Dead Wood

It’s raining in The Netherlands. It’s not yet cold but the grey wet season is almost here. I’m sipping on a glas of Rouge and watch the sun play hide and seek. The end of one season is the start of another in the continue cycle of life. This is true for the career of an independent FiCo consultant, for all projects and companies.

After the grape harvest at the VanDenBeld Vinyard a new vintage of wines will be made, including my beloved Rouge. A purge follows the yield. Cold steel will cut away branches, methodically, until only the wood stem remains. The wood stem with a selected few branches that will be the foundation for next year. This act of creative destruction is called pruning. Cutting away dead wood, cutting away everything to return to the bare essentials needed to start fresh next year.

As an independent FiCo consultant you come across a lot of dead wood. To be honest being a project consultant that moves from company to company, from project to project I am the epitome of dead wood. And that’s not a bad think. Its a necessary thing

At the end of each project where the company reaps the fruits of success it’s time to wrap thing up. Transfer the knowledge from the project team to the existing support organisation. When the support organisation takes over then the project consultant is no longer needed for that project. From that perspective the consultant is? superfluous. And that’s an odd feeling. Going from being necessary, if not essential to a project to become dead wood that needs to be pruned.

Just like the winemakers at the VanDenBeld vineyard natured the vines so they produce those beautiful grapes to make gorgeous wines. They now apply cold, sharp steel to remove the vines after the harvest. And that’s necessary. The purpose of the vine are the grapes and not the branches. The branches are the intermediate step towards the grapes.

And the same is true for my work as an independent FiCo consultant. I still have the SAP training material from when I started my career. Sentimental value and nothing else. With the speed at which the world develops this training material is obsoleet. It represents my first uncertain and insecure ventures in the world of SAP. Back then I didn’t know that this would be my career path. So there’s an emotion.

With the current developments of SAP and being rebuilt on a new platform, with tiles and a new type of programming, there is again this sense of uncertainty and insecurity. I know what I know and I’ve based my craftsmanship on that. So I realised that I’m also looking for sameness in that new SAP platform. I look for things that havent changed to give me a sense of security.

But I’m wrong, with the new platform the essence has changed. And it will be a matter of time and all the known things will be erased. What needs to happen is that I have to take cold, sharp steel and start pruning away the attachments to the old. Sure there’s a core, a stem, that remains the same. The all the reset. I need to prune that away. Dead Wood. Old stuff that prevents me from being of use as a consultant in the future years. And with that comes a new sense of insecurity and uncertainty. Is my professional life now in jeopardy? It’s been a long time ago that I’ve done a full, proper and formal training.

The winemakers don’t hate the old branches of the vines. They are great full for their yield and know that they must go in order to make it through next season. And every vineyard is always a plaything of the indiscriminate elements. The elements just are. Emotionless processes. There’s no company or economy that actively seeks out to harm me. The move along with the technological developments, the changes in population and our culture.

And so here I am, sipping my VanDenBeld Rouge and thinking old do I need to let go off. What new to embrace. And with a full-time project that’s a true investment. But it is necessary otherwise my yield wil diminish year by year until I become obsolete. The consultant with skills nobody needs.

There’s a book beside me, still wrapped in plastic. There’s also an empty glass and a fresh bottle and a hart full of memories. I pour another glass and look at the sun playing hide and seek with the clouds. I’ll enjoy the known, the memories and the history? for a bit & then I’ll apply the cold, sharp steel and dive off the deep end.

Till next? time