Turning unplanned change into a time to enhance your career
The Coronavirus Pandemic has been an unplanned change. While there are many opinions on what could have, should have been handled differently the fact remains that we’re still discovering the change impact to our world.
While the future state may still be unclear and unknown, there is much we can do to be prepare ourselves and team members to be equipped to navigate change. As a project management professional, you already command many of the technical skills needed to plan and prepare to mitigate risk and implement solutions. Do you have the skills you need to assess, plan and execute change for people?
Change is not successful unless people adopt the change. Change adoption and benefit realization is the core of organizational change management. Through planning for resource requirements, sponsorship, communication, stakeholder engagement, measurement & benefit realization and sustainability, the need people have for information leading to understanding and ultimately to adoption, is provided.
Resistance is a predictable barrier to change. Recognizing resistance and responding in a way which addresses resistance rather than cover it up is one of the many responsibilities of both the change and project managers.
In the future state of our unplanned change I see project management professionals, who add organizational change management to their skill sets, as “enhanced” project professionals, meaning they are most employable and desirable because they can respond to the technical and people needs of a change plan.
If you want to enhance your skills, there are many resources available. The Association of Change Management Professionals and PMI are two organizations which support “enhanced” change management skills for project professionals and while there are 1.5 million PMP’s and 1020 CCMP’s there are less than 500 people who are “enhanced” by holding both the PMP and CCMP certifications – true differentiation.
As we move to the still unknown future state, consider using this time to enhance your skills and become expert at leading the people side of change in addition to your project management expertise to differentiate and enhance your career.
If you’d like to learn more visit www.acmpglobal.org, go to www.changemastery101.com, and you may also download a free book summary of READY, Set, Change! Simplify and Accelerate Organizational Change here.
