How it started
“You’re too old and too educated for this job,” the manager said. “You have too many opinions, too!”
It was 1987, and it didn’t exactly feel like I had aced the job interview.
Despite not ticking the boxes he thought were necessary to hire a hotel security guard, I was hired simply because the only other applicant withdrew.
You could say I saved their bacon. Without me, they would have been short staffed when the booming summer season arrived.
Despite my old age (27) and lack of qualifications at the time, I had success in the role.
31 years later, I left the company that didn’t want to hire me.
It had grown from a 20-some regional hotel group to a global company with over 1000 hotels around the world.
I rode the waves as it went through ownership changes and an IPO.
We suffered tsunamis, pandemics, and terrorist attacks. Ups and downs included almost bankruptcy and crippling strikes, but also awards and recognition from industry leaders and peers around the world.
Along the way, I was promoted and transferred. I spent the last decade at as a Vice President in a global role at the corporate headquarters in Belgium.
When I was promoted to VP, I was on vacation and only learned about it upon my return.
“We needed to promote you so we could put you on the insider list ahead of our IPO.”, I was told.
At one point the CEO asked my boss why I spent time networking with leaders from other companies.
“Is he going to leave us? Is he applying for jobs?”
My loyalty never wavered. When industry leaders and my counterparts from companies much larger than ours were coming to Brussels for a “meeting of the minds”, the CEO called me into his office.
“Why are these people coming here?”, he asked.
“Because I invited them.”, I replied.
“You mean to tell me that you can just call these people up and invite them to come here and they come? Really?” It was like he didn’t believe me.
“Yes.”, I said. “I know them. We support each other.”
“Maybe, I should come and welcome them to our office before your meeting starts.”, he said.
“Thank you, they’ll appreciate that.”
In late 2009, a supplier suggested we apply to be recognized as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. When I mentioned the suggestion to my superior, the immediate response was,
“How much does it cost?”
“It’s an ethics award.”, I said, “How can we win an ethics award if we pay a fee?”
“We pay fees, or at least sponsorships, for all the awards. How much does it cost?”, was the reply.
There was no fee. We went through the approval process and our application was successful in 2010. In the years that followed, until I left the company in 2018, we were the only hotel company that made the list every year.
The brand owner selected me as the first person to operate in a global role, both for themselves and for the company where I was employed.
A few years after I was promoted to a global role, they awarded me the highest honour they bestowed upon individuals.
Before I left the company in 2018, a jury of my corporate security peers selected me as the most influential global security executive in the world.
Not bad for someone that was too old, too educated, and had too many opinions to become a hotel security guard…
How it’s going
“You saved our bacon last year and your evaluation scores from students were amongst the highest in the college, but we will only ever use you as a last resort because you don’t meet the requirements we have for hiring. You’ve been engaged, supported our students, and volunteered at student and college events, but we can’t simply reward commitment.”
Despite excellent results during my first year, I don’t tick the right boxes for teaching at a local business school. I don’t have the right resumé. I’m not the right fit.
One of the boxes I don’t tick is the education box. It’s a long story, but if I’d spent four years in the mid-’80s down a rabbit hole, I could have ticked it. At the time, I was literally feeding “lab cats” to pay my rent. Instead of becoming a lifelong lab rat, I left university without completing my Master’s thesis.
Another box I leave unticked is local industry experience. Going from basement-to-boardroom and growing into a leader at a company while it in turn grew from 20 regional hotels to 1000 in almost 100 countries while enduring challenges including ownership changes, an IPO, terrorist attacks, and countless others on the way to being selected as the #1 Global influencer in my field in 2018 isn’t worth what a decade at the local Holiday Inn is. Strange for a school that is dependent upon 50% of its enrolment coming from international students that pay higher tuition than local students.
The final box I missed was previous post-secondary teaching experience. I’ve developed and run corporate training programmes attended by thousands of people in dozens of countries. That experience includes being among the first certified trainers overseas for a global company’s signature customer service programme, to contributing to the company’s certification of general managers, to developing, planning, and executing annual joint workshops with counterparts from other companies. A desktop drill for 170 hotel leaders in Shanghai accompanied by accredited translators? No problem. But no, I haven’t been an instructor in a readymade programme at a Canadian community college before.
In a rapidly changing world, how can we expect to educate people to become tomorrow’s business leaders, capable of critical thinking and able to adapt to the realities they will face once they have their diplomas, if we value decades-old degrees and local business experience higher than global expertise and real-world achievements?
The old saying “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got” comes to mind.
What we always got won’t help our coming leaders successfully navigate the challenges they’ll face in their post-diploma lives.
It won’t help them understand that the value of building relationships through communication and collaboration, far outweighs the narrow minded focus of creating bottom line value for shareholders.
If anyone has any bacon that needs saving, I have experience and time on my hands.
Stay safe, Always Care
87 stories are part of the Always Care Community, where we share memories, experiences, and lessons learned at the “University of Life”!
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