A message for Aaron Farrugia from Richard Branson: ‘Your five degrees count for nothing without broad experience and a winning personality’
Published:
March 17, 2014 at 11:52pm
Some managers get hung up on qualifications. I only look at them after everything else. If somebody has five degrees and more A grades than you can fit on one side of paper, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are the right person for the job. Great grades count for nothing if they aren’t partnered with broad-ranging experience and a winning personality.
– Richard Branson, How I Hire: Focus on Personality
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http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130923230007-204068115-how-i-hire-focus-on-personality
Huda go fik, Aaron
If Aaron adds another degree, he can say he is Kevin Bacon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon
He is undoubtedly a top man. If you do not believe me, see his very own Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Farrugia
I have worked with MBA graduates (the public service is full of them) who cannot manage a piss-up in a brewery. I have worked with computer science PhD graduates who cannot cut code to save their lives. I have worked with accountancy graduates who cannot analyse a balance sheet.
The proof in the pudding is in the eating and no number of degrees will necessarily make you perform in your job.
It is clear that Aaron lacks the most basic skill needed to perform in any job – common sense.
Steve Jobs`s commencement speech, Stanford 2005: `I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation………` I think that says it all.
No matter the endless educational opportunities and possibilities, some people always seem to get a degree while failing to get an education.
And the last sentence is appropriate. Better a hole than an asshole.
He is a self-made man. If that is true then he has a point. (Do we know of any other accomplishments other than his degrees?)
In all fairness I can’t understand all this bickering about appointments. Sarcasm apart it is a little excessive. Let’s be rational. Obviously the PM will only appoint people he can trust. But Malta is too small and polarized not to have any bickering. Everyone has an opinion. The previous government also made mistakes with appointments.
Anyway my guess is JM (so called PM) does not want to repeat the mistake of Alfred Sant and wants to ensure all his henchmen are avid supporters in every corner of government. This is more important than the good of the nation. Then again, the good of the nation is to have a labour government so this is undoubtedly a catch-22 for our PM. The only sad thing is that he probably does not lose sleep at night over this. He probably should, just a little.
“The good of the country is to have a Labour government”? Say’s who? The PN may have done mistakes and taken wrong decisions, amidst all the good that it did for this country, but we never saw the concentration of obscenities witnessed in this first year under the MLP. People feel let down by our Prime Minister who oversold and under delivered. Most of all, people are feeling used and betrayed by Joseph Muscat.
Carlatan Laburist minn taghhom ilkoll. Hareg jitghajjar bid-degrees biex jahseb li ser jimpressjonana.
Ma nahsibx li kien fi zmienu li zewg security guards Laburisti gew impjegati biex imbaghad qalulhom biex lanqas biss jersqu lejn il-Freeport.
Kien ikun aktar prattiku kieku irrefera lilna l-pubbliku, liema mid-degrees li ghandu taghmlu kompetenti fil-Freeport u dik l-industrija hekk utli u bzonnjuza.
Kompla uriena kemm hu njurant meta kompla jitpastaz u jipprezumi li biex xi hadd jilhaq ghandu jiddependi minn xi parentela.
Jien ukoll self made man u ilhaqt dejjem bil-hila tieghi. Imma kull meta kont nipprova naghmel dmiri sew u skond il-ligi bhala pulizija kienu iwaqqfuni u jehduli l-kaz minn idi.
Skuzi ta, jekk forsi waqajt fin-nassa u qed inkun pastaz, imma jekk ma nitkellmux bl-istess lingwa ma niftehemux.
I hope his five degrees have now taught Aaron Farrugia to spell elf.
Is Richard Branson a self made man?
Nahseb ftehmna.
Well, the way I look at it, is that if at his relatively young age he’s already had time for five degrees, he didn’t have much time to get work experience.
A self made man would not need to reassure anyone, because he’s made it. The statement above shows a lack of self-confidence.
I find this degree hype, nothing but an insult to the people who have a degree,
– to the people who don’t have a degree at all,
– an insult to those who still managed to get on with the only resource they had = their brain,
– and an insult to those who, fortunately or unfortunately, developed dyslexia or some other form of learning difficulty but who still managed to get on with their lives.
A self-made man, does not become one at age 28 or 30. A self-made man declares himself self-made when he reaches 40 or at least 50, because there’s something called ‘experience’ that happens to people and experience happens with something we all know is called ‘time’ -experience is crucial to someone who declares ‘he’s self-made’.
