Getting started
The very young Bob joined Anglian Water as a trainees laboratory technician having discovered that playing football for his university but not doing any studying wasn’t enough to get him a degree.
As part of the role a chemistry HNC was obtained at his local college on day release and a decent career working in one of Anglian’s regional labs followed. After 20 years of progressing gently up the laboratory hierarchy a not quite so young Bob, by now the AQC chemist, finally managed to escape the lab for a Field Scientist role.
Moving forward
Having found his feet in this much nicer role the rather less young Bob figured that he needed a degree if I wanted to get on. In his next annual appraisal asked for help to do an OU degree. His manager, a certain Peter Simpson, gave him the one answer he hadn’t expected. He said no.
However, Peter was winding up the rather less young Bob. He passed the rather less young Bob a prospectus for the Water & Wastewater engineering MSc at Cranfield university , saying “Rather less young Bob, I think this will be better for you. There’s an open day next Tuesday, I’ll see you there“
The not so young Bob left the managers office alternating between elation at being offered such an opportunity, and blind terror at the enormity of going straight from an HNC to an MSC.
Happily, the MSC was duly obtained with the second highest marks on the course, and the by now even less young Bob went on to have a great career with AW before showing his gratitude by leaving the company.
Peter’s perspective
There are those who would see the even less young Bob leaving as a loss of an expensive investment, thinking only of cost. Happily, Peter saw things differently, speaking about the need for all companies to grow the talent pool, and the importance of giving people the opportunity to grow and develop.
He was even kind enough to say that “Anglian has had its money’s worth“.
Wins or losses
So, who profited from peter’s decision to send a middle aged lab escapee on an expensive two-year masters degree course?
Clearly, the not so young Bob did, the MSc opening previously closed job options. In 17 years in the lab, the young and not so young bob was promoted four times. Not too shabby and a win for the not so young Bob.
However, Anglian Water also gained. In the next 10 years, the MSC equipped non so young Bob was promoted another five times, ending up running one of Anglian’s most complex treatment works, spent a year on secondment to a company-wide IT refresh project with responsibility for business continuity, three months on secondment on an international bid team in Metro Manila, and worked with the project team re-writing Anglian’s water quality manual.
I think we can count that as a win for Anglian Water.
The other person who gained is Peter, further embellishing his already stellar reputation for motivating individuals to deliver far more than they ever thought possible.
A question
How do you see training? Do you just see the cost and the possibility of trained people leaving, or are you a Peter, seeing the bigger picture, and enjoying the success of people you have given opportunities to?
Final thoughts
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any thoughts or ideas, please leave a comment below.
Bob.
