Back from my travels

20th August 2011   Finally surfacing from jetlag after an inspiring break in the Americas that took me to Colombia, Mexico, Philadelphia and the Cayman Islands. Covering the whole of July and half of August, it’s been the longest break abroad that I’ve allowed myself in 10 years. And a very rewarding one on the creativity front.

I spent  two weeks with my cousins in Colombia, reconnecting after the 24 years since I’d last seen some of them.

Their wild and crazy children of that time have grown and now have wild and crazy children of their own.

What made the trip especially special was the fact that I was joined by my own two grown up children for part of the time I was there.

We were treated royally, spending time socialising in Bogota, horseriding on a family farm in Boyaca and experiencing the jungle in the Caribbean plains near Santa Marta.

I had brought a small netbook with me and, between adventures, spent some time writing what I hoped the world might want to hear – my accumulated opinions (hopefully insights) into what it is that causes so much suffering under the banner of “quality management systems” – an area I have been passionately involved and interested in for close on 20 years.

And the writing flowed.

It flowed with an ease I can only attribute to the absence of pressures and the ample opportunities that my holiday lifestyle afforded.

Towards the middle of July I headed on from Colombia to Mexico City, where I reconnected with Maria and Alfonso – my Mexican amigos or rather “mi familia mexicana” of more than 20 years. As their free time allowed, we visited places like the new and stunning Saomaya Museum and even an amazing Mexican “Beatles tribute band”. In between times, my hotel accomodation near their apartment provided a quiet space and time to continue my writing.

I began to realise that what was emerging went way beyond the short article I had in mind to start with. By the time I left for Philadelphia  areound the end of July, my short article was pushing towards 40 pages!

My week in Philadelphia was an exciting blend of the old and the new. I had visited the city on many occasions in my time as an ISO 9001 Lead Assessor for the National Standards Authority of Ireland in the 1990s. It was there that many of the seeds of what is now “the Goldcert Approach” were sewn. Being there brought me face to face with the vision that had motivated me to leave NSAI in 1999.

It was a vision of a global network of Goldcert consultants supporting a major breakthrough in the way organisations around the world implemented ISO 9001 – and more or less any of the other documented management systems out there. The number of standards keeps expanding all the time – as do the number of organisations that end up in the clutches of compliance fatigue as the predictable result of short-sighted “cert-on-the-wall” policies.

Philadelphia is the cradle of American Independence, the place where the famous Declaration was signed and something of  that energy seeped into me while I was there and renourished that old vision that had somehow become tarnished over the years.

By the time, a week later, that I arrived in the paradise of Grand Cayman Island I felt ten years younger, full of fire and vigour and determined to complete what I now realised was “my Book” (with a capital ‘B’!). Again I was royally received, wined and dined and had many excursions by land and sea to exotic and sensuous locations – but nothing got in my way and by the time I boarded my plane to come home to Dublin I had 54 pages written – and a clear sense of what it was the book wanted to be about. I realised at last that I wasn’t writing the book. The Book was using me to write itself – not unlike this Blog! (I obviously like my capital ‘B’s).

And so, over the last two weeks, the original Goldcert vision has been revived, revitalised, refreshed and made ready, through the medium of this website, to  be relaunched on a global scale as befits the global standards that constitute the context of our work.

This new website is designed to make a real difference in ensuring that the world of work can be a place of pride and fulfillment for all.

Rody Ryan