their recent re-structuring. Like many companies this involved redeploying people and people reapplying for their job. There was one particularly good salesman who was worth a significant amount of money for the business and they told him his job was safe but asked him to polish up his CV, which he did. However, when he saw his own CV he realised how good he was and got himself a really good job elsewhere.
That reminded me of the time I was trying to by a quarry in Essex some 20 years ago. I approached the owner who was close to retirement and we had several long discussions about the business and its potential. Just as I was about to make an offer for the business, Geoff kindly told me that he had really enjoyed our chats, but they had made him interested and excited about the business again so he didn’t want to sell any more.
So everything we do has consequences, not always the ones we were expecting
Mike Bourne
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
Introducing… Scopus
Scopus is one of the largest and most trusted academic databases, indexing millions of peer‑reviewed articles, conference papers, books, and preprints across every major discipline. Scopus contains more than 100 million records and over 30,000 ...
Do you know what makes a Technical Report special?
Writing a technical report is a little different to writing a lab report or an essay for your tutors, requiring a different approach, communication skills and format. What are technical reports? Technical reports are formal, ...
Norman C. T. Liu scholarships providing the next generation of opportunities to succeed in Air Transport Management
Cranfield University is proud to work with global industry leaders who believe in investing in the next generation of aviation professionals. One of those leaders, Norman C. T. Liu, has personally committed to supporting ...
Designing the future of space: My group design project experience at Cranfield
For three years, I worked at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India. While my time in the IT sector provided me with a strong analytical foundation, my true passion had always been anchored in ...
How do I reference lecture notes… in the NLM style?
If your course material contains original content that you want to use in your work, it will need to be referenced as follows: What information do you need in the reference? Author – surname initials e.g. ...
From Nigeria to Cranfield: My journey into Future Food Sustainability
My name is Jolaosho Eniola, and I’m studying the MSc in Future Food Sustainability. I’m originally from Nigeria, and I’m passionate about food systems, food sustainability, food supply chain and creating solutions that improve ...
