It’s been often said that the only constant is change. Over the past few years, that statement has never been truer, especially for those of us who are practitioners in the discipline of change management. We have navigated the seismic shift to working from home to a gradual return to the office, and now we find ourselves settling into a hybrid world – all while helping our companies and clients drive engagement and adoption for the initiatives for which we are charged. My hat is off to each and every one of you. I am in awe of the work you do on a daily basis.

As we finish this year, it’s bittersweet for me to write my last message as your Chapter president. Over the past three years, we have merged the Raleigh and Charlotte chapters into the Carolinas chapter, and established it as one of the best in all of ACMP. During a global pandemic, we survived, and even thrived in some areas. We have started the expansion into South Carolina, and we even have some members from Tennessee affiliated with our chapter! Maybe one day we’ll become the Southeast Chapter?

I would be remiss in not recognizing the Board for their amazing contributions over the past three years – in fact, they are the ones who truly keep this chapter alive and on the rise. They have been a rock, a body of creativity, and more than that, are incredible people. I would also like to welcome your incoming President, Jonathan Blatt. Jonathan served as the president of the Raleigh chapter prior to our integration, and so the Chapter is in great hands! He’s been there, done that, and has an outstanding vision for what next steps our Chapter can take.

Speaking of next year, it will be a big one in the life of our Chapter. We hope to return to pre-pandemic patterns of in-person events – both educational and networking. And possibly the biggest news if you’ve seen the emails from Global recently, ACMP will be hosting a global event right here in Charlotte in March. Please stay tuned for more on that and make plans to attend!

In closing, thank you for all that you did that made serving as your president a complete joy. I look forward to continuing to be an active member of the chapter going forward. Happy holidays to you, your families and loved ones.

Fall is a season for change! We are all back from summer vacations and perhaps ready to take on new challenges. It’s also a season of change for our ACMP Carolinas Chapter. Our 2023- 2025 Board Election cycle is starting, and this is an exciting opportunity to welcome in new board members, who can bring energy, passion, and diverse points of view. If you are passionate about change management and would like to give back to the change management community, a Board position may be the perfect opportunity for you.

You can nominate yourself or others for any open position. In particular we are seeking nominees for Treasurer, Secretary, and Events Director for the Charlotte region. We encourage you to submit your nomination if any of these positions, or any of the other Board positions that we will post, interest you. There is no risk in starting the process to learn more. We will begin accepting nominations on September 19, and we will be sharing more details and specifics in upcoming communications.

This is an exciting time for ACMP overall and our Carolinas Chapter.  We hope you will consider playing a leadership role as part of it.  Please reach out to me with any questions.

In the Carolina’s fall doesn’t always feel like fall, but here we are! We’re now well into the school fall semester, football season is in full swing, and Halloween is just around the corner.  This year, the transition is even more poignant. Baseball and football stadiums are full, which is a great sight; yet, for good reasons, we are often still wearing masks indoors. In our professional lives, we may be dealing with being shorthanded, either due to budgets cuts or positions that are hard to fill. In all of it hopefully we can navigate together. We may not be meeting together in person yet, but we are looking forward to staying connected through our many events and our online community. Along with our online events, be sure to check out our Book Club, the ACMP Global Connect Community and our LinkedIn group. I hope to see you at an event soon.

Wow, summer is flying by! Hopefully you’ve had a good opportunity to spend some much-needed downtime with your families or friends (or both!) over the past couple months. It’s certainly been a challenging and stressful year and a half that none of us saw coming, and we’ve all needed a break.

Downtime aside, the change management world is running as fast as ever. More and more companies are recognizing the need for an intentional focus on people and their awareness, acceptance and ultimately buy-in to realize the value of their new systems and processes. Add to that, there’s still an awful lot of uncertainty around COVID-19, returning to the office, and generally what things will look like over the coming year. In short, it’s a terrific time to be a change manager.

In these times of business uncertainty, it’s more important than ever that we support each other as change practitioners. We’re on the frontlines of these battles, and it’s so critical to know that we each have an army supporting us. We’re never alone. I hope that for many of you, you’re finding that in our local ACMP community. Whether it’s via our events, new Connect site, or simply relationships formed here, ACMP and it’s change members can be an invaluable source of ideas, listening posts, or just friends.

If you’re taking advantage of all ACMP has to offer, fantastic. If you’re not, give us a try. Spend a few minutes poking around – you may be surprised at what you find. Have a great August, and I’ll see you at an ACMP event soon!

