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Project Innovators: How to professionalise through collaboration · Project Podcast

0:02
Welcome to the IPM podcast. APM is the charted body for the
0:06
project profession. Hi, I'm Emma divita, the editor
0:10
project apm's quarterly journal in this our project innovators
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season of podcasts. I'm speaking to project
0:17
professionals who are leading projects in a negative way is a
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time where many of us are hoping the world of work and projects
0:23
can be reset in a better way for a post covid World.
0:27
In this episode, we'll be meeting Joe Stanford.
0:30
Head of corporate portfolio office At arm's length body
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health education England to talk about how she's going about
0:37
leading the collaborative development of the project
0:39
profession in the NHS. It's no mean feat.
0:43
Not only is she trying to knit together a network of an
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estimated 10,000 project managers across 250 NHS
0:49
organizations but she needs to identify who is doing the
0:52
project work in the first place. It's a tall mountain to climb
0:56
but the Ultimate Prize is not only to further professionalize
0:59
project management with the NHS. And have it better recognize
1:03
within the organization and accorded a proper identity, but
1:07
to create a collaborative network of support.
1:09
Best practice and a culture of taking project management
1:13
training and accreditation. Seriously, Joe is a true
1:17
innovator. And there are many lessons
1:19
others can learn from her about how to raise the status of
1:22
project management within organizations, formalizing and
1:25
professionalizing it and creating a strong network of
1:28
supported peers. I spoke to Joan mid-December and
1:32
we pick up the conversation when she tells you a bit about the
1:35
program. She's leading.
1:39
Hi Jay, thanks for finding the time to talk to us.
1:41
How are you? I'm great.
1:43
Thank you. I'm really happy to chat.
1:46
Great. Well, I know we've picked up it
1:48
close to your heart. Could you explain a little bit
1:50
about the task? You set yourself and the context
1:53
in which you're working? Yeah.
1:55
So having sort of worked in other professions that worked in
2:00
the Arts, the private sector, and sort of central government
2:03
before coming into the NHS. I was really surprised to find
2:08
that. Um there was no coordinated
2:11
project profession in the NHS and no organization responsible
2:16
for the 10,000 plus project Workforce, and their development
2:21
and training. And that to me seemed like a
2:26
really risky State given that the how huge the NHS is and how
2:32
complex, and how constantly evolving the system is.
2:37
And so, you know, in my role, as head of project, profession for
2:41
health education England, I contributed to the development
2:45
of the project profession for the Civil Service, as part of
2:49
the heads of profession Steering group, and that was made up of
2:53
head to profession from Department of Health and Social
2:55
care and the other arms like bodies.
2:59
However, the Civil Service Frameworks don't apply in the
3:03
NHS. It's a wholly.
3:04
Separate, ident entity from government.
3:08
So in order for us to implement a similar professional
3:11
framework, we need to adapt it for for the NHS.
3:17
And so, I volunteered to lead that work with the other arm's
3:23
length bodies and starting is sort of 2016.
3:28
I started leading on the NHS project profession program.
3:32
The program itself has sort of nine work streams and that's
3:36
including Operational model, and framework, the competency and
3:42
capability framework Learning and Development for the
3:46
profession, including for apprenticeship programs, online
3:50
and Regional communities of practice.
3:52
And there's a really key element around, Workforce data and
3:55
Analysis, and part of that is about improving equality and
4:00
diversity in the profession like many parts of well, public
4:06
sector, and private. At sector the balance of
4:09
equality. And diversity is not good in the
4:14
more senior or strategic roles and we want to really change
4:18
that and we want to really open up opportunities for everybody
4:22
to really make the most of their talent.
4:28
And so as part, as well as that talent management, and then
4:32
things like events and conferences, and that then forms
4:35
a whole sort of Ecosystem for the profession, then in the NHS.
4:41
Why is this so close to your heart?
4:43
Why does it matter so much to be doing this at heee?
4:47
I think there's two key. Things one is, I fundamentally
4:52
believe in the human rights to health and that that should be
4:59
available and open to everybody and it, you know, irrespective
5:04
of wealth or status or ethnicity or gender.
