Mr. Erol Mujanović, a professional manager and a team leader implementing complex projects, leadership trainer and a marathon runner. How would you describe yourself?
You have rightly described main areas of my professional and human interests in your question. I have three very strong engines and highly motivating goals that are boosting me in the life. The first one is to see a better society and more educated and intelligent people we live with. I contribute to this higher objective slowly but surely through my full time managerial jobs and projects in international organizations.
The second motivation and goal is to bring people together through sport and to help individuals achieve things they didn’t know they are capable of, such things as running the first marathon or running their first 10K. The focus being on the journey, not on the goal. I realize this objective through the NGO Marathon Sarajevo and Running school Klix where we spend time with amazing people.
Last but not least, I have a permanent desire to acquire new skills and experiences, to become a better person and to always give more in my efforts. This self-development objective and competition with myself I realize through running marathons myself or through daily workouts.
Mr. Mujanović, you are a co-founder of the NGO “Marathon” and School of running “Klix” that organizes Sarajevo half marathon. Can you say for the Sarajevo Times how have you decided and what has motivated you to open this kind of running school?
I have always been in sport, especially in running for last 20 years, and the sport is one of the most powerful change and peace buildings agents in the world both from individual and from collective perspective.
So after having had dozens of requests from people on how to train, what to eat, when to run, etc together with my partners in the NGO we decided to launch the running school and established a very fruitful cooperation with Klix web portal. The school operates as a recreational’ runners running club in western Europe, together with my friends from NGO Marathon Sarajevo we simply share our extremely long and rich experience and make other people happy in discovering their great potential and motivation through sport. To make the long story short we opened the school because we had number of requests from public for it but also we felt it was the right moment to offer the society an excellent and affordable stress management and self-development tool. Today running is the most popular hobby in the world and there are many reasons for that. In B&H it is having a huge boom in last two years and we already have more than 40 registered persons for 2016 so it proves we are not only doing the right thing but also doing it in an excellent way. Today, with other trainers we are simply happier when we run with others and when we help other people run the first half or full marathon than if we do our personal best but alone. Knowledge and passion are worthless if we don’t share them and help other people.
Apart from running you are also active in business and entrepreneurship training. How many young people are given the opportunity in the private and public sectors to develop their talents and realize private business?
Besides my full time job and besides also managing NGO Marathon Sarajevo, I am also very often engaged as a trainer or consultant in fields such as leadership, management skills, business plans, motivation etc and it constitutes that third pillar of my activities. It is all about skills building and transferring my knowledge to others so it makes me happy as well.
Young people are obviously not given the opportunities to the right extent, there is limited number of places and they are mainly reserved for “preselected” youngsters with connection but not always and these are all reasons why young people shouldn’t wait to be given a chance but they should seize it right now. Especially in highly corrupted economy such in Western Balkans countries opportunities are even more challenging to find for young people. However I don’t know about any person who gave 100% in the life and that didn’t succeed. Not saying success is fast and easy but if you give your best there will usually come a bit of luck as well and eventually the person will succeed whatever the success and the goal for that person is.
What are the advantages of Bosnia and Herzegovina to move forward, on which ones the elites need to insist?
I believe the Reform agenda has defined pretty clearly a way to go for B&H as a country in terms of crucial areas to reform and there is no alternatives to the path of EU integration. So I wont detail much about it but is all about job creation, reforming the public sector and creating much more business friendly environment.
More precisely for me it comes down as simple and small things as the way the majority of citizen think here. Once we change the mindset than everything will follow. We should stop considering reform processes as external to us and the ownership should be ours because nobody else will do that job at our place. In the same spirit people should become much more courageous in their choices and decisions. Right now young people are thinking and behaving like some old people, dreaming about secured and well paid jobs in public sector, with the title of manager but with no responsibilities and accountability. It is simply unrealistic.
What is the number of unemployed young people in B&H? What are your recommendations to young people in the search for a job?
That number is far too high and we are the worst in Europe. To answer your second question more concretely, I have participated in more than 100 recruitment processes in my career and the best choice was always the candidate that demonstrate passion for what was at stake and for the job. These candidates performed very well and were easy to distinguish from other candidates that were all similar. Young people are huge victims of the system because they don’t get enough opportunity to accumulate valuable work experience so the one that are excellent very often have taken their destiny in their hands started working very young and by the age of 25 they already have a significant competitive advantage over the majority of job seekers. It is far from being easy but things wont get any better for our youth so they should act and take initiative to bring changes in this country. Older generation wont certainly do it.
Can you say for the Sarajevo Times, what are the future plans for the School of running “Klix” ?
Back to running and smiling, our school after having 20, 40 and 120 participants in first three years will continue to grow. Demand and interest are huge and we will gladly take new participants as of march 2016.
We have been named “the most positive story in the city“ and we will keep putting the smile on faces of our fellow runners. On the one hand we will keep running and growing while keeping the quality of the approach. On the other hand we keep in mind bigger goals so we try to inspire others and try to help other organizations or vulnerable groups by fund raising or awareness raising activities during our trainings or races.
In the running school we realized that the simplest pleasures are the best ones and they are available to all. One run in the nature, one bottle of water shared with a friend, one good laughter with runners and after 45 min your day looks perfect and you are full of great energy for the rest of the day. It is priceless.
Interview by Zejna SY
