Retrenched - Great News
Business News 13 Oct 1995
"I've been retrenched" said senior project engineer Charles in a hushed shocked voice on the phone last month.
"Wow! That's fantastic!" I burst back. "Wonderful news, great stuff, perfect timing, couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke" I burbled on.
Stunned silence. "No, no, perhaps you didn't hear me. I said I have been sacked, fired, booted out, handed my walking papers, history, personae non grata, gone, NO JOB" said Charles with increasing panic.
Charles is a career public service engineer. In the 34 years since graduating from Uni, Charles has worked his way up to 2 I/C. of a fairly sizeable unit within a large WA government department involved in major construction and development projects (hint: to do with those things we drive on).
Charles is a darned good engineer, has loved the challenges of a demanding career in a high growth public service role, and is well respected by colleagues, the hierarchy, and other PS departments.
"I heard you" I said. "Isn't this exciting for you! Why don't you make an appointment to discuss the huge and wonderful range of opportunities you now have before you?"
Like so many upper middle and senior managers faced with sudden and traumatic forced career change, Charles was reacting with fear to the apparent loss of the only career he had known.
That is the Jurassic knee-jerk response. The healthy response is to look at the gift your life has unexpectedly received - the gift of choice. This gift offers new adventures, new challenges, and a new lease on life.
Most importantly, this gift gives you back the control over your own efforts, your own decisions, your own likes and dislikes.
Most downsized managers that come to me have been programmed into seeing their professional arena in a very narrow and rigid way.
Bureaucracies do not want their employees to yearn for what the bureaucracy cannot provide.
You are encouraged to look only within the envelope labelled Public Service which contains the myriad and unbending rules explaining how good little boys and girls can live a safe and happy life provided they follow the rules.
In a bureaucracy, you are conditioned to ignore those envelopes labelled Private Enterprise, Consulting, Self-Employment, Be Your Own Boss, Control Your Own Career, Choose Your Own Workstyle, and so on.
The boys and girls who follow the PS rules best are promoted up through the ranks and rewarded with senior management status. First Class Rulies!
Charles did come to discuss refocussing his career and I was struck, yet again, by two things common to senior management in bureaucracies.
First, Charles had no iidea of the wealth of knowledge and experience he had accumulated over his PS career. Neither did he recognise the value of that knowledge and experience to the marketplace.
Second, Charles had no iidea of the major shifts occurring in the "outside" world within his profession and related industry areas. These shifts include the increasing need for knowledgeable consultants able to bring their solid background experience to newly emerging industries here and in developing countries.
Charles is now beavering away from his home office as a consultant engineer. Much interest is being expressed by potential clients, particularly in SE Asia, and contracts are starting to flow in.
Charles' wife says he is a new man. Charles himself says he has not yet adjusted to being his own man. Charles' old network of PS buddies says Charles is "one of the lucky ones - landed on his feet".
Luck has nothing to do with looking at opportunities for change, especially enforced opportunities, as life-giving gifts.
Retrenched? Lucky you!
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