5:09
I think it should be something that is a fundamental human,
5:15
right? And therefore, for me and having
5:20
a real All kind of sense of purpose for my life and
5:23
something that I think adds value for the time that I'm
5:26
here, I want to leave a legacy that leave something leaves the
5:30
world, a bit better than when I came into it.
5:34
And for me, keeping the NHS sustainable future Generations,
5:39
that seems a very worthy cause to put my time and effort into.
5:43
And why would you consider what you're doing to be inevitable?
5:46
Because I certainly do That is very kind of you to say.
5:50
So, I think I have to have to admit that anything that I've
5:57
done has been through my learning from others who are
6:01
really leading the way in Innovation.
6:02
So, I've been really inspired by some some really amazing figures
6:07
out there. So I think that some of the
6:10
insights for me, were from people like Eddie.
6:13
Oh bang. Who runs the pentacle virtual
6:17
business school? So creating that virtual world
6:21
of cube, where you kind of work and collaborate in a kind of 3D
6:25
World in a really engaging meaningful way.
6:27
We've been working in that way, for the last three or four years
6:31
and that really helps to deliver transformation in a
6:36
collaborative way from anywhere. And that's that, that's a
6:40
fantastic Insight but also learning from him about the
6:43
future and that the world is changing faster than we are
6:47
learning in. Adapting to it and being mindful
6:50
of that. It's about how do we keep
6:54
learning and evolving and keeping up with new
6:56
developments. So that's a key element.
6:59
One of my project Heroes is Steven, Carver who is, you know,
7:04
brilliant not just at the technicalities of project
7:06
management but also when projects go wrong and he's a
7:09
fantastic Storyteller. And, you know, the profession
7:13
needs charismatic figures like him to really bring home.
7:18
Values in the profession ads. You know he he lectures on the
7:22
project leadership program at Cranfield, one of one of my
7:26
close kind of Inspirations has been dr.
7:29
Tom watch horn, who was The Innovation lead for national
7:34
service? Has Scotland in the NHS and she
7:38
is well as a facilitator and tutor in Cube.
7:42
Also delivers Innovation, using things like Lego serious play.
7:49
And she's helping us to deliver a five-day hackathon.
7:54
Using Lego series play at project Community Festival that
7:58
we're running apprenticeship week in February and that's
8:02
going to be tackling real current and HS issues.
8:06
And so that's really fantastic. Practical problem-solving stuff
8:11
that helps really transform how we deal with issues.
8:15
And then for me there's something really fundamental
8:17
about understanding yourself and understanding leadership.
8:22
And so for me having a really fantastic and effective team is
8:28
about how I work as a manager and a leader and so so the work
8:34
of Dan pink around motivating, teams hand, Daniel goleman
8:39
around emotional intelligence and a lot of the work around
8:44
applied Euro. Science for Effective change.
8:47
I think those are all really fundamental things that project
8:51
managers and leaders should have in their toolkit.
8:54
And it's all of those kind of elements, combined learning from
8:58
others. Learning from the great work
9:00
that's been going on in lots of different areas, pulling that
9:03
together and tackling what is effectively a very big and
9:06
complex challenge in the NHS where this hasn't been done
9:10
before. And so that's that all of those
9:14
people. And those, those people have led
9:15
the way in their different fields have really helped
9:18
inspire me to give me the confidence to try and make that
9:22
change happen in the NHS. If you got any advice for
9:26
project leaders who are inspired by the work of others and who
9:29
need to turn that inspiration and to form of experimentation,
9:32
which could be daunting. There's always a risk.
9:35
I think it won't work or you won't have the outcome, you
9:38
intended. It sounds as though you're
9:40
taking those risks and a happy to experiment.
9:42
So is there any advice you could pass on about how Do that.
9:46
I think there's a couple key things around.
9:47
That one is about building in time to experiment.
9:52
So I have a team of nine that work.
9:56
Very closely with me in the portfolio office day-to-day and
10:00
as well. As some additional, folks we
10:03
come together and we have a to our learning development session
10:06
every week where we experimentation, we we come
10:10
together. We bring new challenges, new
10:13
ways of working. And that's a safe space to do
10:19
that, testing and experimenting and learning and then we refine
10:23
it. We find what works for us.
