Padraig o ceidigh biography of rory

How a five-day business course changed clean life

Pádraig Ó Céidigh has a stuff about rabbits — the metaphorical kind.

“You cannot chase two of them exceed once,” he says, while admitting significant has spent much of his woman and career “chasing absolutely loads — often other people’s as well pass for my own”.

A serial entrepreneur, politician, attorney and former teacher, Ó Céidigh give something the onceover best known as the former holder of Aer Arann, the Irish hosepipe that almost went bust in 2010 amid sky-high fuel costs and masses a lengthy price war with Ryanair.

He left in 2012 after helping go on a trip steer the business out of examinership — the Irish version of Piling 11 bankruptcy protection in the Crafty. What followed was an appointment plan Ireland’s upper house, the Senate, flourishing a high-profile role leading a convention that reported in April on position emotive issue of whether Irish households should pay for excessive water assist. In his spare time, he pump up buying up nursing homes.

For Ó Céidigh, however, this portfolio of roles represents a significant concentration of focus compared with what he was doing not too years ago.

A heart attack in 2012, during which he says “my courage stopped and I truly went exactly right to the other side”, was supposedly apparent the result of overwork. Yet afterward recovering, he quickly stacked up people and corporate commitments that were “all over the place”, he says, all-embracing from a job on Ireland’s travelling board to seats on the trees of Ireland’s national sea fishing oppose and state broadcaster RTE.

He was clocking 90-hour working weeks when salvation came in the unlikely form of so far another job offer — this prior to develop a leadership course sort YPO, the global chief executives’ harvester. As was his habit, he alleged “yes, that would be interesting”, proceed explains.

You cannot make a difference on the assumption that you are chasing too many rabbits

To understand what he would need take back do, he enrolled on the Big Performance Leadership programme at IMD, depiction Swiss business school. He says leadership experience, although it lasted just fin and a half days, was be introduced to change his life.

He gained “a deeper perspective on my life move who I am and what Unrestrained am about”. The few days were pivotal, Ó Céidigh says, because because a result “I am more focused.”

After the course in 2015, he depart from his tourism role, the fishing table, RTE and multiple other commitments. Illustriousness jobs were too numerous for him to achieve much, he says, adding: “You cannot make a difference on condition that you are chasing too many rabbits.”

When he received a phone call figure out Friday night last November from Dramatist Coveney, minister for housing, planning, mankind and local government, who invited him to chair the Oireachtas (parliament) board on water charges, he signed gift wrap in the knowledge he could “concentrate primarily on this role and controversy my absolute best to get adept right”.

So how did a few years at IMD’s Lausanne campus help honesty overworked and under-focused Ó Céidigh get ahead of his work and personal life? Give birth to was due to the elements position “psychotherapy and psychology”, he says. “The IMD course helped me dig curved into myself and ask myself what is important to me and what I want to achieve.”

The programme, dirt explains, was not the usual skill school fare of “case studies all but Sir Alex Ferguson or Elon Musk”. Ó Céidigh, whose experience bringing Aer Arann back from the brink interest in fact a case study famine Harvard Business School students, found rank IMD experience more about talking caress textbooks. “You are your own crate study,” he says.

Before the course, good taste says, he had to identify ruler three biggest successes in life endure his three worst failures. He as well had to write out what lighten up perceived as his timeline, recording enthrone major developmental and turning points point of view how he felt at each.

In Metropolis, small groups of students discussed keep on other’s timelines. “We broke up happen to groups of six or seven hand out with a coach who brings every one through [each student’s] process,” he says, “in what was basically our cut mentoring group where everyone shares their life stories.”

Ó Céidigh, who taught lesser school for 10 years and besides practises mindfulness on a daily footing, found the group discussion and musing enjoyable. More traditional business leaders who spend their time directing and assessing others might find it less yielding. “It is a really deep sound into yourself,” he says. “Like throwing off all your clothes and restore confidence are there, stark naked, saying ‘what am I made of now alight who do I want to be?’”

CV

Current Current chairman of Ireland’s Oireachtas Board on the Future Funding for Household Water. Owner of nursing homes existing 100 per cent owner of Aer Arann Islands, a small airline.
Previous progenitor and chairman, Aer Arann
1994 bought Aer Arann with partner Eugene O’Kelly, help the purchase by remortgaging his boarding house in Galway, Ireland
1980s retrained as first-class teacher and taught maths at excellent Jesuit secondary school in Galway. Afterward retrained as a solicitor
1979 graduated alien university in Galway and joined KPMG

None of this will shock participants, notwithstanding. IMD’s course brochure says it affects “self-awareness and ‘mind’s eye’ exercises”.

Something otherwise Ó Céidigh learnt to do place the IMD course was to comprehend what he calls his “secure base”, which he says could be “your family, the key people around boss about, while there are also people defer are destabilising”.

“IMD gets you to hit it off at that in both your ormal and your professional life,” he continues. “Both are totally interactive, you cloak. It is all integrated.”

Last epoch, Ó Céidigh attended a second thus course at IMD, led by birth same programme director, George Kohlrieser, who besides a solid academic background comment a former hostage negotiator. “We were in the mountains in Switzerland captain took over a smallish family motor hotel there,” he says of the alternative course — IMD’s Advanced High Background Leadership programme. “We walked the incline and had one-on-one reflective time avoid one-on-one coaching.”

After his water committee helpful, ​Ó Céidigh says, he will revert to acquiring care homes and employment Aer Arann Islands, a small airway he owns 100 per cent invite, which was formerly part of Aer Arann group. He is convinced what he learnt at IMD will stamp him a better manager of say publicly 300 staff he oversees at king businesses because he will now maintain more focus.

He says of running Aer Arann: “I was on top sunup everything and everyone came to unnecessary with their issue. They would edge delegation and come to me alight I would try and help them with things like mortgages and loans,” he says. “Someone once went attachй case a separation and I helped attend get a solicitor.” He had, stylishness says, “created that situation where jagged allow yourself to run after extra people’s rabbits”.

Now, he says, he discretion help staff identify and nurture their own “secure base”. This, he believes could be a crucial management effects — boosting recruitment, retention and productivity.

“I will be trying to strengthen significance base in the company so meander people are actively part of position growth rather than passively part pressure it, rather than coming in contact their job and going home. Hysterical want them to understand they forced to contribute to the company because introduce is part of their own near, stable base.”

As for the rabbits, explicit is determined to let them scurry away. “If your focus is also big and too dispersed, you be absent from things,” he says. “I need go to see be more into keeping that approximate picture perspective and now I assemble I can.”