You know the story. The Scarecrow had a brain. The Lion had courage. The Tin Man had a heart. Dorothy had a home. Sure, they had to battle some witches and flying monkeys before they realized it, but hey, who hasn’t? Classic tale of navigating life.
My Wizard appeared in 2015 as a recruiter for an open Change Management Consultant position. It was a nice fall day when I pulled over on Garfield Road, not the Yellow Brick Road, to take the preliminary interview call that would change my life.
As we walked through the required experience—stakeholder management, risk analysis, strategic planning, communication, training—I realized I had been in Human Change / Project Management all along.
During that conversation, my mind wandered back to one of my favorite projects—organizing our hometown parade. For three years, I’d kick off the project on a cold March day, just as our minds began to dream of warmer days ahead. Typical planning deliverables: establish a budget, build the team, engage stakeholders, draft communications, develop timelines, etc.
The first year, having received a box of records from which to recreate the wheel year after year, I also conducted my first digital transformation. In 2004 that consisted of simply converting paper records to spreadsheets. This seemingly simple change was also my first introduction to change resistance. “Who wouldn’t want to improve paper records and reinventing the wheel every year?”, I remember thinking. Silly me.
Another key lesson in those early days was the importance of sharing lessons learned from project to project. Little things like how many participants expect to be in the very front (all of them), which had long-standing feuds and shouldn’t be near each other, and the importance of not putting the marching band behind the equestrian team. Little things.
Fast forward to a warm Sunday in mid-July. Go Live.
Parade Day. Time to execute the plans. The usual last minute changes are managed. Recognitions are made. Team celebrations are held. Debriefings are done. Reports are submitted. The project closes for the season. Another successful parade.
So you see, I had been following my yellow brick road all along.
If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?”
Dorothy
Shannon Vasko is a natural-born planner with a passion for strategy and integrated communications. © MI Compass Services.