10:24
And also we then look at applying that to other teams and
10:29
other programs. So spreading that learning and
10:33
one of the great things about working in Cube is that we can
10:37
work in there as a team, testing things out and experimenting and
10:42
then pass that on by working with other teams in that space.
10:45
Well, the other thing that's fundamental to it, is building a
10:49
culture that is a learning culture, that is a coaching
10:54
culture, that's about openness and honesty.
10:57
And that is about testing and experimentation.
11:03
And therefore, if you knew, if you build a team who work in
11:08
that way then you know, anything you try is okay and you just,
11:13
you just take the learning from It.
11:15
And you look to see how you can apply that in a way, that makes
11:20
a difference. In order to do this, people have
11:23
to accept that failures. Okay.
11:25
So how hard is it for you to convince your colleagues that
11:27
it's okay to make mistakes? It's okay to experiment.
11:31
I think the thing is, you know, it's kind of doing away with the
11:33
word failure because you know I don't think it necessarily helps
11:39
the cause and the thing about experimenting is that you're not
11:44
necessarily Implementing something in a big sweeping way
11:49
that could potentially go wrong. The point about experimenting is
11:52
you're doing it in a in a small and safe way that tests out what
11:57
works and what doesn't and you know Thomas Edison very
12:01
famously. Sort of said it's not that I
12:03
failed. It's just that I found 10,000
12:05
ways that don't work and them and it's the same thing about
12:11
engendering a, an idea of curiosity.
12:15
And testing and refining. And if you try something out and
12:19
it didn't do what you expected to do.
12:21
You take the learning from that and go, oh, that was
12:23
interesting. You know what can we do to do
12:25
that differently. So it really is a mindset thing
12:30
and and and when you when you look at it that way, you know,
12:34
sometimes it's not that you don't make mistakes because
12:36
sometimes you say things that come out the right way or you do
12:39
something that has unintended consequences things, you hadn't
12:43
planned for and I think Something like that happens.
12:46
You just holding hands up accounts.
12:47
Go say I'm really sorry. That's not what I thought was
12:50
going to happen there. You know, and you you kind of
12:55
explain what you wanted to do and you're open and honest about
12:58
it. And, you know, people are from,
13:01
you know, very accepting and forgiving of things like that.
13:05
And I think if you've got honesty and integrity and the
13:08
best interests of people that heart, I think, you know, people
13:11
are very forgiving. If something doesn't always turn
13:14
out quite as Planned, how far along your program?
13:17
Are you Joe? And what if you manage to
13:20
achieve so far? So, it's a big program
13:24
obviously. And so, we've sort of chunked it
13:27
up, and the program has three key phases over five years and
13:35
we're in the middle of phase two.
13:36
At the moment, we have excluded 2020 from the time frame.
13:42
You know, that it had a significant impact on Engagement
13:46
and progress this year due to a lot of our key stakeholders, rib
13:50
being redeployed to tackle, the covid-19 challenge at.
13:55
So you know, we've sort of put a little bit on hold but in simply
14:01
in Phase 1 what we did there was do an awful lot of research
14:04
background, you know experimenting looking at design
14:11
testing things out and particularly going out.
14:15
And finding what everybody else has done out there.
14:16
What works, what doesn't, how did it go?
14:19
What can we take from? You know what you did and and
14:24
then sort of building a kind of framework for the program and
14:28
then some key components were around the development of the
14:30
community platform. And that was fundamental because
14:33
that then gave us a way to connect communicate and engage
14:37
with people across, you know, the whole NHS landscape.
14:45
So having that we can then share things with that we can get
14:48
people involved in testing out elements and we can kind of
14:52
connect and update people and what's happening the other kind
14:56
of Key Products. We develop from the the sort of
14:59
first phase was we developed some core skills, online
15:02
learning modules and this was around teaching people, the
15:04
basics of project management change management benefits
15:08
management. And also we did a module for
15:10
sros with these are the people who are in some kind of project
15:14
management. Rolling already or for anyone
15:16
who's interested in finding out more.
15:19
These are for everyone on the basis that whilst there's
15:23
probably about 10,000 people in the NHS whose full-time day job,
15:27
it is to do program project management.
15:29
Everybody dabbles in it. And a lot of people in
15:33
certainly, in other professions and in other roles are either
15:38
doing change involved in change and projects or they're leading
15:42
them without necessarily having had the training.
