Page 72 - Sorry, We're Not Hiring Any Visionaries Today

SORRY, WE’RE NOT HIRING ANY VISIONARIES TODAY
only 5 were successful. I was one of them and older by 20 years. It was a fan- tastic opportunity for me. I was on the cutting edge of IT when the digital world was beginning to explode. It’s left me, unlike a lot of my peers, quite comfortable with technology.
I worked through Y2K, and then Australia introduced a goods and services tax. This gave me the opportunity to work for a couple of big corporations as a tester.
I’ve never said no to an opportunity, even though sometimes those opportun- ities weren’t what I was trained to do, and were not where my interests lay, but I always looked at the open door and went through it. Every single thing I did was built on what I’d learnt before, and as I progressed through my career, I realized that I’d learnt stuff in some of those roles that I didn’t expect to know that I actually needed when working in more senior positions.
I was only a tester for about 2 years when I was moved up to management based on my previous experience and eventually, moved into the HR position. I was very fortunate that I had lucked into a company that was a true learning organization. One that had evolved as conceptualised and defined by Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline.
It was never imposed on the staff. It was never discussed, and if I’d told the CEO, you’re running a learning organization here; she would have looked at me as if I had two heads. It was a fantastic place to work because we had enor- mous autonomy, and mistakes were welcome as long as you didn’t make them twice, and I loved it.
I worked there for nearly 7 years, until the company was sold. As often happens in these ‘mergers’, they promise you it will be a marriage, but it never is. This was when I began to focus on new roles in the area where I had just completed a master’s degree in knowledge management. I was deeply curious about the overlap between people, process and technology. Through no fault of my own I was made redundant 3 times in 18 months. My husband said, “I don’t know why you keep going; why don’t you just retire?” I told him, “I’m not ready to do
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