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Not Another Organisational Transformation – Going Exponential, from PMO to CEO and Beyond!
How does someone transition from working in PMO to becoming CIO / CEO? What does it take? That’s just part of the story from Mary-Beth Hoskings, the opening keynote speaker for the PMO Conference in London in June 2024.
Embarking on a journey through the intricacies of PMO and navigating the challenges of yet another organisational digital transformation, Mary-Beth Hosking found herself compelled to instigate a meaningful change. Collaborating with her writing partner, Ady Kalra, they conceived pivotal concepts for the 10XGeneration state, encapsulated in their new book, “Not Another Digital Transformation.” Immerse yourself in a refreshing perspective and discover how the PMO can be a catalyst and lynchpin for ushering in a new era of organisational change.
Mary-Beth guides you through the transition from PMO to CEO, sharing valuable insights from her experiences. Explore the lessons learned along this transformative journey and uncover the significance of cultivating key relationships with business stakeholders, setting yourself apart in the dynamic landscape of organisational evolution.
Exponential: An exponential rate of increase becomes quicker and quicker as the thing that increases becomes larger
Conference Session
Insights from the Opening Keynote
Inspiring Careers in PMO
The theme of “going exponential” with your career encourages you to think about your own potential and growth. The idea of achieving exponential progress can be very inspiring and can help us all to aim higher.
Throughout Mary-Beth’s session there were nuggets which meant different things to different delegates.
Here’s a great insight from one delegate:
🌟 Inspired and Motivated! 🌟
Last week, I had the incredible opportunity to attend a talk by Mary-Beth Hosking on her journey from temp to CEO via PMO. Her journey and challenges along the way to CEO were insightful. I highly recommend it for my PMO community and women in Tech.
Key takeaways:
- Find your sponsor.
- Dreams are there to be achieved.
- Know when you have hit your glass ceiling.
- Recognize when you can no longer service your company and vice versa.
- Network is key.
- Create opportunities.
- Service for others.
- Adaptable leadership.
- Moving with the time.
- What’s your internal brand?
Thank you for reminding me and motivating me to follow my northern star. Here’s to embracing new ideas and striving for excellence! 🚀✨
Your North Star
In the Session, Mary-Beth refers to the concept of a “North Star” as a guiding principle or goal that directs her career journey. The term “North Star” is often used metaphorically to represent a fixed point that helps navigate and stay on course, especially in times of uncertainty.
Mary-Beth mentions their own North Star evolving over time:
- Initially, their North Star was to be a singer.
- After realising that singing wasn’t their ultimate path (Mustang Sally!!), she shifted her focus to becoming an office temp, which led her to discover new opportunities in the corporate world.
- Each key milestone in her career journey represented a different North Star at different times.
Mary Beth encouraged all of us to think about our own North Stars—those goals or guiding principles that help us navigate our career paths and stay focused on our aspirations.
Favourite nugget of wisdom “Don’t be afraid to Pivot” by Mary-Beth Hosking
Organisational Transformation
Everyone at the conference received a copy of Mary-Beth’s book,
In the age of relentless change, organizations are racing to deliver their products and services faster than ever before. They invest vast resources in the pursuit of agility, speed and future-proofing. But what if transformation isn’t just about going digital? What if it’s about re-imagining your organization from the ground up?
The book focuses on a different approach to transformation, a different roadmap and Mary-Beth shared this analogy:
“What you see is the plane analogy from the book.
In the plane analogy, we talk about an organisation having visibility across all tiers: its operational, tactical, and strategic tiers. Imagine that you are on a plane about to take off and go to another country.
You have your ticket and your boarding pass, you’re ready to go, your bags are packed, you get to the desk, and you check your bag and your luggage, and then you know exactly where you’re going. Everybody who works for that airline knows where you’re going, and they know where your bags need to be. Everybody has visibility of where you’re going.
Think about what this would be like working in an organisation. No matter what tier you’re in, you have visibility to what everybody else is doing, what everybody else is working on, and what the strategic intent is of every single department and of the organisation as a whole.
This is what going exponential is all about.
In order to have that level of visibility you need a PMO to help affect the change. It is not possible to make a leap to the ’10 next generation state’ without the strength of the PMO.
The PMO represents visibility across all departments and across all tiers and can talk to all individuals to help move a change throughout an organisation. A strong PMO cannot be underestimated in the power that it brings to an organisation. The ’10 next generation state’ is revolutionary, we are throwing out the old thinking of the past and embarking on a new state. It is not possible to move to that new state without having an internal organisation to make that possible. How often have you worked in an organisation where consultants have been brought in to do a digital transformation and you are not part of that solution?
When the PMO is not included in a major change in a transformation programme, it is destined to fail. Many of you will have been through this multiple times, and although it is very frustrating, it is the norm in many organisations. What I say to you is this – strive to go exponential in your careers. Move out of the PMO and take that wonderful learning and experience with you. Move into the C-Suite because you can make significant differences in that place and know how to get the most out of your organisation.”
We will be reviewing the book over the coming weeks and sharing the insights in a follow up article in the library!
Really inspiring start to the House of PMO conference today from Mary-Beth Hosking on how to grow your career exponentially. Not every move is going to be forward. Understand your brand and how you can use your transferable skills from your entire experience not just your last role. Trust the process and find your sponsor