Tackling societal issues on a large scale also requires a radical reimagining of customer and stakeholder relationships, including exactly who it is that organizations are trying to reach. Only then can businesses ensure they’re solving the right problems for the right people with the right projects.

Consider Coca-Cola HBC’s Mission 2025 Team, which conducts an annual materiality survey of roughly 1,000 internal and external stakeholders to identify social and environmental topics that impact the company’s value drivers. “This is not just a one-off exercise,” Dickstein said. “It is the starting point for engagement activities that occur throughout the year.”

The survey results helped Coca-Cola HBC define its 2025 sustainability commitments, which, in turn, align to the UN SDGs. With that, the company is ready to take action on a wide range of issues, ranging from reducing water use by 20 percent in water-risk areas to increasing its management ranks to 50 percent female.

“We are engaging with our stakeholders to determine climate action in the new normal and what the whole global pandemic means for us as a business,” he said of the company’s 2020 stakeholder forum. “Listening to and learning from them is a fantastic best-practice platform and necessary to move the agenda forward.”

A customer-centric mindset, meanwhile, can yield more innovative ways of thinking that continue to deliver value to customers even in times of crisis. Take urban development: in London—as in other cities—there’s a “big conversation” about “equality in public infrastructure, and how access to healthcare, parks, and neighborhood centers disproportionately benefits some communities more than others,” Arup’s de Cani said. As leaders around the world contemplate a post-pandemic future, such discussions may spark more equitable project investments. And de Cani said more of Arup’s clients want to play an active role in developing those solutions. They want to understand the impact of projects in much broader terms and expect guidance on how to improve them to benefit more people through access to cities, data, and economic opportunities. “At a meta level, these measures now affect whether a project is approved or not,” he said.

It’s also important, as the UN SDG Fund stresses, for businesses not only to implement reactive measures but also to enable the right conditions for social inclusion to flourish. This includes engaging in a true dialogue with customers.

“We’ve seen in several projects that the cultural connection, the language, whatever it might be, is a real value,” said Gabrielle Bullock, principal and director of global diversity at architecture and design firm Perkins and Will, Los Angeles, California, United States. “Our clients’ values are not only focused on fee, schedule, and budget. It really is about the human connection, the cultural connection, and shared values.”²¹

In one instance, Bullock said Perkins and Will almost lost an opportunity because its commitment to the LGBTQ+ community wasn’t clearly demonstrated. “We hadn’t really promoted it like we should,” she said. Once the firm showed its team’s understanding and commitment to the community, it won the project.

Sources

21. Pulse of the Profession^®In-Depth Report: A Case for Diversity, PMI, June 2020.

Marissa Akins works as a project manager for ASU and has led the peer network. What has kept her inspired is her many influencers and she feels strongly that "variety is the spice of life and you can draw your inspiration from a multiple of sources. Keep trying it and do something differently so you dont get stuck. Avoid the delimina of not exploring everything, analysis paralis, so just pick something and try it knowing it might not work out. You will have something you can use and keep adjusting until you get closer to the ideal in your vision."

What prompted her to volunteer? Marissa attended study group three times. Once in-person, once at the start of the pandemic before the life of teaching children at home with virtual learning and then a final time since she postponed her test which she passed in September 2020. Marissa enjoyed this the facilitation role because connecting with people who are interested in the same path I decided on is exciting. There is SO much to share and prepare for and there’s likely someone in the same situation that you are in that may really benefit from connecting with you. Marissa Akins words of advice, "just do it! You’ll never regret helping to support someone achieve their goals."

In getting to know Marissa, you will find that she is passionate about fitness and hiking, both allow her to free her mind of concerns, enjoy nature and to grab some me time. She is also passionate about spending time with her family and enjoys their social time. arissa's personal motto is say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you said you are going to do.

Marissa is currently reading, Courageous Cultures. It’s a great read, but be ready to make waves in your organization if you take this one on; otherwise, you may just end up discouraged. She looks up to people who do the hard things for inspiration and as her heros. Why? We’re all at different places in this journey so find yours and build a network.

Her colleges would share that Marissa is committed to their well-being. She always has the project objectives in mind, but if you take care of your team, they’ll take care of the project. Marissa's business advice, "just try it! A lot of times we spend so much time deliberating over something or delay by discussion and we can really take that time and energy and put it towards a small-scale prototype of what we’d like to accomplish and learn from that experience."

So again, I say not only that we cannot go back, we shouldn’t go back.  That is not to say working in offices or having face-face meetings should be totally abandoned.  No, there are situations where they are necessary, but in most cases, they should be the exceptions not the de facto standard.  

