Step 2: World grinding to a halt... ., while tackling dragons

Contents: 1. Thought of the week, 2. Change practitioner Story, 3. Top List

Check out Step 1 for an introduction to this series, Link.

Thought of the week ... Knowledge vs. experience

We are living in a world that values both knowledge and experience. While it's hard to say which one comes higher in demand there are certain situations where one or other help to make productive steps. In January 2020 I decided to give in my notice with one of my consultancy jobs, opening up a two-month career switch training time. This was in a sense a two-month bridge that would take me from business owner and manager to the starting of a new career in Change management. I started my journey over the experience and knowledge gap on the 16th march, which was also the same day as The Netherlands lockdown in response to Covid-19. The world was steadily coming to a grinding halt, while I tackle my dragons. These taking the form of being essentially jobless, my own rental business temporarily shutting down due to regulations, locked at home with my multitude of studies, while being brutally aware that the world I had designed my plans around was quickly disappearing, the new world order also yet to reveal itself.

Due to the nature of my plan, I started to deeply question what the value of knowledge and experience was. Were they equal? How do you build knowledge in a job scarce climate where everybody is working from home. And, where to put the years of experience teaching, performing, coaching, consulting, creating and growing teams within the business's I had managed. These core skills are useful for everything, but would other people see their value when I apply for change management roles? Maybe more important, do I value the skills I myself have created over the years? It's easy to underestimate our own potential, and I imagine I am not alone here. I am intrigued to your answer, fellow traveller, I would be honoured if you share a comment.

So what about the experience? My experience says that Knowledge gets you in the door, the amount of applicable experience is used to choose one candidate over another. What is applicable comes down to an interviewer (or recruiters) requirements and own idea of norms for the professional position they seek to fill. It's understandable, they are humans too, and when dealing with heavy workloads there need to be some accountability rules that also help cut down the list of candidates to likely position fillers. But many others and I myself face situations where our previous experience isn't seen to count. There is a natural efficiency mechanism in our brains that we can forget experiences that have been done so many times they become a habit. If you ever feel this way, I suggest you try introducing yourself in different ways when meeting someone new. This helps to get a feel of others perception and what you feel fits your current position. When I mention having been a professional dancer, people don't see anything more than a somewhat cliched image. Cancelling out many skills that were grown through heavy investment. If I start off with manager or business owner there are other assumptions that come into play. All are true but what's important is to portray the best image that makes contact with the audience you are trying to reach, from a place you yourself as an individual can identify with. While elevator pitches are somewhat dated they can be a useful tool to begin showing yourself and the intrinsic value that comes with your experience.

Knowledge's value in our present society is also hard to fathom. When I added my Bachelor of business administration to my LinkedIn profile a few years ago, it instantly changed LinkedIn's view of my capabilities, suddenly I had many more chances at jobs. My intrinsic value was seen to rise. This happened again when I added my Master of Human resources management. FYI, professional practical qualifications don't make an ounce of difference. Strange when you consider that often good at studying doesn't mean you are good on the job, but professional qualifications like Project management, Lean, Six Sigma, change management etc, certainly set you up for it. Knowledge seems only to be important if you don't have it, otherwise, it becomes another notch in your CV. Over the Corona time I kept up a steady pace of starting, completing and earning certificates for training focused on Change management, HRM, project management and facility management. It gave me a lifeline of sanity and a place I could hide (and exhaust) my overactive brain. I have recently begun to move these value-adding qualifications because they don't actually add value, but instead confusion. So personally I conclude that knowledge is useful for the first steps but if you are a bit learning crazy like me, the showing of it on a CV or LinkedIn profile becomes limited, but the application of it in all that I do has unimaginable value. The various people in the organisations I work for don't realise the extent of it, but the first step in this is to value it myself.

Story: Origins...

For me personally, I had my own strong wish to earn a degree, this was due to having to have a potentially fatal operation in the middle of my second year of a law degree way back when. They operated around the balance organ and brain leaving me unable to walk or focus. Over 8 month's, I trained myself to walk again and back into action, but the marks I would get for the year would be too low. I had already been working as a professional Argentine tango dancer from the age of 16, a profession that took all my time that wasn't college and later the start of a degree. Headed for a career as a Barrister, I flip turned, and followed my other passion, I became a professional dancer, later director of a dance company, choreographer, studio owner, with world tours and much more. The knowledge that autodidactically clung to me was a huge boost and my dancing career took off because of my ability to learn, my school gained knowledge was either not enough for other professions or mostly not used. Together with seven other professional teachers in the UK, I pioneered new tango scenes in more than 9 cities and supporting many more in the UK and abroad. Funnily enough, my 2 years of sitting in courtrooms during my free periods at college meant more to this new profession than some of the education I received.

