This week, I received a request for an interview for an industry website. I was asked to write answers to five questions on my change experience and practices.
One question made me pause: “What personal qualities and skills have helped you to lead a change management effort?” I speak about the importance of people taking stock of their strengths before they work through a change. It reminds them how to show up and what they can lean on if times get tough.
Here is my master list of qualities and capabilities. I wrote about the first four in my article.
Empathy: Putting yourself in other people’s shoes, being aware of how people are perceiving a change and why they feel this way.
Interpersonal Skills: Creating quality relationships and connections. Solid relationships lead to trust, which lead to collaboration and partnership.
Perspective: Seeing the forest and the trees, seeing the big picture and focusing on small details at the same time.
Priority Setting: Identifying the important activities and issues in a sea of urgent ones.
Action Orientation: Getting things done versus just talking about them or being paralyzed by information overload.
Tenacity: Pushing through challenges, like resistance to a change, until they are overcome.
Focus: Concentrating on goals and performing your role without getting distracted by the dynamics around you.
Communication: Getting across your ideas to diverse groups of people.
Planning: Mapping how you get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ including who needs to do what, when.
Agility: Responding quickly to new opportunities and challenges.
Personal Learning: Identifying what works and what doesn’t and being able to apply knowledge to different environments.
What I learned from writing the article is that taking stock of my strengths is just as beneficial in the middle of a change initiative as it is at the beginning. It resets you to where you need to be.
It’s a good reminder of how to show up and what I can lean on if times get tough.
Phil
