Leadership True North: Are You Here to Serve Yourself or Others?
There's a question I ask leaders when things aren't working. Not about process. Not about the project plan. I mean it directly: why are you leading? Are you here to build the capability of the people around you? Or are you here because you need to be the one who knows the answers? That gap — that small, uncomfortable question — explains more project failures, more team dysfunction, and more change resistance than any methodology gap I've encountered. The mirror test Servant l
Jennifer Diamond
Apr 1, 20232 min read
You can't delegate leadership
I had a conversation several months ago with a junior leader who had taken on an experienced and senior professional team, and she complained bitterly about team performance, effectiveness, and a growing retention problem after six months in. She dug in on how no one understood the obvious goals that needed to be achieved and she had no idea how anyone got anything done before she took on the team. She hinted darkly at "consequences" that would need to be put in place. I ask
Jennifer Diamond
Mar 17, 20237 min read
Authenticity comes from working on yourself: Here’s a global framework to do it
Authentic change leaders know that readiness for change experiences makes change stick. Sticky change makes progress. Most of the time when we fail, it's because we weren't authentically ready for sticky change, at an individual or collective level. And as a species, we are experiencing this together. To get to the point, as an outgrowth of work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and acknowledging in 2021-22 that progress promised in 2015 is not making it
Jennifer Diamond
Dec 14, 20225 min read
The PMBoK 7th Edition difference - principled portal, not prescribed process
I strongly suggest that any change maker out there who wants to get something done to make change in the world invest in access to the 7th edition of the PMBoK, or Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge from Project Management Institute (PMI) that came out last year. Yup. that’s what it’s really called, “Guide to a Body of Knowledge”. The 7th Edition is just that, representing 50 years of collaboration in the project management getting-it-done-worldwide community.
Jennifer Diamond
Aug 29, 20227 min read
15 Truths: A Practitioner's Credo for Change Leaders
After 30 years of leading change across more than 50 organizations, here are the 15 truths I keep coming back to. Not rules. Not a methodology. A credo — the things I remind myself of before I walk into the room.
Jennifer Diamond
Aug 1, 20223 min read
Why I Built Maypop Grove
I've been struggling. I think a lot of people in the business of delivering change have been. Professional consultants, professional project managers — this has not been an easy time to do this work. The pace has accelerated, the tolerance for failure has tightened, and the people expected to lead transformation are often the most depleted people in the room. I kept asking myself: what's my best way to contribute right now? And I keep arriving at the same answer. My best cont
Jennifer Diamond
Jul 1, 20222 min read