In 2014 I started my company Iwi, a rental company built on sustainability. It began with a dance studio and ended up having a portfolio of more than 30 buildings in its portfolio. Since Brexit and then Corona it's been put into hibernation mode until the dream can be further realised. We had many small and medium-sized organisations rent with us due to the good prices and community building we proactively cultivated in each of our buildings. I saw more and more businesses struggling because of basic issues that could be helped with goal definition, governance and communication structuring, planning for future, HR and of course permanent business locations that would actually suit their purpose and needs, hard to find if these aren't clearly defined. The realisation that so many organisations struggle with the same things, lead to me designing the first I:DNA model, actually a universal tool to bring the wealth of big business practice and knowledge to smaller organisations and made accessible. A lot of learning and knowledge creation went into this, but also practical experience organically adding itself to the mix. Together with my team, we further developed and tested the I:DNA tool on more than 100 individuals, projects and organisations in consultation, adding the fine-tuning as we went.

I realised I needed to get more experience of other organisations on a deeper level than I experienced in my consultations. I wanted to feel first hand how it was to be in the teams which lead me to work as team coordinator of a Grande cafe &Advocaten office two years ago. I was inspired by a colleague to look deeper into subjects like Togaf, organisational government, effective KPI and KRA creation. After 6 months I had created governance, processes and planning to make the organisation more efficient and cost-effective. It was clear to me that what the team needed was a pure sales addition and until certain cultural norms changed in the business, my role was obsolete. I was invited to become the business manager of a Cultuur centre in Den Bosch. My experience with I:DNA and the previous location was put to good use. Giving form and structure to governance, writing business plans, personnel plans, processes for PR and sales was again necessary. With gusto we got this designed but the onset of Covid-19 meant unfortunately that we didn't make it to the implementation phase. But there was a pattern forming, and already in January 2020 I realised I had reached the ceiling of the smaller business world and needed to make a new step, and since April 2020 this took me to a career switch and Change management.

In conclusion, I would personally create my knowledge and experience by doing. Getting things done, researching when you don't know and if your lucky having mentors around who can coach and inspire you asking them too. This dividing of Knowledge and experience is artificial, a means to an end. Ask yourself what your own personal ideal would be, we are all different in this. But I imagine that learning by doing, being able to make some mistakes and having a knowledgeable-experienced someone(s) would always make all the difference. Last but not least, look back at what you have created (not only in work), acknowledge your ability, the knowledge that fills your cognitive hours and the experience that guides the others. I am still very much on the journey of realising what is on the road behind me, useful when finding a bridge to the other side.

Top 8 list

1. Prosci practitioner manual, many of you will have this already and apologies to those of you who don't for the tease. The practitioner training is well worth doing.
2. Lean, Six Sigma, people and organisations, great article for getting a feel of Lean. It introduces the concept of continual change which is being taken up by many an organisation in these times and will have its effects of change management projects. Lean six sigma together are present in many manufacturing organisations but the concepts that have been developed are applicable in so many places due to the sheer practicality. I can really recommend doing the Green belt. You can choose between Six sigma or Lean six sigma, Article link
3. Introduction video to Prince 2, I found this super useful as a taster and introduction of the Prince 2 training's. Same as Lean, Prince 2 project management framework will certainly impact change management and therefore the more understanding we can get of any project management theory the more we are able to understand the place project managers are coming from and how to get them engaged. For some the training is vital and for others not working in a Prince 2 environment youtube videos like this are great, Link

1. John Kotter's book 'Leading change' is extremely well written and shifts a lot of the ways new practitioners might think about change management. I had already 6 light bulb moments in the first 3 chapters. I thought it would be an easy reading book but I find myself noting down true nuggets of gold.
2. A murder mystery of change, Ken Blanchards 'Who killed change?'. A wonderfully easy book to read and some great takeaways. Thoroughly enjoyable and it underpinned a lot of the basic theory of Kotter, ADKAR, and some self-awareness building exercises to boot.
3. Upcoming week of change webinars hosted and organised by @Change management network. With a huge range of topics there is something for everyone. Link
4. An article introducing the less glamorous side of change, Harvard business blogs 'The hard side of change management'. Sometimes it's good to get a reality check. I found articles like this also inspiring. If change came easy, what is the need for change managers? We are busy learning, developing and realising a profession, some challenge is good news but maybe not to all, Link

I am a little further than the beginning, not quite at the end and little surprises along the road keep me constantly entertained. Join me in 'Bridging the Gap' step 3. Spread the word fellow traveller,

Greetings Isolde