15:45
To do it effectively. So for me, one of the
15:48
fundamental challenges was, how do we skill up everybody to have
15:52
a basic competence so that they know what they can and, you
15:57
know, can't do in relation to project management and have a
16:00
basic understanding of it. So for me, it's a bit like first
16:04
aid training. So you want everybody to train
16:07
to be trained up to be a first aider.
16:09
But you know you only want to select number of people to be
16:11
trained to be clinically you know, expert in the Field.
16:15
So, the thing about having people trained as first aid, as
16:19
they then know what's outside their scope of practice and know
16:22
when to pass it on to a professional, and that's what
16:26
we're looking to do for the NHS, is to build the skills.
16:30
We launched those five online learning modules in October last
16:36
year, so just over to about 14 months.
16:39
Now, they've been out there and they have been, there's been
16:42
just over 5,200 different, you know, people accessing them and
16:48
learning from them. And what kind of range of people
16:50
you getting, you getting Medics all sorts?
16:53
Yeah, absolutely. We I've been asked to do some
16:56
some training sessions with some Public Health fellows and some
17:05
some GP fellows. And again it's about giving them
17:08
a basic understanding and some kind of core skills for them to
17:11
apply it to the kind of small local changes that they do
17:15
themselves. So that's one element of it is.
17:18
It's not just about professionals.
17:20
It's about project management is called skills for everybody.
17:23
So really part of what you're doing is creating A much more
17:26
formal identity for project managers and letting people
17:29
understand what project management actually is and what
17:32
it is not absolutely. And I think that's that's a
17:37
really key element because until we get everybody understanding
17:43
why it's important that at above a certain level of risk and
17:48
complexity, it needs a more complex and experienced kit.
17:53
Skill set it. It continues to be risky.
17:58
So that's a lot of perhaps enthusiastic amateurs.
18:02
That could have fairly catastrophic impact on the
18:09
system, but not necessarily aware that they're doing that
18:13
because they're not aware of the consequential impact of the
18:19
change. They're putting in place, so
18:22
raising that awareness and raising that up.
18:25
Understanding of you know to what extent you are then
18:28
effectively, licensed to be competent to manage.
18:33
Change is important to then say, well actually I now know that
18:37
this needs to be picked up by somebody who's got no more
18:41
professional skills and experience, you've done a lot
18:44
for ready. What's left to do?
18:46
I mean 2020 has been a massive hiccup to say the least, but if
18:50
things can move towards a greater semblance of normality,
18:53
perhaps or 2021. Was top of your list to achieve,
18:58
we have a festival, a week-long festival during the
19:02
apprenticeships week that dates to the 12th of February.
19:05
And at that Festival, we are going to be launching the NHS
19:11
project and change capability framework.
19:15
And so that's the competencies. The roles the skills and
19:20
experience that everybody will need and 2mm to launch that.
19:25
Across the the NHS alongside that we are launching for
19:30
apprenticeship programs. A level for project data analyst
19:36
program level for associate project manager at level 6, BSC
19:41
and project management and the level 7 systems, thinking
19:43
practitioner MSC. And so, as part of that, it's
19:48
going to be 500 people. Hopefully, from across the NHS.
19:53
We've got some really great and fun things.
19:55
Playing and some really great and inspirational speakers.
19:59
Part of the point of the festival is really about
20:03
building the culture and the behaviors and the environment.
20:08
That says, actually if we work collectively together, if we
20:11
work openly and honestly if we support each other and coach
20:17
network and train and share, then together, we will be so
20:21
much stronger as well as supporting the system and The
20:25
environment we work in in the NHS to be both evolving and
20:30
sustainable. It's interesting.
20:32
You say that because I know there is perhaps a culture of
20:36
competition between the NHS is 250 organizations.
20:40
As that be one of the challenges you faced. it has, I think it's
20:47
It's a tricky situation because this is reflective of a sort of
20:51
political ideology, which is necessarily in the best
20:54
interests of patients and health outcomes.
20:58
And therefore, what it's created, as a very disconnected
21:02
system with competition between organizations but also very
21:07
disconnected. Group of people.
