Transformation & Leadership - Insider Tips

What is the leadership role that a project manager needs to play to navigate the complexities in today’s business environment? A cheerleader, a manager or the captain of the team. Is that a constant or needs to be adapted according to the situation?

In order to answer these questions, let’s take a cue from the medical industry. A varying ECG shows we are healthy and a seemingly straight line shows we aren’t. Even an ECG has to keep changing to show everything is fine, so how about ourselves: do we change or remain the same?

When we internalise change, we would be less anxious about the external changes as we are countering the external changes by our own internal force of change, so instead of showing inertia as in the Newton’s First Law, we are actually playing along with the change activating a Force multiplier!

Having established beyond doubt that change is vital, we could explore the reality that we have reached a point of inflection, wherein technology adoption has increased so exponentially that human processes have not been able to catch up. In all this, what does the Project Manager do or change to make his projects click?

Well, the key lies in making the human connections work! No matter what structures we put in place, what latest technologies we adopt, what new management principles we adopt, the improvisations will fall flat if the human factor is discounted. A Gallup study in 2020, showed that only around 15% of global workforce is effectively engaged at work. So how do Project Managers address this huge gap? How do they keep the team engaged, improve team productivity at the office or in a Work-from-home scenario and ensure fulfilment of project outcomes?

It all boils down to the Project Manager’s relationship with the team. It becomes all the more important that the PM is capable of seamlessly transitioning across the roles as a cheerleader, a manager and the captain of the team so that the team feels more engaged, empowered at all times and never feels let down.

A Project Manager as a cheerleader encourages the team to keep looking for ideas and solutions for challenges, cheers them on and creates a supportive work environment.

As a Manager, the PM establishes the structure of work, working on the communications, allocating resources, exhibiting accountability and responsibility for the Team performance.

As a Captain of the Team, the PM leads the Team from the front, navigating effectively through conflicts, facing challenges head on gaining the Team’s trust and respect.

These roles keep evolving and the Project Manager also needs to evolve as per the situations at hand, humanizing their interactions so they become more collaborative rather than transactional in nature. Instead of the conventional roles and responsibilities, the new age roles equip the new age leaders better to complete their projects successfully and lead their teams to success.

When the concept of Agility was incorporated into Project Management Professional Certification a few years ago, the addition seemed like the beginning of the way the world was evolving. However, looking back it has been the best and the most important change that has become more relevant than ever before in this uncertain business landscape. We see that agility has not just touched businesses but even our personal and professional lives, making it an all-encompassing phenomenon. Our life itself is now depending on how well we thrive amidst sweeping changes – how agile we are to rapidly changing circumstances! It is but natural that I chose to write about ‘being agile’ from the individual level rather than just for the businesses.

What we need to be AGILE going forward?

1. Open mindset (Acceptance) – Making peace with the fact that changes are going to be more, frequent and more disruptive is the first step. We could reduce the levels of emotional stimulations caused by difficult changes by practising acceptance
2. Proactiveness – Predict the change and be prepared rather than waiting out the turn of events. It gives a sense of victory even if we fail because at least we succeeded in predicted something and were not shocked by disruptions. It is akin to upskilling in upcoming fields like block chain, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, keeping in mind the trends in the industry.
3. Experiential learning – Practising deliberately to learn from experiences and sharing them as insights could be so valuable in terms of uplifting self and empowering others through our thoughts.
4. Work-life Agility – By redefining self, exploring possibilities and making choices for adapting to circumstances, we could walk the tight rope of work-life balance. The more and more we reinvent ourselves, make radically different choices to find solutions to challenges, the less and less stressful change is going to be.
5. Experimentation and Innovation – Individualism has garnered so much significance in the 21^st century and even in businesses we increasingly see mass customization rather than mass production of a single product. Innovation is key, therefore, to unlock the potential of changing customer choices and preferences. It goes without saying that Innovation has an impact on a personal level too in terms of influencing our everyday choices.
6. Throwing in moments of quietude and wise passivity everyday – Moments of stillness and wise passivity could be more energising and rejuvenating that could possibly fill our emotional banks, present us with an opportunity to accept anything, make us ready to embrace change and take any challenges head on.

People, as individuals, teams and even businesses are increasingly keeping their choices open, embracing open mindsets because it has become very clear than anything is possible and anything can happen. Though it may sound difficult most times, it seems to be the way around to handle the challenges that come with sweeping changes. Technology has been put to great use, almost stretched in fact, to accommodate the work-from-home scenario and innovations cropped up to find turnarounds from the business impacts that were caused.

Learning to be agile and practising agility has become the new recipe for keeping our balance and going one step further, for attaining success in this ever transforming world for both individuals and businesses alike.

Be AGILE, BALANCED and CHANGE-SEEKING - the ABC in today's uncertain world.

Today when the external circumstances and rapid changes are so overwhelming, it makes absolute sense to pause and find ways to deal with the change. We could either cope or counter the CHANGE, resistance is the most obvious reaction. But is there really a way to not just combat the change but use this change to our advantage?

Some of the inspiring experiential accounts of people we have come across in recent times suggest there might be some ways. When faced with uncertainties externally, the efforts to change one’s own inner workings, evolving ourselves may help in discounting the external changes and its effects.

Never miss a good crisis it is said. A crisis is an opportunity to contemplate on the true purpose of our life. There are times in life when we feel the way to redefine our actions and redefine ourselves. Times like these are the ones that bring out the best in us. Embarking on the journey within, on a journey of self-evolution is no easy task but it has the potential to even serve as an antidote to overwhelming change or uncertainty. It is highly likely that if we are busy developing ourselves, working on identifying our passions, then the failings or unpredictability of the world outside may even go unnoticed and not worth giving attention to. In unprecedented times, it is only prudent to choose our priorities and battles wisely.

