A boat was docked in a tiny Newfoundland fishing village. A tourist from Toronto complimented the Newfie fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them. ‘Not very long,’ answered the Newfie.

‘But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?’ asked the Torontonian.

The Newfie explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The Torontonian asked, ‘But what do you do with the rest of your time?’

‘I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take an afternoon nap with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs… I have a full life.’

The Torontonian interrupted, ‘I have an MBA from Queen’s University and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.’

‘And after that?’ asked the Newfie.’With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to St John ‘s, Halifax , or even Toronto ! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.’

‘How long would that take?’ asked the Newfie.

‘Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,’ replied the Torontonian.

‘And after that?’

‘Afterwards? Well my Friend, That’s when it gets really interesting,’ answered the Torontonian, laughing. ‘When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!’

‘Millions? Really? And after that?’ said the Newfie.

‘After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take an
afternoon nap with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.’ And the moral is: Know where you’re going in life… you may already be there.

Outline for my presentation to Lina Difelice’s Career Study classes at Loretto College School, March 19, 2007
Entrepreneurship

Definition
The Entrepreneurial Personality
Great Entrepreneurs
Woman Inventors
Martha Stewart Living
Richard Branson
Christine Magee
Entrepreneur Tests
The Entrepreneur Test
Most Common Characteristics of Entrepreneurs
Books
Free Agent Nation
101 Best Home-Business Success Secrets for Women (Paperback)
The Rise of Women Entrepreneurs: People, Processes, and Global TrendsResources
The Internet
Women in Business
The New Age of Female Entrepreneurship
Capitalists Chicks
Toronto Public Library

Web Development

History of the Internet
The inventor of the computer mouse
GUI
The World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee
Firefox
HTML
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
View Page Source
Web 2.0
Blogging Tulip Girl Go Fug Yourself Bat Girl
Photos
Video
Wikipedia

Outline for my presentation to Lina Difelice’s Career Study classes at Loretto College School, January 26, 2006

Entrepreneurship

Definition
The Entrepreneurial Personality
Great Entrepreneurs
Woman Inventors
Martha Stewart Living
Richard Branson
Christine Magee
Entrepreneur Tests
The Entrepreneur Test
Most Common Characteristics of Entrepreneurs
Books
101 Best Home-Business Success Secrets for Women (Paperback)
The Rise of Women Entrepreneurs: People, Processes, and Global Trends

Resources
The Internet
Women in Business
The New Age of Female Entrepreneurship
Capitalists Chicks
Toronto Public Library

Web Development

History of the Internet
The inventor of the computer mouse
GUI
The World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee
Firefox
HTML
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
View Page Source
Web 2.0
Blogging Tulip Girl Go Fug Yourself Bat Girl
Photos
Video
Wikipedia

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

My nephew Rob Sage, 16, asked me several questions for a school assignment about entrepreneurs.

Hey Rob,
Great questions!
Here are my answers:

1) What is your definition of an entrepreneur?
I got these from www.dictionary.com and I agree with them all.

-A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture
-A risk-taker who has the skills and initiative to establish a business
-One who creates a product on his own account; whoever undertakes on his own account an industrial enterprise in which workmen are employed
-Someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it

2) Why did you choose to be an entrepreneur?
-The desire to create something of value
-The desire to stretch myself to see how much I can accomplish
-The desire to be independent and to make my own decisions about my life

3) Why did you choose the type of business you are presently in?
I’m going to use the computer training business I started in 1995 and sold in 2002 because it is the best example. I spent 8 months researching several business opportunities before choosing a computer training business. I wanted a franchise to reduce my risk. A franchise is a partnership between the franchisor that has the business model, and the local franchisee that has entrepreneurial skills, capital, and local knowledge. I didn’t want a food or cleaning business which are very common in franchising. Personal computers were becoming ubiquitous and the Internet was just beginning. I knew and loved information technology; knowing and loving what you do increases your chances of success.

4) What are some of the pros and cons of being an entrepreneur?
Pros: independence, pride of accomplishment, more money if you succeed
Cons: risk, you might lose your money; no one else cares as much as you do about the business so you are often alone and responsible for everything; no steady pay check

5) What were your career plans when you graduated from high school?
I didn’t have any because I had no idea what I wanted to do so I went to college.

6) How many hours do you work per week?
When starting the business I worked 70-80 hours per week for 2+ years. If and when a business is successful, you might not have to work at all.