21:10
The one thing we found quite shocking, was how disconnected
21:14
people were even within the regions from their counterparts?
21:17
Hearts in other organizations. And it's taking those quite a
21:20
long time, to really build that Network up to connect people
21:24
together. We one of the one of the
21:27
developments we've got is around Regional networks, and I think
21:33
the thing about getting past the organizational barriers is, we
21:37
bring people together in terms of what they have in common and
21:41
what we have in common is that we are project professionals.
21:45
We are here Because of a sense of Greater purpose, because
21:50
we're here to to improve the health and well-being outcomes
21:55
for the population of this country and and that's above
22:00
politics and organizational boundaries.
22:03
And I think if we can focus on that, and focus on the support
22:07
and development of the profession and individuals
22:10
within the profession, then, you know, we don't need to worry
22:14
about those infrastructural constraints.
22:17
So I think that's, that's a real element of the challenges that
22:21
we've worked around. His is starting with, you know,
22:23
kotter's Coalition of the Willing.
22:25
We've got people together who also equally passionate and, you
22:30
know, to see it as a compelling Vision.
22:32
Getting them to work with us, getting them to share that
22:36
enthusiasm and you know, excitement with people within
22:40
their networks and pulling pulling everybody together, you
22:43
know, and this is all been done by volunteers.
22:47
So it's all in addition to the day job which to be honest is
22:50
quite full on anyway, but actually it's having that shared
22:57
purpose that passion and commitment to something that we
23:01
genuinely believe adds real value in the long run.
23:07
Obviously, you know, that you got the usual constraints
23:09
around, you know, funding and resourcing and lack of sort of
23:13
system ownership for it. But actually pulling together
23:18
like-minded, people who really want to make a difference.
23:24
You know, nobody comes into the really the NHS or the public
23:27
sector for an easy life. It's it's hard working.
23:31
It's challenging. But actually, you know, for most
23:35
of us it's because we have, you know, a compelling need to have
23:39
purpose in our lives and to make a difference.
23:41
What have been the other main challenges you faced.
23:44
Another one I imagine is trying to explain What project
23:47
management means to those above you to senior leaders within an
23:50
organization, has that been a challenge and how have you
23:53
overcome that? It has been a challenge If we're
23:57
honest. I think like any sector there
24:00
are there is the core business of the sector which is usually
24:04
kind of not project management. So in health, it's you know,
24:08
clinicians. It's kind of medical people
24:10
working and leading the sector who don't necessarily have
24:15
knowledge and Kills around project management.
24:18
And so getting influence at a senior level getting Champions
24:23
and ambassadors. And, you know, sponsors for it
24:27
has been tricky, because there is no natural home for it.
24:33
Unlike the unlike government, which has the infrastructure
24:36
projects Authority, there is no function within the NHS that is
24:42
responsible for project management, for oversight of it
24:46
all. The development of the workforce
24:49
and, and their capability. And that's one of the things
24:52
that we've been looking to to do is to actually get a kind of
24:57
Hosting organisation and a senior sponsor.
25:01
So one of the things that we did actually when we were performing
25:06
as a group, we had a workshop that brought everybody from
25:11
across the regions together and we spent two days doing a Lego
25:16
serious play, build of the vision for the profession and
25:21
also what the challenges were, and also the opportunities.
25:26
And actually one of the opportunities was Finding
25:30
ambassador's of, you know, to, to support the profession, who
25:33
were senior people in their own professional whether that's
25:36
medical or financial or HR mod, but who were sympathetic and
25:42
understanding and getting them to tell the story.
25:46
For us, getting them to share that with their peers with their
25:50
counterparts. And that's that's a way to
25:54
engage people that we've found has has really helped to.
25:58
I think get the message across in a way that is heard and
26:02
respected. It's enough of that really, to
26:04
shouting about the benefits that good prefer project management
26:08
can bring, there's two elements to it that are really important.
26:12
One is about understanding the consequences.
26:16
Of not doing project management effectively, and that's not just
26:20
about following the processes. And again, we have this
26:24
perception that project management is all about filling,
26:28
in forms, or writing Gantt, charts, and writing reports.