Casting our influence on the territory beyond our control doesn’t work but what might work which is well within our purview is our territory – our body, our mind and our soul. Building our inner world is the need of the hour, changing our perspectives; our inner map might hold the key to myriad possibilities. When was the last time we had indulged ourselves in a hobby? When was the last time we did have all the time in the world? Some of us were busy being BUSY. Now is the time we have to make that fresh start on this journey of discovering ourselves, finding what we stand for, what we enjoy doing, determining what we are made of, how are we serving ourselves and others? So of all the lessons that we could take away from this crisis, it is this lesson that holds the most promise –

‘Self-evolution is an art which when painted on the canvas of life makes all the external changes seem insignificant and immaterial. Every journey in life starts from within.’

So let’s start redefining ourselves in these moments of truth, moments of contemplation and redefine CHANGE itself!

CHANGE could very well stand for - Convert Habits and Adapt Now to Gain Effectiveness!

The world that we are facing today is so rapidly changing that leaders need a whole new range of skill sets, mindset and heartset in order to survive in this ‘Age of Flux’. It is not only required to change rapidly and adapt to the situations at hand but also change for the better being forward looking rather than resting on past laurels or basing decisions on what worked earlier. There exists an incessant need to – Change fast, Change FORWARD!  So how is this possible? Let's look at some strategies.

1. Ringing in change as the change leader - As a leader look for opportunities where you could influence key changes at the macro-level at the organization so that the environment, people and/or culture are made conducive to changes in the future.
2. Being  a continuous learner, constantly upgrading and up-skilling are  sure shot ways of staying ahead of the curve
3. Thought Leadership – Be a frontrunner in getting your views across platforms that will set you apart as a thought leader and subject matter expert and go-to person in the chosen field
4. Making conscious efforts to be as centered as possible through various centering exercises such as meditation since sometimes the situations could be highly demanding and overwhelming and it needs leaders to respond appropriately as well as being decisive irrespective of their present state of mind or situation
5. Bring about that internal shift in mindset to embrace change, as tomorrow is never going to be the same as yesterday or even today
6. Being compassionate to self, team and stakeholders will be a vital aspect of continuous fruitful engagement of all stakeholders
7. Keeping your true north intact while tiding over challenges so that there are no regrets for one’s actions
8. Having a clear vision for yourself, your team and your organization and constantly evaluate the standings vis-à-vis unfolding scenarios such as the current work-from-home model adopted by most companies and likely future scenarios

Such an eclectic approach with changes to the skill set, mindset and heartset might possibly be a game-changer and augur well for leaders to Change FAST and Change FORWARD and constantly stay ahead in facing challenges of the 21^st century workspace.

Today the most widely seen and heard term is ‘the NEW normal’ that is believed to be a very disruptive change, emerging from the Covid-19 crisis. What is this ‘NEW normal’? What relevance has it got to our way of being in general, at the workplace, home-front or at the societal level?

This article is aimed at helping us address key issues that arise in a crisis, including facing the new reality, being our true authentic selves at work and home, leading from our true north (holding important things that really matter), digging deep for the root causes and adapting to the new normal.

A crisis comes when we least expect it. So it helps if we are proactive and start predicting the probable risk scenarios, however far-fetched they maybe. The current situation has undoubtedly taught us important lessons in Risk and Crisis management:

1. Keeping the road ahead in sight - There is a need to look at the broader implications of the crisis and what you can do and what are the scenarios you can anticipate
2. Stepping up - We have to appreciate the implications of what's going on, no matter how terrible it is. It could throw out all our plans. Everything could be falling apart but we need to realize that we have to step up to that crisis. 
3. Understanding the new reality as an outcome of a crisis - It is a new reality we're looking at. And the reality is we don't really fully understand it. But we've got to dive in and do the best we can and understand, who's going to be impacted by this crisis and what role do we and our organization have in helping ourselves as well as our customers and stakeholders sail through this crisis?
4. Building resilience and bouncing back from tough situations through effective crisis management and leading through crisis

The world today is beginning to embrace the Ubuntu philosophy. It is often translated as "I am because we are," or "humanity towards others," in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity."

According to Michael Onyebuchi Eze, the core of ubuntu can best be summarised as follows:

'A person is a person through other people' strikes an affirmation of one’s humanity through recognition of an ‘other’ in his or her uniqueness and difference. Humanity is a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and need to sustain this otherness creation. And if we belong to each other, we participate in our creations: we are because you are, and since you are, definitely I am.

Major learnings in overcoming the anxiety barrier and ensuring our emotional well-being when we carry on with our daily activities, stepping out of homes - with masks & with social distancing include:

1. Facing the reality of the 'new' normal and acceptance of the same seems to be the first step.

2. Boosting the morale of all stakeholders in our life, be it personal or professional, is a challenge, however connecting to each one of them on a personal level through genuine enquiries about their well-being and about their near & dear, their families seems to break that anxiety barrier in others.

3. Expressing one's own vulnerability in this scenario seems relatable to everyone

4. Sharing own experiences wherein one had been able to successfully take the mind-off the situation by immersing in absorbing activities be it learning, hobbies etc which resulted in a boost to one's emotional well being

5. Being grateful for the most important things in life - health and relationships

6. Choosing more transformational and/or relational social interactions over transactional ones.

 The above could serve as an inspiration for self and our efforts in enabling all our stakeholders to overcome anxiety and  face the world in a new light.

In short, predicting the NEW normal by co-creating it seems to be the mantra of surviving this crisis. And finally, let’s remember to live by ‘Ubuntu’ – I am because we are!