David

Happy June! I’m not quite sure how it’s June already, but the hot and humid weather is telling me summer is here! Before you start dreaming of time at the beach and singing Vacation by the Go-Go’s, I hope you will take a few minutes to think about the value you could receive by getting involved with ACMP Carolinas. Not too long ago, our chapter completed our budget setting process. We had great discussions about a welcome gift that we want to offer our new and renewing members. I’m not giving anything away by saying it’s an awesome gift! I’ll admit I was excited about the prospect of receiving this gift when my membership renewal is up.

But as I was reflecting on it, I realized that this tangible gift doesn’t even come close to the value I receive by being involved in ACMP Carolinas as a volunteer. As a board member, I get to speak to so many of our fantastic volunteers on many committees. I have not only expanded my network but made wonderful friends as well. I’ve had my ways of thinking changed (in the best ways!) and my assumptions challenged! I have gotten to speak to the wonderful staff at ACMP Global who support chapters and our profession around the world. I am so proud to give my time to an organization that is expanding the profession of change management across the Carolinas.

We are always looking for volunteers to help grow and develop our chapter. You don’t need to donate a ton of hours to really make a difference for us! You can learn more on the Get Involved page on our website or send me a message and let me know you want to help us advocate for the discipline of change management!

Thank you and happy summer!

Julie Gawle

We’re close - I can feel it! As we enter into May, spring and warmer weather are arriving, and with vaccinations become available to everyone, it seems that we are turning the corner to returning to life in a more normal sense. It’s exciting, fresh, and just feels new. I hope you’re feeling the same way!

There’s a lot going on with our Carolina’s ACMP chapter. When we kicked off the year, we said that 2021 would be the year of “operationalizing” our chapter. To that end, the Board and committees have been very busy. Chris Lapata and the Membership Committee are working on revamping our new member onboarding experience. Leslie Ottavi and the Sponsorship Committee are well on their way to a robust strategy to engage and provide meaningful benefits to our sponsors. Kendra Whitney and the Marketing & Communications Committee are putting out awesome, inspiring, and informative communications on a regular basis. Aaron Stroud and the Events Committee has a great line-up of events over the next few months that you won’t want to miss. Those are just the highlights, and a big thanks to the leaders and the committees for all of their efforts!

Check out ACMP Connect. Don’t miss out on the great discussions and connections being made every day. Be on the lookout for the Carolinas Chapter section of ACMP Connect coming this summer. This will be a place where we can have the same type of engagements, but on a local, chapter level.

For those who are new, and for those who’ve been around for a few years, we’d love to have you get involved in the activity of the Chapter. Our committees are looking for additional volunteers, and this is a fantastic way to both connect with other change management practitioners, as well as give back to your community. If you’d like to throw your hat in the ring or just learn more, just shoot me an email (dschapman12@gmail.com).

Thanks for your participation in the Carolinas Chapter. I look forward to seeing you at an event soon!

David

Thank you to all who were able to attend our “INAUGURAL” quarterly members meeting of our ACMP Carolinas Chapter.  In 2021 we will have regular, members only, quarterly meetings. We provided members an update on the status of the chapter, shared our accomplishments, and connected and engaged with our fellow change practitioners.  We also gave out a few awards. It sure was “NICE”!

If you missed it, here are the materials and recording.

• Membership Q1 meeting recording

• ACMP Carolinas Membership Q1 Meeting.pptx

Special shout out to Roz Tyburski for her wonderful work in coordinating the content and agenda for the meeting. 

2020 Volunteer of the Year

Congratulations to the ACMP Carolinas 2020 Volunteers of the Year Kim Kolar and Robin Hyatt! Their contributions to the 2020 body of work was profound and integral to the achievement of the 2020 Chapter Goals. 

Kim began volunteering with the Events/Programs Committee 9 months ago. She managed logistics, process standardization and marketing of our events. Her tireless contributions behind the scenes were the reason we were able to have the volume of events we did, during this tumultuous year.

Robin is part of our Marketing and Communication Committee. She took on learning our website platform and taking good care of adding, maintaining and refreshing content. Working with our Sponsorship Chair, she designed and built the Sponsorship program web pages, highlighting the awesome benefits of sponsorship to our potential sponsors and members.

Robin also went above and beyond to support our first Chapter Board election process.  She took it upon herself to build an easy to use form to collect nominee submissions, and developed supporting website content that was professional and well organized, which highlighted the available board roles and election process.