26:33
And in a way that's like, saying, well, all the nurse does
26:36
is filling a patient's record and go, but the record is
26:40
really, just a summary of the activity you've done, which is
26:43
the core part of your role. And that's a Outputting that
26:47
change in place and I think that's the bit that is perhaps a
26:51
bit invisible to people is that a project manager is a doing
26:56
roll. It's about engaging, it's about
26:58
working. It's about getting your
27:00
stakeholders involved. It's about setting up, you know,
27:04
sort of products and testing them and getting input and
27:07
refining that and then at the end of it, you will provide an
27:10
update on how that's going. So some of it's about increasing
27:16
An awareness of the dynamic, nature of project management and
27:22
and the people-centered nature of it, which it is in this
27:25
sector. And what we can do as project
27:29
managers and professionals to to raise awareness of the
27:36
activities of project management and the skills of project
27:38
management. And for me that's through things
27:41
like coaching and facilitation and mentoring one of the Things
27:46
I've done with my team is apart from actually setting the team
27:52
up in a way that everybody's role reflects their natural
27:58
abilities and also their areas of Interest.
28:01
So I wrote the team's rolls around them as individuals
28:05
rather than try to fit them into a role.
28:09
And the great thing about that is, if you fit a roll around,
28:12
somebody's abilities and interests, they We'll just get
28:17
on and do amazing things. If you set them a per person and
28:21
outcome to achieve and they're interested and you know it you
28:25
know you know greater doing it and you give them the training
28:29
and the skills they need they will do fantastic things.
28:32
And then what you can do is you can use that skills and
28:34
knowledge to do things like facilitating and training with
28:37
project teams doing coaching with project managers providing
28:41
a sort of an objective peer review or Challenge and that
28:47
helps I think build some of the Either might be lacking.
28:51
What other advice would you give to project managers and
28:53
organizations who are Keen to formalize professionalize and
28:56
win project management? The recognition it deserves.
29:00
So I think that's probably three key things that I would you
29:04
know, suggest the first one is go out there and see who does it
29:08
really? Well, go and ask them about it.
29:11
Go and give. No go and borrow all the stuff
29:14
that they do, you know, find out how they did it.
29:17
Learn the lessons from from, Them and I've been really
29:21
privileged to have some some really great people, give me you
29:25
know advice and support and information about that how
29:30
they've done things and and some of that's about doing outside of
29:33
your comfort zone and outside of your your sector.
29:37
So where's Robinson at sellafield, who runs the project
29:41
will has run the project Academy there for many years and done an
29:44
absolutely fantastic job of building the profession.
29:47
You know he and his colleagues have been incredibly generous.
29:49
Rest in providing their advice around things like
29:53
apprenticeship programs. And and it's things like that.
29:58
That that about learning from others, don't reinvent the
30:00
wheel, learn what good looks like go and, you know, find out
30:04
how it works. And then going, you know, borrow
30:07
some of that stuff. The second thing then, is around
30:11
getting that senior leadership engagement, it is really
30:14
fundamental, and if you don't Have a voice at the table, it's
30:21
finding a sympathetic ear that does have a voice at the table
30:26
and finding those ambassador's and champions who can influence
30:31
their peers for you. The third thing then is around
30:36
building that Coalition of the Willing get together a group of
30:40
like-minded, passionate enthusiastic people who believe
30:44
in what you're trying to do and then you support them, you if
30:49
they need some training development if they need some
30:52
advice and guidance you know it's a I think we're getting
30:55
back to a sharing and bartering kind of culture rather than
30:59
these sort of biggest donor contracts because a lot of what
31:02
we're doing is Round Mutual support and benefit.
31:07
So if you want people to help you to develop an embedded, what
31:10
can you offer them in return? Have you got any advice around?
31:14
How to ask people to volunteer their time and their energy when
31:17
they've already got a full-on job to do and you're asking them
31:21
to do something extra volunteers are self-selecting.
31:25
You can't really just kind of go out and ask them and I think
31:29
it's a bit of a scattergun approach.
31:31
You don't necessarily know who's out there.
31:34
What we did was we did a whole whole series of webinars and we
31:41
invited everybody that was in our community and in our
31:45
Network. So, and as a starting point that
31:49
ones that are interested will come along.
31:52
You share, what you're doing? Your passion and enthusiasm for
31:55
it. What is it?
