Last week I attended the Change Management 2014 conference hosted by the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP). Resilience Alliance was a sponsor, and I co-delivered a presentation (Dysfunction Junction: Managing Change Overload) with a change management practitioner from Lowe’s, Jessica Bronzert.
Other than the fact that I was stumping around in an orthopedic walking boot while healing from a broken bone in my foot, I had a great time and enjoyed the connections and new insights. Here were some of the high points:
1. All the new people we met at the Resilience Alliance booth. We offered each of them a complimentary Personal Resilience Profile and debrief/coaching session, and we’re looking forward to those conversations.
2. A full room and warm reception for the presentation. For the rest of the conference, I kept having people come up to me and tell me that they enjoyed it and found it helpful. I felt so good about that! I’ll be writing several blog entries later to share some of the additional thoughts on managing change overload that came up while I was preparing for the talk.
3. Excellent presentations by other speakers. Some of my favorites:
* Richard Moller from the Canadian military on “Less is More: Visualizing and Planning Change in an Era of Change Fatigue”–he shared stories of change in the Afghan National Army, and introduced me to two of my new favorite phrases: the “Good Idea Fairy” who visits leaders overnight and leads them to come up with all kinds of things they would like to do, and GOBI: the “General Office of Bright Ideas.”
* Bill Taylor, author of Practically Radical, who delivered the opening keynote and asked, “Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?” and provided interesting examples and stories of how companies have creatively transformed themselves.
* Matt Carson and Allie Carroll from Booz Allen on applying game techniques (such as points, badges, levels, and leaderboards) to increase engagement and adoption among employees.
4. The evening at Universal Studios: Rides, food, and music on a beautiful Florida evening.
Next year’s conference is in Las Vegas. I’m not super-excited about the location, but it will continue to be interesting to see how this organization works to shape and define the emerging profession of change management.