Dr Tammy Watchorn
Author, educator, facilitator, coach
I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had progressed my career from small time project manager to leading the implementation of national health care projects, running complex programmes, heading up a PMO. I was good at it. But it wasn’t fulfilling me, there was something missing, and it often felt too process orientated and bound by the rules of specific methodologies. And while I was eager to learn and apply new thinking, I didn’t want to have to change me and change my core behaviours and values to ‘fit in’ to this world. So, I started to challenge my own assumptions about career and fulfilment. I kept my mind open to opportunities that would allow me to explore the freedom and creativity I wanted without giving up the career and salary.
I ended up heading up the organisational innovation programme where I chose to focus on people, ways of working, and changing the local environment and culture rather than shiny gadgets. I kept what I was doing under the radar, delivering through invisible leadership, learning from smart failure, and was able to make a difference for individuals, teams, and the projects and services they were providing. It wasn’t big and shiny, but it did have a wide spreading positive impact on the people I worked with, the projects they were delivering, and the stakeholders I engaged with. It was all people focused. It was about shifting thinking and behaviours from the negative (fear) to the positive (opportunities) which motivated and energised, led to collaboration and alignment, encouraged creativity and doing things differently and achieved successful outcomes over and over. It was only then, once I had all of this new insight, that I realised what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Tammy shares her stories and her approach to leading change widely on social media and in national media and industry publications. She’s also a regular keynote at conferences.
The Change Ninja Handbook www.change-ninja.com