31:56
You're trying to achieve, what are you trying to deliver?
31:59
And then you ask them, you know who's interested in helping out,
32:03
who would be prepared to volunteer?
32:05
Who would be interested in helping with this bit of that
32:08
bit and be specific about it? You know, it's not a kind of
32:11
can't launch to get people's time for everything, but people
32:15
usually pretty interested in one particular element or another.
32:20
And therefore, you know, tap That and use that knowledge and
32:23
experience. But also same time, say what can
32:26
I offer you in return? One of the things that's been
32:29
really Quite startling for me recently is we've done a bunch
32:35
of webinars which was about raising awareness of the
32:38
profession as a pipeline for people to come into it and even
32:43
just within my own organization, there's about 3,000 people
32:47
working in health education, England, we put on a webinar,
32:50
introduction to the profession. Come along and find out more
32:53
about it. If you want to learn about
32:55
careers and and how to progress in project management, we had
32:59
over 100 people turn up. And and the thing about it was
33:04
we knew almost none of them. They weren't people who were
33:07
already working in programs and projects in actually, but they
33:11
wanted to, they were interested the passion, how do we get in?
33:15
How do we, how do we learn? How do we get a job in it and
33:18
there was so much untapped potential in that group of
33:21
people, it was fabulous. And of course when we started to
33:24
talk about the festival and looking at Roots into the
33:27
profession and how can we support people to to get that
33:31
experience in order to The knowledge to get their first
33:34
role. When we sort of said, you know,
33:37
we're running these events. Would anybody be willing to help
33:39
out? We had all sorts of people.
33:40
Volunteer, if you don't ask, you don't get any, don't find out
33:43
who's interested. Yeah.
33:46
Any other days and dates don't take it.
33:49
Personally, I think the when you try and put changing place and
33:55
and again some of this is about, I think the Neuroscience of
33:58
change which is changes frightening and it's Is it
34:02
requires physical mental effort, you know, a lot of our energy is
34:07
taken up by the brain. And when we try and put change
34:10
into place, that is actually exhausting.
34:14
It burns energy be mindful of the fact that when you're trying
34:18
to do this you're going to meet an awful lot of resistance.
34:21
It's not about you it's about individuals potentially feeling
34:26
out of their comfort zone. Feeling a bit threatened feeling
34:30
that they are somehow out of That with what's going on and
34:34
when that happens people tend to retreat and it can be very
34:39
defensive or you know they will you know when you'll get a an
34:44
offense is a good defense and they'll cry and push back.
34:47
I think the thing about it then is looking at how you can make
34:52
it, as least threatening as possible, make it as comfortable
34:55
as possible, how you can reduce the, the kind of sense of
35:01
anxiety that people. I'll feel where they feel like
35:03
they're they're they're out of their comfort zone and in an
35:07
area that they're they don't understand.
35:11
And so that can be that can be very personal.
35:14
I can be a one-to-one and I think there's the something
35:17
about not just the the actual change, you want to put in
35:21
place, but how do you set the environment to enable that
35:25
change? And one of the things about the
35:28
kind of Applied Neuroscience learning, I've been doing
35:30
recently is about how Create and develop a growth mindset and a
35:35
learning mindset that opens up the kind of audience to be
35:41
curious and interested in the change as opposed to threatened
35:47
by it. So that's why I think
35:49
understanding emotional psychology and understanding
35:53
Neuroscience is really fundamental for program project
35:57
managers, because if you can tap into that understanding, then
36:01
you can shape Up. How you engage with people in a
36:04
way that is more likely to achieve the outcomes you want to
36:08
and and reduce the resistance and the barriers that that
36:12
you'll get from people what a brilliant way to end a
36:14
conversation packed with so much advice.
36:16
It's been brilliant, talking to you Joe.
36:18
Thank you so much for sparing, the time to talk to us.
36:22
Thank you. It is, you know, my passion and
36:24
my favorite subject at the moment.
36:25
So I'm always happy to talk about it.
36:27
Thanks very much Emma. Thanks again to Joe for joining
36:32
us and to you for listening to this fourth episode of apm's
36:35
project Innovative series. Don't forget to look out for
36:39
more episodes in this series or to rate and review us wherever
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