7) Do you plan your tasks before getting started?
It depends on your personality and your ‘gut feel’. Often it is better to plan everything up front; you reduce your risk of failure. Sometimes you are so sure in your heart, your intuition tells you to just dive in and do it. Even then some planning is usually wise. The bigger the risk the more value there is in planning in advance. You have to decide. Regarding daily or weekly tasks, if you have more work to do than you have time, you have to plan so that your time is well spent. If you have more time than things to do, planning is not so important.
Do you feel that owning your own business has been worth the conflicts that you have had to deal with?
Yes! Don’t give up on an idea because of fear. Life is difficult. Go ahead and do what you think is right no matter what anyone else says. Only you can decide if something is worth doing or not.

9) What previous types of work experience have you had?
Cutting grass and landscaping, working in a factory where I punched a time clock, life guarding, teaching swimming, and managing a community swimming pool, working in a bank.

10) How did you develop the idea for your enterprise?
By doing 8 months of research to see what opportunities existed and how they matched my skills, personality, and ambitions.

11) What type of planning did you do prior to starting up?
After deciding on the computer training business it took another 8 months to open the business. This consisted of research at libraries (before the Internet), meeting other people in the business, attending industry meetings, checking the local market and competition, preparing budgets and cash flow forecasts, negotiating leases for space and equipment, hiring and training staff, developing a marketing plan…

12) What pressures or problems occurred with the business? (If any)
There were more competitors in the business than anticipated reducing both revenues and gross margins; the market potential was less than forecasted; customers refused to change their information technology whenever the software publishers introduced new versions, reducing the demand for training; many individuals decided to teach themselves.

Rob, these are quick answers; if you want any elaboration please call or write.

Good luck!!
Ron

I did this short film as part of a film course at Ryerson University in 2005.

Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s my family business suffered from what is called disintermediation, the elimination of middle men precipitated mainly by increased global trade and advanced information technology systems. As a distributor who bought from manufacturers and sold to retailers we were a much sought after link in the distribution chain in the 60’s, 70’s, and early 80′s. Manufacturers from Canada and around the world knocked on our doors hoping to convince us to stock and sell their product to the more than one thousand retailers our salesmen visited regularly.

The benefits to the manufacturers were considerable: only one client to deal with instead of hundreds, more leverage over the client, fewer and larger orders, and a client committed to their product’s success. However the retailers didn’t see it that way. They united to form buying groups, combining their purchases to increase their buying power. These buying groups viewed the distributor as a middle man who prevented them from having access directly to the manufacturer.

Then a dramatic shift occurred. Sometime in the early 1980’s the power shifted from the manufacturer to the consumer and thus to the retailer. Prior to this shift the manufacturer had determined and even dictated what the distribution channel would be, and they preferred selling through independent distributors where they enjoyed their greatest leverage and thus their greatest profits. After this shift it was the retailer who dictated what the distribution channel would be, and they wanted direct access to the manufacturer.

There were several causes for this power shift, among them the increased demand for consumer products, expanding global trade, and affordable information technology specifically in the area of inventory control. The result was the rapid expansion of the ‘big box’ retailers such as Home Depot, Costco, Toy R Us, Wal-Mart, Bureau en Gros, etc.

The result was exactly what our free market economy is designed to deliver, cheaper products and greater choice for customers. Today it is possible to purchase many products at lower prices than 20 years ago in constant dollars. The result however was the elimination of the wholesale distributor and the rise of the ‘warehouse’ retailer.

Read how it felt, emotionally, to close a family business after 75 years here.

When I was 15, I was anxious to find a real summer job. Until then I had been cutting grass and laying sod. My father gave me the names of several lumber mills located in all parts of Canada, from British Columbia to Newfoundland. I composed letters, typed them and mailed them. The few responses I received were rejections. However with my father’s help I eventually landed a job in Northern Ontario.

It was in the bonded pine plant of McFadden Hardwoods in Blind River, half way between Sudbury and Sault St. Marie. My father and I made the trip together and when we arrived he helped me find room and board with a nice widow, Mrs. Shanahan. He suggested that perhaps I shouldn’t drink too much beer. He advanced me a few dollars to tide me over until my first pay cheque, said goodbye, and drove off.

I reported for work the next day, punched the time clock just before 8am, and looked for the plant foreman. He was a nice chap whose name I don’t recall. He greeted me and introduced me to a middle-aged man, whom I would work with all summer. It was a horribly monotonous job which I did 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the next 10 weeks. I pity the poor fellows who did it for a lifetime.

