by Originally published on LinkedIn
I think it’s hard to stop working and engage yourself in training. But, that task is much easier when you’re doing it with a group of people in similar roles who must also step away from Microsoft Teams and Outlook to learn and enrich themselves, their careers, and–ultimately–the experience. When it’s sometimes so easy to feel connected to work, projects, and our teams, shutting down the “work” part of our brain and turning on the “learning” part of our brain is a welcome and–almost forgotten–challenge.
My role within Accenture’s Internal IT organization falls into the change management arena. If you’re not familiar with change management, it involves managing the people side of organizational change: to make them aware of the reasons for the change and see them through the journey of the change to ensure it’s successful. Like many of my colleagues in this space, I’ve learned my skills on the job. So, when Prosci Change Management Certification was offered to a group of us, we jumped at the opportunity.
Prosci is the leader in organizational change research. Our master instructor had a lifetime of on-the-job change management experience to share with us. She expertly walked us through all the aspects of organizational change from beginning to end, using Prosci’s ADKAR® model. We talked about real-life scenarios in our current work, and created plans to address change projects we wanted to accomplish.
As the title of the article suggests, one of my most significant takeaways was, itself, derived from the group learning experience. I wasn’t just learning with them, I was learning from them, and about them. For three full days, we explored the characteristics of successful best practices, shared stories, and gave thoughtful opinions. In that time, for many of us who hadn’t had much exposure to one another, we began fostering relationships that we’ll continue to grow–as we continue to develop our skills.
I left the training a certified Prosci Change Management Professional–along with my esteemed colleagues. But, just as importantly, I left with a more extensive network of co-workers with whom I will continue to connect as we apply the skills we learned from Prosci…and from each other.
