Page 75 - Sorry, We're Not Hiring Any Visionaries Today

CHAPTER 9
difficult to handle that, to be a student themselves. This was one of the most shocking things I experienced in training and development of academic staff. I saw firsthand just how resistant some of these educational professionals were to learn. It was an eye-opener for me as well.
While working at the library, an organisational restructure resulted in my team being assigned to the Human Resources department. That was at the point that I had been diagnosed with this immune disorder. I came home and said to my husband, “That’s it. If I’m sent back to HR, I’m quitting because I simply cannot endure that again.”
HR is all about enforcement. It shouldn’t be. HR should be one of the most significant assets in building a business. But in most of them, it’s just a place where people check boxes all day and ensure compliance needs are met. They don’t add any value to the business whatsoever, yet they could be an in- credible strategic resource. But getting them to see that is like banging your head on a brick wall.
Not long after I’d joined HR, they appointed a temporary new CEO, and he stayed for two and a half years. When he left, they advertised and made an inter- national appointment that they brought in to run things. I spoke to my previous boss, who was the now deputy CEO. Who said to me, “You know, you told me all these things when you were working for me; you told me that this is what we needed to do as an organization. Well, that’s what this new guy is doing.”
We’d been talking about how we could move the department and the college forward for three years.I would get a look and a nod, and an acknowledge- ment, “That’s a good idea.” But because someone seen as more senior has sug- gested it, “Now we’re going to do those things that you were talking about.” I went home and said, “I feel I’ve wasted my time advocating for change in that organisation !” Here’s someone getting paid nearly $300,000 a year, and I was getting a third of that. I knew we’d lost three years that we could have made a start on things that now they are now going to do. They had wasted all that time and money not doing it. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t understand it now.
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