I was part of an assembly line that involved lots of pine boards and lots of glue. One of those jobs where you couldn’t slack off for even one minute without the boards and glue piling up, and the whole assembly line shutting down. The hours I worked were precise and therefore easy to remember: 8am-noon, a one-hour lunch break, then 1-5pm. We had two 15 minute breaks, at 10am and 3pm. The whistle sounded to tell us when we could stop working for our break, lunch, or at day’s end. We had to give the company full value for every minute, although I remember occasionally creeping with my fellow workers to the door at 4:57, waiting for the whistle to blow before sprinting across the open yard to punch the time clock. In the morning if we were even 30 seconds late punching the clock the ink colour changed from blue to red on our time card and 1/2 hour’s wages were deducted from our next pay cheque.

Included in my room and board was my box lunch which Mrs. Shanahan made for me every day. I enjoyed mixing my meats with jams in sandwiches, which surprised Mrs. Shanahan. Spam and jam you might call it. And she made me a nice dinner every night which we usually ate with her son and daughter-in-law who also lived in the house. One evening her son took me to a baseball game and I took my turn at bat. Allan Stanley, the Toronto Maple Leafs star, was playing in the same game because this was his home town and he was home for the summer. It was a thrill for me to see him but the pitches were so fast I didn’t even see them and struck out every time.

I met several friends, including the DJ from the local radio station. As is often the case with radio announcers he had a deep velvet voice which didn’t match his appearance at all when you met him in person. He was probably in his early twenties so we didn’t become close friends because of the age difference. One of the fellows I got to know took me on a tour of the nearby town of Elliot Lake where I saw row after row of bungalows boarded up with plywood because of the town’s cyclical economic way of life.

On the way home from work I would stop at the tourist information center to chat up the cute lass who worked in the kiosk. And I went to dances in Iron Bridge, a small nearby town. I even went to an occasional drive-in movie, an experience we were not allowed in Quebec at the time. Some of the 15-year old girls I met were much more mature than I. They knew what they wanted, and weren’t shy about asking. I was inexperienced; I arrived innocent and naive and left little changed.

Journal Lapresse, Montreal, November 25, 2002

LA VIE AU TRAVAIL – “Trois petits tours et puis s’en vont ”
par Jacinthe Tremblay (collaboration spéciale)

Assurer l’intérim lors du départ d’un dirigeant est souvent perçu comme une tâche ingrate. Pourtant, certains vétérans d’industrie en font maintenant, et avec plaisir, leur spécialité.

En septembre dernier, Ron Foreman, 57 ans, a été embauché pour une période de trois mois comme PDG -rien de moins- de M&H Graphique. Cette PME de la Cité du Multimédia offre des services de pré impression et d’infographie aux grandes agences de publicité de la région de Montréal. Elle emploie 35 personnes.

Son propriétaire, Peter Marsh, est mort en juillet dernier. Deux mois plus tôt, ses filles Tara et Jana lui avaient fait la promesse de s’occuper de la compagnie qu’il avait fondée il y a plus de 30 ans.

Avec lui, elles décident de doter l’entreprise d’un conseil d’administration. Elles y siègent en compagnie de trois amis et relations d’affaires de leur père.

Combler le vide sans bousculer

Ni les deux soeurs, âgées de 30 et 27 ans, ni Yves Langelier et Daniel Gendron, les deux autres piliers de l’entreprise et actionnaires minoritaires, ne veulent combler le vide laissé par son départ.

«Peter avait toujours vu seul à l’administration de la compagnie tout en nous laissant toute la latitude nécessaire dans nos propres activités. Nous ne nous sentions ni le goût ni la compétence pour gérer l’entreprise», confirme le second, responsable des ventes et employé chez M&H depuis 23 ans.

Dénicher un successeur à la direction devient donc pour le conseil d’administration le premier et le plus épineux problème à régler. «Nous devions faire vite pour trouver un remplaçant, mais nous n’étions pas prêtes à prendre une décision à long terme», raconte Jana.

Un membre du conseil d’administration les met sur la piste de Ron Foreman. Cet ancien propriétaire de PME offre maintenant ses services comme patron intérimaire. «Il est tout à fait ce qu’il nous fallait. Ron nous permet d’assurer une transition en douceur. Il connaît bien le contexte des entreprises familiales et, en plus, il est très gentil», dit Jana Marsh.

