Change Management: when it happens to you

Since I started working in IT, I’ve been involved in so many different projects; most of them where related to business and therefore a consistent user population was involved. IT projects, either they have in scope just a system change or system and business processes, have a side effect: they change someone’s life.

Normally it’s the professional life that changes in the sense that the way people had always worked now turns out to be different: a new system jumps in, a process is modified or introduced, people must be trained, they need to learn this new process and the new applications to perform, exactly, the same activities. So, it’s quite normal that they ask to themselves: why do I need to change the way I used to work, it’s more complicated, it takes more time to me to do the same things I was used to do in one third of the time. So, what did I get from this project?

At this point it’s when the fabulous Change Management comes in. It’s really important, I believe in Change Management applied (for good) to projects because it lets you engage people, get their buy-in, explain to people why they have to do something that someone else, much above their heads, one day decided to do. After 25+ years of experience in IT projects I can, definitely, state that Change Management saved my career several times.

But this is all related to professional life. Is Change Management applicable to personal life, your personal projects, your personal critical situations?

Honestly, I had never asked this question to myself until something new, and totally unexpected happened in my life. All of a sudden though.

Here we go. This is the beginning of my “Tale Of the Unexpected”.

Once upon a time, no-no-no, it wasn’t one upon a time. It was December the 29th 2023 around 7:00 AM I got up and…had no voice. A serious, huge dysphonia materialised from the outer space. When I tried to talk, I blew like a cat instead of speaking like a human. Nobody could hear me on the phone, in video call and even face to face. Whenever I was in a noisy place like a restaurant or a place with many people, I felt alone in the middle of everyone. Alone and lonely with my silence. Both my personal and professional life where immediately and highly impacted by this issue of mine. I waited for ten days but nothing happened. “Difficult diagnosis”: this is what I heard after those ten days.

I then asked to myself: “And now what do I do? Will I remain voiceless? What will happen to my professional life and my career? How can I socialize?”

One day you’re happy and the day after you go to hell risking a deep depression that can degenerate to neurotic disorders.

But as a (former and allow me to say good) Project Manager, I remembered that there is that little, tiny thing called Change Management; could it be able to help me if I use it like I’ve done so many times in the past? Yes, it did and finally I succeeded.

First: look at the situation not as an issue but as an opportunity (btw, I learned how to properly speak, actually for the second time in my life I learned to speak, I learned how to use my body and my mouth to speak, I learned how to massage my neck, and all the related muscles involved in speaking). So, I defined the scope and explained to myself why I had been given that fantastic privilege of “being quiet” or, using today’s digital language, being “muted”

Second: set up a team. I used my network (thank God I have a broad network) and was able to set-up a stellar team: Super ENT, strong and empathetic speech therapist, voice osteopath super experienced with singers and musicians

Third: be as humble as possible to ask for help during the dark tunnel of being “muted” by something totally unknown. Psychological support, family support, colleagues support

Forth: Define a “collateral” objective to the main objective of “quickly healing”. My main achievement and takeaway from this situation was that I was able to rally “feel” what a disability means. Now, I have highly increased my respect for people who have a whatsoever disability simply because I lived for four months in a bubble; I should say it was a vacuum. And I learned that messages like whatsapp etc. do not replace voice and words. Believe me, talking to people via message is like eating totally flavourless food

Long story short:

1. Change Management is imperative, it worked even for my personal situation
2. Be strong by being humble, open to learn and tackle any situations with calm looking at it from a positive point of view. Especially when you are in those distress moments
3. Patience is your teammate; take it by the hand and walk with it hand in hand
4. Listen to everyone, accept each and every opinion but at the end take your decision in the silence of your bedroom
5. Whatever happens you’ll be another person, you’ll see things from a different point of view, you’ll result more skilled and experienced than before. Therefore, you will be able to transfer your new knowledge to someone else
6. Apply everything in your professional life