And if a person is claiming that he is self-made, when did the person make himself ‘self-made’?
If the person graduated aged 23 as is ‘normal’ nowadays and went on to pursue his studies to further his qualifications, then that means that it took the person, at least a further 3 years, to get the other 4 degrees. Then by the time he’s reached 26, it’s also time to start working, yes, but so? All this is normal standard nowadays.
If the person is now 30 years old or lets say 33 and he started working full-time at age 26, are 7 years enough to obtain the experience that is needed to run a corporation?
Are 7 years enough to declare that one is self-made?
Just asking…. you know….I’m quite mixed up with all these declarations.
“Ma kelli bzonn ebda parentela biex nasal fejn wasalt”
Well and truly said, dear fellow.
Kull ma kellek bzonn, nahseb, kien li tidher f’xi bill board – bhal ma ghamlu cwiec ohrajn li tlahhqu fejn ma kellhomx.
Tinsiex, imbaghad, li kif jghd il-Malti, “bin is-sengha ghandu nofsha”
http://markanthonysammut.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-meritocratic-public-appointments.html
Last year I went to a course on EU reporting, that was co financed by the EU. Aaron Farrugia taught the course. He said several things that were incorrect, and when some of his ‘students’ put him right, he just stared at them with a vacant look.
Aaron, comparing yourself to Beppe Fenech Adami on the basis of degrees is embarrassing, yes, but embarrassing to you.
You really need to grow up and become mature but it will take a very long time, if it ever happens, judging by your Facebook rants.
How old are you, 14?
Aaron Farrugia has five degrees, but he lacks Beppe Fenech Adami’s experience of watching his mother being manhandled and roughed up by thugs protected by the politicians who were put in power by Aaron Farrugia’s parents and grandparents.
Beppe Fenech Adami, like his father before him, did not go into politics to ‘arrive’ or because he wants to make something of himself. He does it because he believes in democracy, which is forever and always under threat by the party for which the Farrugia family votes (en masse and unthinkingly, five degrees notwithstanding).
This little man’s bragging about his five degrees has made him look as ridiculous as Franco Debono waving his Form 2C report card in front of the television cameras.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-03-18/news/animal-rights-ngo-representatives-left-out-of-welfare-council-board-4299784193/
‘….The Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Rights, Roderick Galdes has placed two unelected members to the Animal Welfare Council’s two-member board, including the Labour Party’s official photographer, Joe Camenzuli, a known animal lover but who does not officially represent any animal society, instead of appointing the two NGO representatives nominated by the rest of the animal rights’ groups…’
So he’s an animal lover. How about plane spotters on Air Malta’s board of directors?
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-03-18/news/risk-report-on-delimara-power-station-still-withheld-dlh-4301914113/
Richard Branson only reasons the way he does because he never saw Frankie Tabone’s Form II mid-term results and never met the man himself.
If he ever has the great misfortune of seeing the two items in question, Branson might very well change his mind.
How very true. One of the best persons I had the opportunity to recruit had a basic degree but he did a far, far better job than others with higher degrees including Ph.D.s. Also, in my view, a need to flaunt one’s degrees diminishes the person.
And Aaron Farrugia himself is the proof of the truth of Richard Branson’s beliefs.
Richard Branson, you are 100% right.
More opinions from the US about the Crimea vote;
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/17/crimea-ukraine-russia-ron-paul-editorials-debates/6544163/
That’s the problem with most Maltese 20/30-somethings. They wasted a big chunk of their life chasing degrees while missing out on broadening their horizon, vision and life experience, all of which would help them to be creative and to think out of the box.
How is that a problem if they’re all CEOs?
CEOs…in Malta.
Sounds like a pretty successful life to me.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140318/local/former-russian-ambassador-to-malta-on-us-sanctions-list.511161
I couldn’t agree more with Branson. Farrugia is one of those inexperienced people who think that they know it all.
L-ebda kwalifika akkademika ma tizboq l-edukazzjoni tal-qalb.
He got “five degrees” thanks to the various policies of successive Nationalist governments, which made it possible for people like him to go to university, and then he demonstrates that five degrees did nothing to open his mind because he still votes as his parents, who had no education, did.
They had an excuse. Aaron Farrugia does not. As he himself says, he is a self-made man and entirely responsible for his ignorance.