So where do we go from here?  We all deservingly patted ourselves on the back for moving our people from the office to home when the lock downs occurred.  In reality, that was the easy part.  It was limited to the scope of physically moving folks but not changing the enterprises culture.  We are now seeing the limitations of an incomplete transition.  The hard part now is how do we make changes in our Enterprises’ culture and infrastructure to truly support distributed working.

If you noticed, I have not used the term “work at home” or “remote working.”  Those are terms that describe the partial transformation.  They imply they are the exception or that they are temporary.  When I use the term “distributed work” I am referring to the complete transformation of an Enterprise.  The concept that work will be conducted from anywhere that supports the workflow.

Let me provide an example.  I was having lunch with an Audio Principal for an Enterprise that has theme parks.  Most of his work can be done in distributed manner, if the infrastructure is in place.  In his situation the work location, wherever that “is”, would need good internet connections, large dual screens to handle the transfer of information from spreadsheets to schematics, secure access to proprietary files, etc.  

There are some workflows that would need a local centralized lab where they can work on the physical servers as they mock them up and collaboration rooms where they can periodically meet in person.

In this scenario:

• The demand for physical office space is significantly reduced
• Commute reduce significantly reduced
• Carbon footprint significantly reduced
• Commuting stress, reduced
• Speed to deployment increased
• Employee satisfaction increased

I think you get the picture.  So as industry thought leaders our mantra should be “We don’t want to go back.”  To accomplish this, we need to work with top leadership to:

• Agree on a distributed workforce enterprise strategy
• Develop an enterprise communication plan
• Identify individuals to be the Executive Sponsors for the project

Once the distributed workforce plan is accepted, we should work to build the Enterprise Infrastructure (IT and Facilities) to support it:

• Solidify, secure, and templatize distributed work configurations
• Redesign offices to support:
  • Hoteling
  • Drop in Collaboration rooms
  • Standardize our collaboration tools, implemented, and follow up with an adoption plan

2020 and Covid were painful but in a strange way a gift that forced us to move from an unsustainable office and in-person oriented “normal” to a more efficient and sustainable distributed work model.  It is now up to us to find effective ways to move to that model.   Build upon the temporary emergency configuration that exists today to a implement a well-designed and supportable permanent distributed “normal.”

You with me? Then let’s do it together.

Bob Kent ITIL, VSP

Director, Solution Architects

Converge One

Robert retired from the State of Arizona, DES where his projects centered around empowering employees with disabilities. He applies his skill to his Phoenix Chapter volunteer work. His philosophy, "do what you can to contribute to others' lives in[1]stead of just increasing your own and corporate wealth. Do your best at the work you do and keep your attitudes aligned to support priorities at work. No one on their death bed wishes they spent more time at work. Keep the real priorities in focus." Bob leads by Christian example and has adopted the motto, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

So who is Robert Gates? He is a passionate FAA approved Powerplant and Airframe mechanic, who was influenced by Billy Mitchell who was a United States Army general who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force. Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. Bob Gates currently maintains a 1943 B-25 bomber, which is a WWII veteran of 15 missions, for the Commemorative Air Force Airbase Arizona in Mesa, AZ. When on volunteer duty, he also flys on the aircraft as the flight crew chief. Bob is also a RVer who follows the temperature of below 85 and above 45, to locations around the country.

When asked what has been rewarding about your volunteer service, Bob stated. "Helping others prepare for the exam, paying back for those who invested in me to help me pass my PMP. Bob attended three study group sessions before testing for the PMP." His words of wisdom to new members or others considering volunteer work for the Chapter? Volunteering is one of the most fulfilling things you can do with your life. From a more self-serving standpoint, it takes the focus off of your own challenges in life and is the best way I know to reduce life's worries and cares. From a more social responsibility stand[1]point, you are making a significant difference in another’s life. Adding a PMP and/or maintaining a PMP through PDUs significantly contributes to that person’s financial security and increases their skillset and job fullfillment."

Bob Gates approach was new to the facilitators as well. He encourages the team of facilitators to utilize their own style and source materials to provide students of the CAPM/PMP a wide range of materials so they can help determine what style of learning will work best for the student, rather than the standard bootcamp model of reviewing the 35 hours of continuous education so the student can subbit met the application to sit for the exam. Bob states, "that he is the cheerleader and works with each facilitator to become successful at delivery." Gone is the bootcamp approach, each student is empowered to develop their study plan and to form an alternate study buddy group which meets on other days of the week.

If you get the chance to meet Bob at a study group session, get him to talk about airplanes, you will quickly engage in a spirited conversation.