Ron Foreman fait partie de la quinzaine d’associés montréalais du Groupe Osborne, spécialisé dans l’impartition de cadres de haute direction par intérim. Le Groupe occupe seul ce créneau au Canada. Fondé en 1993, il regroupe 60 associés à Montréal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary et Vancouver. Tous comptent au moins 25 ans d’expérience en entreprise, dont au moins 15 dans des postes de haute direction. Le bureau montréalais a ouvert ses portes en 2000.

La main à la pâte

L’intervention du Groupe Osborne chez M&H Graphique est presque un cas type pour illustrer les avantages de l’intérim. «Les gens font généralement appel à nous en situation d’urgence, pour régler un problème ponctuel. Il peut s’agir d’un décès ou d’une maladie. Parfois, on nous soumet des dossiers de gestion de crise ou on nous demande de faire avancer un dossier très spécialisé», explique Jacques Caussignac, associé principal du Groupe à Montréal.

Cet ingénieur âgé de 57 ans a occupé plusieurs postes de vice-président chez Gaz Métropolitain.

L’intervention du cadre intérimaire diffère de celle du consultant externe. «Nous travaillons directement dans l’entreprise et nous orchestrons la mise en oeuvre des solutions», note-t-il. La durée des mandats varie généralement entre trois et 12 mois.

Le Groupe Osborne a fait sa première intervention montréalaise à la Bourse de Montréal, en 2000. L’enjeu était de gérer la formation du personnel, à la suite de la cessation (en décembre 1999) des transactions sur actions et le recentrage sur les produits dérivés. Un associé a été pendant 10 mois vice-président, ressources humaines.

Un autre a prêté main-forte sur une base ponctuelle à l’Université de Montréal, toujours en ressources humaines. Une autre intervention du Groupe a permis à une PME de satisfaire aux standards ISO 9001.

Une structure légère et des infrastructures minimales permettent au Groupe d’offrir des tarifs concurrentiels. À l’exception de rencontres bimensuelles, la plupart des associés travaillent à la maison lorsqu’ils ne sont pas en entreprise. Chaque associé détermine ses tarifs et négocie avec le client la nature et la durée de son mandat.

Un petit marché

Selon Jean-Marie Toulouse, directeur de l’École des Hautes études commerciales, le recours aux cadres de direction par intérim n’est pas très fréquent au Québec. «C’est un très petit marché. Ceux qui veulent s’y introduire doivent posséder des qualités très particulières. Pour réussir, l’expérience est aussi importante que la connaissance», dit-il.

Ils doivent être en mesure de comprendre rapidement l’entreprise, de dresser un plan d’action simple et de choisir judicieusement quelques priorités. «Ce type de travail devrait être accompli par des gens qui amorcent la deuxième partie de leur carrière et qui ont déjà fait leurs preuves», estime M. Toulouse.

C’est le cas des associés de Groupe Osborne, dont la moyenne d’âge est de 57 ans. L’aîné, John Dinsmore, a 70 ans. Il a été sous-ministre et président de Marine Industrie. «Quand ils arrivent dans un milieu de travail, nos associés ne veulent prendre la place de personne. Ils ont tous le goût de transmettre aux plus jeunes leur expérience et leur expertise. Ils se voient comme des mentors, des coachs», explique M. Caussignac, l’associé principal.

En Europe, particulièrement en Grande-Bretagne, en France et aux Pays-Bas, ainsi qu’aux États-Unis, il existe plusieurs firmes de cadres par intérim. Elles sont nées, pour la plupart, au milieu des années 1990.

Le phénomène coïncide, selon les observateurs, avec le début des départs à la retraite des baby-boomers. Plusieurs entreprises, en particulier les PME, n’ont pas vraiment préparé la relève et ont besoin de ressources expérimentés pour organiser la transition.

Les dirigeants partis sont remplacés temporairement par d’autres baby-boomers désireux de servir encore quelques années et de faire le pont avec la génération montante.

La formule semble satisfaire tout autant les cadres par intérim que leurs clients. «Les cadres supérieurs ont toujours travaillé en groupe. Ils aiment être entourés. En travaillant directement en entreprise, ils retrouvent un milieu d’appartenance», dit Jacques Caussignac.

Chez Osborne, ces vétérans en action sont tous des hommes. «Peu de femmes de notre génération ont accédé à des postes de direction. Nous essayons d’en recruter, mais ce n’est pas facile», note M. Caussignac.

Carole Sharpe, spécialiste des relations publiques, a été la seule exception depuis les débuts de la firme à Montréal. Elle est maintenant porte-parole de Bombardier.

