Building a second career before the first one is over

Dr Peter Gregersen’s step into authorship happened, in his own words, “completely by chance”, but that chance has acted as a spur for him to launch into a second career, which will run parallel with his current job as a hotel manager and blossom when he retires.

Gregersen is the general manager of one of East London’s most successful hotels, the Blue Lagoon, set on the banks of the Nahoon River, a short swim to Nahoon beach.

“I was having a meeting with another head of a business and we were discussing various management challenges and the solutions I had to them, stemming from my studies when I was doing a doctor of administration, a master of business administration and diplomas in labour law and hospitality management,” he said.

“He asked me if I had shared my ideas with a broader management community and I had to admit that I hadn’t. He effectively inspired and challenged me to write a book.”

Gregersen had more than enough research material from his studies, particularly from the MBA, during which he had focused on the transference of knowledge.

“I felt the real value would come from explaining it to people that would not necessarily be academics. I wanted to highlight key points of leadership and building a community of experts within an organisation.”

The actual writing did not take long but distilling the knowledge he had built up over many years did.

Business, said Gregersen, had three crucial pillars — shareholder responsibility, customer responsibility and human resources responsibility.

However, companies tend to focus on maximising profit for shareholders and to forget about the other two stakeholder groups.

Businesses should create a vault of knowledge specific to the company and make sure it flows all the way down the line.

Unlocking the Knowledge Vault, his first book, is aimed at decisionmakers throughout the company.

He explained that the question that had to be asked over and over again with regard to every decision was “why, why, why”.

This starts people thinking and exploring other solutions.

Gregersen has another book at the start of the production line.

“It is far more controversial than Vaults. It will discuss bias, prejudice, discrimination and the other hard topics that people are uncomfortable discussing.”

He said that his academic background, which is also his hobby, had given him a wonderful platform to build a second career which, as he writes in his own time, does not clash with his job as general manager.

I believe the purpose of life is about transferring knowledge and I have been fortunate enough to build a vault of my own knowledge

“I believe the purpose of life is about transferring knowledge and I have been fortunate enough to build a vault of my own knowledge.

“I am not expecting to make a fortune out of a second career in writing, but it will make me happy and will hopefully make business leaders better in their careers.”

The book did not take Gregersen long to write, he said.

“However, it encapsulates a long academic career and a path of continuous improvement. The actual punching away at a computer keyboard while formatting the book was relatively fast.

“What took longer was assembling all my MBA papers, manipulating, rewording, prioritising and then sifting through to segments that I needed for the book, and I must say I am happy with the result.”

To listen to Ted Keenan’s DispatchLIVE interview with Peter Gregersen go to Facebook at noon today.

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