It doesn’t have to be either or Gordon Riddler In a ‘where are they now’ feature, Gordon Riddler would make a fascinating example. When he talked to Jo Ouston recently, some fifteen years after his original consultation, he said “I’ve got where I want to be, and it has been fun getting there”. The fascinating part is that, in qualitative terms, Riddler knew after that first course where he wanted to get, and the getting there was very much a planned process. At the beginning of the nineties, with a BSc (first class) in geology from the University of Aberdeen, an MBA from Strathclyde and a CV that included Technical Director in a Rio Tinto subsidiary and General Manager, Mineral Services, with a plc involved in international mineral exploration, he faced a dilemma. He could see two ways opening ahead, the managerial and the technical, each with its attractions. The dilemma was that the technical route, though probably initially faster, would lack the wider scope of a managerial career. But the management route risked discounting his exceptional technical knowledge and experience. Conventional career advice seemed too blunt an instrument for such a finely tuned situation. Jo Ouston & Co, offering something apparently more individually focused, might help. Riddler decided it was worth a try. “I remember after the course, travelling back from London to North Wales, where I was living at the time, feeling that I had been taken to pieces and put together again. And knowing that something very important had happened to me. I had been given the insight and confidence to use my personal characteristics to influence events and move on.” “I met Jo again recently, just for a chat, because I had a special interest in some material, about the importance of trust in business, that I’d read in a Jo Ouston & Co newsletter. As a matter of interest, Jo pulled out my notes from all those years ago. It was uncanny to see how the career journey I’d made since 1990 has so exactly followed the analysis Jo made at the time.” At the time, Gordon Riddler’s principal current role was as Operations Director of MIRO, the Minerals Industry Research Organisation. Previously he was Operations Manager with MIRO and had undertaken a number of contracts, involving the management of collaborative research and technology development for the global mining industry, with both corporations and governments as clients. As MIRO’s effective chief executive he added responsibility for finance, administration, IT and publications to his research and technology portfolio. This role demands a deep knowledge of the industry but also calls on a wide range of other skills. It needs great political sensitivity, the capacity both to lead and be part of a team, and to use both person-to-person and wider communication skills. It involves a great deal of travel and the flexibility to work effectively in a variety of locations. Is this really where Gordon Riddler wanted to be? “Go back to those 1990 notes again,” he says. “Jo had me down as someone equipped for and needing: intellectual challenge, world quality product/service, working in a team/sharing, political sensitivity, working ‘out and about’, leading situations where ‘everyone wins’ MIRO is by definition an operation in which everyone has to win. Working for the whole industry, and for the environment, and with governments, local communities and other industries, that is its mission. No job could have suited me better, addressing my original dilemma by combining management with technical leadership. When I had completed my course with JO& Co I had learned a lot of skills, particularly about the mechanics of communication and influencing. But the most important outcome was the ability to see my own career in strategic terms, to relate qualifications and experience to personal qualities and personal goals.” >back to top Copyright Jo Ouston & Company Limited 2000-2008