Change Makers Step Up During the Pandemic

Employees who have both hard and soft skills – and can use both to drive innovation – will be the ones to lead organizations following the pandemic. Here’s why and how your organization can benefit.

When COVID-19 flipped the switch on business and completely changed the way we got things done, businesses stepped up to the challenge and created innovative ways to work, interact, and solve problems amongst teams. And the people who helped bring that metamorphosis to fruition were the change makers – employees who feel personally inspired to push change and transformation forward to get things done. Many of these employees had strong project management skills, and it is evident that they – and their skills – will continue to drive change efforts as businesses reboot and recover post-pandemic.

Change makers articulate the need for change and what must be done to drive it forward. They have the skillsets and knowledge that make them well-rounded businesspeople, great decision makers, and great collaborators, says Dave Garrett, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer of Project Management Institute (PMI). “These are people who understand the big picture, the business and how it functions, and understand how things beyond their specific project connect to what they are doing,” Garrett explains. “Change makers can see how their project will impact other parts of the business and can make better, more holistic decisions.”

Working Towards the Future

According to a recent report from Project Management Institute – Pulse of the Profession® 2020 – sixty-five percent of organizations are placing an emphasis on leadership skills, nearly equal to those placing importance on technical skills (68%). “Businesses of all sizes will need to adopt more of this thinking. It's about the skills and talents that people possess that can be applied dynamically to an ever-changing situation,” Garrett says. “Moving forward, having a well-rounded perspective, soft skills to enable change, and a thorough understanding of how one can affect a business will be huge.”

The PMI talent triangle in particular is a set of key skills that can aid in this type of thinking. Project managers who possess an ideal skillset have a combination of technical, leadership, and strategic and business management expertise. They also have certifications such as a Project Management Professional (PMP)®, an internationally recognized professional designation offered by PMI.

“Employees must spend a certain amount of time upskilling – taking classes or engaging in leadership experiences. As a PMP, every three years you must fulfill 60 hours across the three sides of the talent triangle to maintain your certification. This aligns with what PMI believes is important to create a well-rounded individual that organizations can develop and use to drive change forward,” says Garrett.

When you have multi-talented change makers in place, the organizations they work for gain the potential to become “gymnastic” – a term that Sunil Prashara, President and CEO, Project Management Institute, points to as a must-have for organizations to thrive in this new work ecosystem. Prashara describes the ability to be “gymnastic” as a way to “focus less on process and more on outcomes.”

Being gymnastic builds on the concept of Agility, but goes further, Garrett says. “You first need to be Agile, understanding the ways of working and mindset that will make you more adaptive – but going one step further through upskilling can make all of the difference. For example, pushing down decision-making to the right level is important, but you need to be sure the “deciders” have the business acumen to make the choices that lead to the best outcomes for the organization. Similarly, your people on the ground need to have the power skills to collaboratively lead others through change – not necessarily as managers, but each leading in their own way. Being gymnastic is enabled by holistic upskilling with an eye toward results. Think about the difference between a gymnast and someone who is Agile. A gymnast has a lot of strength, knowledge and practice in various areas that helps them perform better and achieve the outcomes they’re looking for. Gymnasts hit concrete goals.” Agility is important, but simply a means to an end, Garrett adds.

The skills above are important when identifying change makers, adds Garrett. If you wanted to narrow it down to three things that change makers have in common, it would include:

· Having the business acumen to target the right outcomes
· Understanding “ways of working” to “get there” as efficiently as possible
· Possessing the power skills necessary to collaboratively lead

Finding – and Nurturing – the Right Talent

Identifying people with these skills may seem overwhelming, but there are steps that managers can take to uncover the change makers in an organization. Garrett suggests asking interview questions around how an employee may respond in a fluid environment – an environment or situation of high ambiguity. “I like to ask people, ‘Tell me about a situation that was rapidly changing where you made all the difference. What have you done in a situation where nobody knew what to do?’”

An employee’s answer can provide managers with an idea around how someone deals with ambiguity and what approaches they may take to make things happen. The answer also highlights leadership skills and how gymnastic an individual may be. This will provide managers an understanding not only of the individual’s accomplishments, but the accomplishments in the context of dynamic change.

Once you’ve identified potential change makers, you can help their growth by encouraging them to continue their education. For instance, PMI offers upskilling courses, including Basics of Disciplined Agile, which introduces professionals to the Disciplined Agile Toolkit. With this online course, users learn to navigate hundreds of agile frameworks, practices, and techniques to choose the approach best suited for the project at-hand. PMI also offers Resources for the New Work Ecosystem – a variety of free resources and virtual events to help build skills and prepare to advance in a post-COVID-19 world.

With properly equipped and skilled employees, executives can create teams that are perfectly poised to change an organization as we move through uncertain times. “There are a lot of forces driving change,” Garrett explains, “and we’re going to continue to see more shocks to the system. It will be imperative that we proactively address these shocks rather than simply react to them. Change makers at every level, driving change forward, will continue to be indispensable to organizations in times like these.”