Keeping your integrity and working your way through corporate minefields is what faced Gary Greenfield.
Read how Gary maneuvered his way to the outcome.
One day I got a phone call at my regional office from a friend in the corporate home office. This friend was calling at the request of a very senior executive who wanted to remain anonymous. The friend told me that if I would go quietly to a new regional office that was being formed, I would be promoted to a senior officer position. A career-long dream potentially realized!
The key was that I would have to remain silent about the offer until all arrangements had been secretly made behind the scenes. The problem was that none of the other employees in the regional office, including my immediate boss, were going to be informed of these changes until after they were made. The changes would include moving some of the employees back to the home office and terminating those left behind.
I was very disturbed by the nature of this telephone conversation and immediately knew what I had to do.
The climax to this part of the story is I had known no other company or career path since before graduating from college, but I also knew that my dreams of progressing to the senior officer levels of my company had just been shattered. I knew it because I also knew I would tell the friend on the phone, offering this bit of corporate intrigue, exactly what was going to happen next. I told him I could not remain silent and that I was going to hang up and immediately inform my boss of what was about to take place.
There was nothing else, in good conscience, I could do. There were no options in my mind. Loyalty to the boss who had given me the career break and promotion a couple of years before would not allow the course of least resistance. I told my boss the whole story, but within a few months it was apparent that this new body of water contained sharks —
career-eating sharks!
If I had jumped in, kept my mouth shut, and taken the deal, it may have meant the realization of a career-long dream within a beloved company. It would have meant not having to learn how to overcome the fear of significant change and the mystery of uncertainty. Everything could have been so easy, if I had just stood on the shore and not jumped in!
The corporate sharks within the company were after me for deciding to “swim upstream,” so to speak, by remaining loyal to my boss. After over fifteen years with this company, I knew the best way to realize higher levels of success was to face the fear of career change.
It took gaining the knowledge of how to do a career search that could lead to the greatest potential for me and my family and then using that knowledge. Because we were willing to face that challenge, an opportunity of a lifetime came seven months later. As a result, on July 1, 1983, I resigned from my company, effective July 31, but did not burn the bridge. It was about opportunity, not bitterness and retribution—not envy!
For over thirteen years I continued to experience significant success along my career path. Then, a call came from another friend. It was a call that would validate all of the career decisions I had made. The purpose of the call was to discuss the possibility of returning to my original company in a senior executive position. The position was one that I had ultimately seen myself in all those years before when I felt I must leave in order to achieve. The wonder of the story is that all the knowledge and experience I acquired over the years were what my original company saw as a solution to their current challenge.
We’ve all heard the old truism, if you want a raise and a promotion: Leave your current company in a way that you could be invited back, if they chose to do so. All those years before, the bridge had not been burned. I hadn’t wished things were different. I hadn’t envied those who were not put in the position of feeling pushed out. I had moved on with dignity and continued to personally develop and grow as a human being—facing the mystery of my career path one day at a time.
The end of this part of my story is on January 1, 1997, I assumed my new executive position with my original company and lived happily ever after.”
Gary Greenfield
Website: www.garygreenfield.com
My Blog: blog.garygreenfield.com
My Book Website & Blog: www.garygreenfieldauthor.com
Email via my website.
Gary Greenfield - Profit Through Performance