2020 Board Member of the Year

Cassandra is our first ACMP Carolinas Secretary, she was our interim secretary prior to our official start in 2021. Selected by her peers as Board Member of the year, she keeps the Board and Executive Committee running like a well oiled machine; Agendas for each meeting well in advance, captures meticulous minutes and stays on top of all of us for tasks! With her passion for reading and continuous learning about Change Management, she also leads our Book Club. 

She unselfishly gives of her time, and jumps in to help the other committee with her expertise and to fill gaps. She is simply is a pleasure to work with.

Thank you all for your selfless donation of time, talent and passion – we couldn’t do it without you!

Raffle Prize Winner

Congratulations to Sandra Bobbitt with Herman Miller Inc.!

Sandra is the lucky winner of an “All Expenses Paid” registration to the ACMP 2021 GLOBAL CONNECT Conference on June 8 – 11.

Q2 Member Meeting

Be sure to join our 2nd Quarter Chapter Member Meeting on Wednesday, June 2^nd 12 – 1pm.

We hope you can join us in Q2!

Sincerely,

Chris LaPata

ACMP Carolinas Chapter, Membership Chair

So close! Never have I been so excited to usher in a new year. Of course, we’re not out of the woods yet and simply changing a digit on the calendar isn’t that big of a deal. But yet there’s hope. Hope for the end to a pandemic. Hope for a return to a society that was effectively shut down last March. 

For many of us, the timely question at hand is understanding what will the future hold for the business world? What will work look like? Will we ever go back into the office? Are video calls the “new normal?” (“You’re talking on mute, David.”)

While there are still few answers to most of these questions, we’re not far from having them. Just as change managers played a key role in helping for the rapid adjustment to remote work last spring, we’re being called on again to lead the transition back. That new normal is yet to be defined, but we know for certain that we won’t go back to the way things were. 

As change managers, we’re built to sit in the center of this challenge. As Daryl Conner said last summer, while none of us have the answers or can see the future, we are the ones most prepared assist the transition. We have been trained to envision, motivate, stimulate, communicate and educate. We know how to drive people to achieve desired results in a methodical manner. Have confidence change managers. You were built for this, and this is your time! 

I’d encourage each of you to leverage the gift that is ACMP. Our body of expert change managers is unparalleled. The thought leadership from experts, both anointed and those who work in the field on a daily basis, has something for each of us. Use this asset to help you on your projects. Get involved to build your network. Contribute, because I’m certain each of you has something to add.

I look forward to seeing at our upcoming Chapter events – we have a great plan in store for the year. Here’s to an awesome 2021. Cheers!

I hope each of you has enjoyed the beginnings of summer, even if it has looked a little different than in recent years.

Though it’s the season of downtime, vacations and taking time off, your ACMP Carolinas Chapter is not at rest! Hopefully you’ve been able to join us for our recent events in the “Change from Home” series – they’ve been awesome, and there’s more to come over the next couple of months. I’d encourage you to check out our event calendar for more info. The new ACMP Carolinas Board is really hitting its stride, and we’ve made some great accomplishments in our approaches to Sponsorship, Membership, Events, and Marketing & Communications, including the launch of our new, upgraded website and communications platforms. We’ve enhanced how we engage with new members and our committee volunteer list is growing – we welcome any members who’d like to be a part of our exciting journey.

As we’ve discussed before, this is a great time to be in change management. The world is being confronted with unprecedented realities that will shape who we are in the future. As change managers, none of us have all of the answers, but our training enables us to help lead and empower others in times like these. I encourage you to be bold and courageous, empathetic and innovative. This is our time! Collectively, we can make a huge difference.

Be safe, and have a great summer.

 - David Chapman, ACMP Carolinas Chapter President

I’d like to share a heartfelt thank you for being a part of our Carolinas change management community.

Since March, we all have embarked upon personal change journeys that have been thrusted upon us. I hope that as your change journey toward the new normal continues, your involvement with ACMP Carolinas Chapter will help you in two areas: 1) Keep your change mindset sharp. Helping you excel professionally and maintain a personal change perspective. 2) Connect with your community of fellow change managers and leaders. Maintaining that social “normalcy” and defining the path forward together.

As you know, this has been a time of tremendous change for our Chapter as well, still young in our ACMP Carolinas consolidation. We hope that while in this limited social capacity, we will be successful in fostering our local change management community growth. Reach out and let us know how we are doing.  We’d love to hear from you.

- Jonathan Blatt, VP, ACMP Carolinas Chapter