Mandat renouvelé

Tout récemment, les soeurs Marsh ont pris la décision de vendre l’entreprise à Yves Langelier et Daniel Gendron. Les négociations vont bon train. Elles ont également, avec leur accord, renouvelé le mandat de Ron Foreman pour trois mois supplémentaires. «En devenant propriétaires, nous serons un peu dans la même situation que les soeurs Marsh en juillet dernier. Nous avons besoin d’un PDG, mais nous ne sommes pas prêts à nous engager à long terme», explique Yves Langelier, le vice-président de M&H.

Pour préparer son départ, Ron Foreman a commencé à déléguer à des cadres de l’entreprise des tâches autrefois accomplies par Peter Marsh. Mais il fait preuve de prudence. «Un PDG par intérim n’est pas là pour faire la révolution.

En période de transition, plusieurs décisions importantes doivent être mises en suspens. À partir de maintenant, c’est une question de respect pour les futurs propriétaires», dit avec calme et sagesse Ron Foreman.

The Gazette, Montreal, Monday, April 13, 1998

“Ronald Foreman teaches technology even though high tech led to the closing of his first business.”
By Sheila McGovern, The Gazette

It would be easy to forgive Ronald Foreman had he developed a distaste for technology. Technology, after all, played a significant role in the demise of his family’s business in 1993.

But Foreman obviously doesn’t hold a grudge. In January 1996 he relaunched himself as President of Productivity Point International – a company that specializes in training staff faced with new computer programs. The company is also the authorized centre for training Microsoft systems engineers. It’s a rapidly growing industry, bounding ahead by 35 per cent a year, Foreman said.

It’s also highly competitive. Marie-Félicité Gignac, Productivity Point’s account team manager and a partner in the company, said there are about five or six big players operating in Montreal. But if you take into account the small companies, independent consultants and educational institutions, the competition actually adds up to about a hundred.

Still, Productivity Point and Foreman are thriving. He anticipates sales will be up by 60% this year, reaching $2 million. So Foreman is shaping up to be a winner – someone who not only survived but prospered following the turbulent early 1990’s that saw so many people forced to make career changes as companies downsized or disappeared.

He has some advice for people still in transition: be determined and don’t try to recreate what you had in the past. You have to move on. Life is a continual learning process.

But as he sits in the company’s headquarters in the Sun Life Building, Foreman is neither pontificating nor lording it over anyone. The pain of mid life unemployment is still fresh in his memory.

In 1993, at the age of 48, he closed E. M. Ball Ltd. – the business his grandfather started. For generations it had fared well, supplying building supplies to retailers. But new information systems allow retailers to deal directly with manufacturers, and his business slowly faded away.

He spent the next 8 months searching for a new career.

“I don’t think there’s anything worse than being at home with nowhere to go and nothing to do” he said. “No matter how successful you were before, there’s still a lot of self doubt.”

He readily admits he had an advantage. He’d run his own business before, so he had experience and knowledge to draw on. “There’s no doubt about it, starting a business is a very difficult thing to do,” he said.

His friends were helpful, allowing him to bounce ideas off of them. Still he had to be persistent and accept defeat.

Foreman initially set out to enter the printing business. But after months of research and work, he had to conclude the venture was too big for him. That was a depressing time, he recalled, “but just when I was at that lowest point an idea came to me.”

He was reading a magazine article about franchises when he came across the names of some companies running computer-training centres. He began discussions with two of them, but wasn’t satisfied and decided to strike out on his own. However his business was still young when he encountered a representative of Productivity Point, an international franchise operation based in Chicago, with its Canadian head office in Ottawa.

Foreman said Productivity Point’s philosophy and culture appealed to him. It encourages entrepreneurship and allows the freedom and flexibility to respond to local market conditions.

Foreman said the increased popularity of training specialists is understandable.

In the rapidly changing world of information systems, companies have to retrain their staff to use new programs or networks, and the most expensive component of that training is time, the time workers are away from their regular jobs.

While many companies have systems technicians, they would first have to learn the new program and then have to teach it to their co-workers, probably in small groups. However a team of training specialists can come in and teach the whole workforce quite quickly, Gignac said. And, Foreman added, they will provide tailor made programs, ensuring workers are taught what they need to know but do not spend time learning something they won’t be required to do.

Beside workforce training, Productivity Point also operates a training program for Microsoft systems engineers.

People who take the program are usually making a career change, Foreman said. They pay $12,000 to take the course, but if they are successful, they shouldn’t want for a job. The company already has a list of companies waiting for graduates.