It transpired that Jeff Bogdan, Director of Learning and Development (L&D) at Microsoft was sacked afer the company adopted the very L&D system that he was recommending and the sad part was that thereafter, there was no place left for him in the new set up.

Far from being downcast, Bogdan instead focused on the “wonderful” time he had at the company and the people he had worked with there.

As for the future, he made an awesome statement of intent on LinkedIn. He said, “So now begins the journey of finding my second career.”

Clearly, not downcast by the way Microsoft had treated him after decades of service, Bogden has made it clear he was not one for looking back and his focus was more on making further contributions to society at large through his work. And now, he is searching for his “second career.”

He ended the post with his new motto, “#OpenToWork is not expressive enough. More like “Open To Anything: Let’s Have A Deep Discussion; Let’s Explore Together”.”

Read the full letter below:

“My 33-year run with the wonderful Microsoft come to a close in February, when my job was eliminated I spent the last 2 weeks at Microsoft trying to say a “proper goodbye” to my enormous second family.”

I then spent the 2 weeks that followed in Chelan, half the time with family and half the time in solo reflection.

My entire MS career has been an incredible ride. The three products I am proudest of are Windows Phone, Zune, and Windows 95. But the biggest payoff for me came in these last 2 years, when I pitched and landed an L&D role in Windows. My premise was that, after successfully spreading a “learn-it-all” mindset throughout the org, it was time to spread a “teach-it-all” mindset to accompany this. I focused on organizing the learning investments for a 2,000-person org, and then worked to align that with learning & development offerings from our parent orgs and from central HR.

My job elimination was the result of HR adopting the hub & spoke model for L&D that I was pitching. Sadly, when my division already had their L&D team in place, there wasn’t a seat at the table for me.

After abundant reflection, I have concluded that I am nowhere close to the “R word”. There is still so much that I want to contribute. So now begins the journey of finding my second career.

The simple start is via consulting. I’m seeing consulting as a way to learn more about the industry and understand where my expertise can best advance the industry.

#OpenToWork is not expressive enough. More like

“Open To Anything: Let’s Have A Deep Discussion; Let’s Explore Together”.”