Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

Do frequent secondments, transfers or movements in your current workplace bother you? This article offers ideas you can use to make the most of them.

Recognise the Opportunities They Bring, and Use Them

While majoring in Agricultural Extension Services in the University of Ibadan, I took courses in Sociology and Psychology. Exposure to those courses is meant to guide extension specialists in their efforts to influence farmers to adopt improved farm practices and innovations.

The complexities of successfully effecting social change were realities all students of extension education eventually had to face, during social field work. As such, proper grounding in relevant theories and techniques was essential.

I however never got a chance to practise being an extension agent in the field.

But my time in Guinness Nigeria, from October 1994 till December 2001 taught me, that opportunities exist daily for every person to act as an agent of lasting (positive) change. One only needs to be able to recognise and take advantage of such opportunities when they present themselves.

A True Story

Before joining Guinness, I’d spent a few months as a trainee Sales Coordinator in a medium-sized wine manufacturing company, in Lagos. The pay left a lot to be desired, but the experience – particularly in relation to the processing or ripe pawpaw fruits and the fermentation of the resulting juice to produce the wine – prepared me for entry into the brewing industry.

In Guinness, I went from being management trainees, to packaging shift manager, production shift brewer (actually back and forth between production and packaging departments over a 2-year period). Then I was seconded (twice) to act as Technical Training and Development Manager (TTDM).

The above dynamic mix of experiences challenged me to be flexible in my thinking and attitude.

I consequently learnt to maintain a balanced perspective about issues, having experienced on many occasions, what it felt like to be on different sides of the fence. Especially during periods when work-related dispute between different departments of groups had to be resolved.

Moving around a lot helped me identify a need to simplify routine and repetitive operations, to boost productivity. In 1997, I began to develop automated spreadsheet applications.

While a trainee in my first 2 years, I’d learnt Lotus 1-2-3 macro programming from Richard Chambers (the expatriate Training Manager I reported to). I’d done this mainly by studying automated workbooks he created while developing a reporting application for the company.

At a point, monthly reports that previously required a brewer to dedicate 2 to 3 days to fully complete, were easily finished in about 30 minutes using the apps I built.

This was because the menu-driven applications – with in-built spreadsheet formulas – only required raw data entries on a shift-by-shift basis. As long as that happened, relevant reports for different periods were instantly available.

This new situation enabled brewers devote greater attention to managing the brewing process more efficiently, to meet the demands for higher product volume output.

My passion for spreadsheet programming would eventually see me single-handedly automating reports of all kinds in the brewing, packaging, and even engineering departments.

Often times, this would happen at the request of the manager from the other department.

And it got me noticed at the highest levels in the company – even though I never had that as a motive.

The Rewards Eventually Came!

Yes they did. And most I actually never anticipated.

I was promoted TTDM, and sent on a 6 week International Brewing course at the UK’s Institute and Guild of Brewing (IGB).

NB: The IGB course was attended by delegates representing brewing companies from Holland, Japan, Croatia, Argentina, Mexico, and other places.

Few months after returning to Nigeria, and resuming in my new role, I was seconded to act, in my former department, as a Production Manager.

Then after that, I got nominated to attend an international Workplace Coaching Conversations facilitators’ course (in Lagos), and again later in Douala, Cameroon!

So the seemingly unpleasant frequent movements paid off in multiple folds!

And Even After You Leave Work, They’re Likely to Continue Coming…

Outside the workplace, the efforts you make could also yield good rewards.

For instance, since January 2012, when I quit the company to start my own business, my experiences have proved useful to me as an entrepreneur.

Among other things, they enable me view issues from a multidimensional perspective. And this often opens my eyes to potential opportunities that many are blind to.

Final Words

It does not matter how confusing those workplace “redeployments, transfers or secondments” (even seeming demotions) may seem to be right now.

Challenge yourself to look for the learning opportunities waiting to be found in each of them (take it from me – they are there!).

Then think of how you can apply what you learn to make yourself better at the work you do.

More importantly, explore ways to use them to improve the way things are done in your company.

Do so consistently, and diligently.

Eventually, YOUR rewards will come, and some will be way beyond your expectations!