Aaron Farrugia is so lucky not to have grown up under the Mintoffian/KMB governments for which his parents voted. If he had, he would have been wearing a greasy boiler-suit in some nondescript garage.
Inferiority complex? Insecurity?
Is Richard Branson a self made man?
Nahseb ftehmna.
If Aaron Farrugia’s hobby is collecting university degrees, then he is damn fortunate he did not come of age under the Labour governments which his parents voted into power.
Sry ta but who are you to insult this man? I know Aaron Farrugia from uni and he is hardworking, humble, intelligent and hardworking, and much more intelligent then all of you. All you who write on this blog should be shame of you! And get a life!!! Tatix kasom Aaron menn dik kolla ejra.
Five degrees and not an ounce of grace or savoir faire to show for it. Tragic.
The reason why I have a science degree is because the government led by the late political thinker and founding father of modern Malta, Dr. George Borg Olivier, removed university entrance fees in the 1960s.
I would not have done it without that, considering that my family was on the (financially) poorer side of things but intellectually on the richer one because my father bought us everything that would make us educated, books, books and books.
But there were seven of us siblings so we had to fend for ourselves a bit.
I worked summers so as to be able to support myself through university. But then came the Mintoffians who practically destroyed tertiary education and my academic progress was stopped in its tracks. I was lucky to have made it to my B.Sc. (Hons) by then.
How I wish I had had the opportunity to study further and get five degrees like this Einstein managed to get – and the irony is that it was people like his parents who put the Mintoffians into power where they set about destroying primary, secondary and tertiary education and then got to work on the church schools too.
What can I say? F**k the Mintoffians.
They say ignorance is bliss, but I tell you that in Malta – stupidity is bliss.
If ever being stupid was a job requirement, it certainly is the case in Malta. Even Gonzi, whose own qualifications stopped being respectable with the end of the middle ages, understood that the property market needed to be reined in.
Labour comes in and does the exact opposite because people who are barely qualified to be latrine attendants stand to get rich as long as the poop does not hit the fan.
And off course, we have the self made (read semi-literate, money-hungry buffoon) Sandro Chetcuti advising the government. If ever stupidity was a qualification!
Then we have Dalli back on the scene. The Bahamas man who cannot account for any of his money. The business tycoon with no discernible business apart from ‘John Dalli & Associates’.
The present prime minister has taken the culture of stupidity to new levels. Anyone he cannot work with? He promotes them. He stuffs their mouths with gold. He enslaves them with positions, a sense of importance and the feeling that they’re eating at the captain’s table – all at a cost to the public purse.
Want to get rid of Anglu Farrugia? Make him Speaker, even though he’s barely articulate. Mrs Coleiro Preca wants to leave the party before the election? Let’s get rid of her by making her President.
When I wake up for another day in Malta, my first impulse now is to hit the wall with my head. I am hoping that all the blows will eventually make me stupid and therefore qualified to live here.
With five degrees under his belt, the CEO of the Freeport should have come across the expression that it’s quality, not quantity, that matters.
“Nahseb ftehmna.”
Kieku Mintoff kien haj kien jghidlu li ghandu hames karti tal-incova, li lanqas biss m’huma tajbin biex jimsah il-warrani bihom.
Mintoff was definitely sharper than the whole present PL lot. Unfortunately he hung around with the wrong crowd and the rest is history.
[Daphne – He didn’t hang out with the wrong crowd, Joe. He was the wrong crowd.]
Mintoff started out as a charismatic politician whose career morphed into that of a classic post-colonial dictator. He acceded to power when the country was craving change and in desperate need of a levelling of social disparities. Then the thuggery and dictatorial antics started which transformed the country to a Mediterranean Zimbabwe.
I insist on comparing Mintoff’s Malta to Mugabe’s Zimbabwe (which is simply a violent, kleptocractic dictatorship) not the Soviet Union. The Soviet party was dictatorial, hyper-capitalist, corrupt, you name it…but excellence in education, arts, science and technology was valued – neither Mintoff nor Mugabe ever gave a hoot about all that.
And just look at AAAAAARRRRRRONNNN’s Facebook comment on 16th March:
“Ghandna bzonn politici li jahsbu inqas fuq kif se jzommu l-post tax-xoghol taghhom u jahsbu iktar dwar kif se joholqu l-postijiet tax-xoghol ghal dawk li huma minghajr impjieg.”
You have to give it to the guy: he has no self-awareness.