EN Aceleradores del cambio Inspiracion - PDA International Campaigns

Our connections make us stronger

We develop the technology, they give it meaning through their stories of success.

Get inspired by the stories of people who are overcoming obstacles, pursuing their dreams and redefining their purpose.

Soft skills for hard tasks

Juan Bravo
Gestión de Personas - Perú

We have to strengthen leaders in the areas of safety and quality

Women who go after their dreams

Hugo Ojeda
GMANLO Asociados - Ecuador

When women become self-aware, accept themselves and bring this to the business world, the resulting economic development can be impressive

A winning team... should never change?

Diego Román
Influenser - Ecuador

Within months, the organisation showed significant results in both working style and organisational culture

More human organisations. Meet Javier

Javier De La Garza
Aeter Quest - México

Employees are helped in achieving their purpose when they understand the reason behind their job position

Experiment and adapt. Meet Elena

Elena Cerón
People Awareness - México

We must be willing to be uncomfortable in order to pursue change

Be a Catalyst for change

Julio César Salinas
Trascendere Personal & Business - México

My project for 2020 is to unleash a culture of professionalization in people who work in the areas of consulting, coaching and mentoring

All-terrain leaders

Juan Jaramillo
Gente Smart - Panamá

Transversality means the leader's developable capacity to move between areas and projects. This helps them understand the business in a more comprehensive way and, therefore, make wiser decisions

Transform to progress

Rocío López
OEXL - México

Identifying talent in order to invest in that individual and develop them is key to progress

Investing in the future

Alonso Escalante
Right Management - Perú

It was motivating to have the opportunity to support the future of this country and see how they set off on their self-awareness journey

Moving forward with innovation

Oliver Socas
Advice - Uruguay

Digitalisation should not lead us to overlook the fact that there are people on the other side

Starting over. Get to know Carolina

Carolina Bussadori
Id Expansive – Italia

When the only option is to change...

Creating real connections

Paula Quinsee
South Africa

Bring back human connections

Openness to changing environments

Diego Andiarena
Argentina

Companies and people alike must be extremely flexible in states of uncertainty. Technology and the digital world is a great ally that helps us in our day-today and to make it through turbulent times

The digital revolution starts with people

Wade Cooper
South Africa – PDA International África

If you don't know yourself, you cannot lead others toward change

Boarding the digital ship. Meet Edgar

Edgar Arechavaleta
México

Growth would have been impossible without digital technology

Going digital to measure

Admin Ramírez
México

“Adapting to a Digital Mindset will help people and companies alike to reach new levels

Discover new ways of encouraging organisations to meet their goals.

Canada

Phone +(902) 444-9301
Email [email protected]

Africa

Phone +27 11 873 8240
Email [email protected]

UK

Phone +44 772 1320033
Email [email protected]

USA

Phone +1 (888) 485-4385
Email [email protected]

Soft skills for hard tasks

JUAN BRAVO | Gestión de Personas – Perú
www.gestiondepersonas.pe

We tend to associate certain industries with required skills and because of that, we unconsciously limit people’s potential. However, Juan Bravo, a consultant for People Management in Peru, dedicates a large part of his work to making a difference in the mining and construction industries.
Juan is in charge of training plans for different departments we tend to identify as “hard” or closed. These plans pose a challenge for both organisations and employees because after completing a degree as an operator or technician, and being promoted to supervisor, they face a new change that, while it can generate resistance at first, in the end leads to improvements in all facets of the organisation. When employees reach the status of supervisor, they gain access to training plans to develop their soft skills. The benefits of these plans is that they act as a complement to their know-how and experience. It motivates employees to foray into areas that have not been tapped into thus far and which, at the same time, complement their know-how and experience.
Although it is a challenge, there is another parallel challenge in today’s world called safety. Up to now, its focus has been on the corrective stage, but its goal is to move towards the preventative stage. Creating an organisational culture that leads to a 180 turnaround in which the focus is placed on safety and no longer so much on quality is the future. “Safety must be built into the culture,” Juan Bravo affirms. “We have to strengthen leaders in the areas of safety and quality”. This doesn’t mean that quality is pushed aside, because it is part of company branding, but it does mean understanding that it’s not the only thing that matters to employees. Understanding that 95% of mistakes are due to human error steers us to the relevance of safety protocols and people’s profiles. This is where the behavioural profile helps us focus our work and, at the same time, defend our decisions.
Juan Bravo is a pioneer in an industry that “is still in the turbulent stage because change is always hard”, but he is going to need increasingly more development of soft skills, not just in managerial or executive positions, but at all levels. Empowering areas of opportunity in all sectors!

Women who go after their dreams

HUGO OJEDA | GMANLO Asociados – Ecuador
www.gmanlo.com

There are increasingly more people across the globe who are willing to go that extra mile in pursuit of their dreams, as there are also increasingly more organisations, both public and private, that decide to accompany them on this path towards achieving their goals.
In this sense, the United States Embassy in Ecuador, the Quito Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with Hugo Ojeda, partner at GMANLO consulting firm, decided to support entrepreneurial women across the country, providing business training and a space where they can participate and interact with each other and continue working towards their dreams.
This is how “Academy for Women Entrepreneurs” (AWE) started, a free programme that is up and running in 8 major cities around the country, including the capital city. The course provides global know-how, methods and tools in the areas of finance, marketing, and sales, as well as the opportunity to participate in entrepreneur fairs that open new doors to these women who want to accomplish their purpose and feel fulfilled working towards their goals in the world of business. “Limit” becomes nothing but a word when a person is given the opportunity to grow.
So far, this initiative has achieved outstanding results: 91% of participants were able to improve their branding image, 41% improved their sales, 36% generated employability, and more than 63% have been able to increase their income. “It’s important and interesting to see the changes in women when they identify their skills, strengths and also when they’re supported by a scientific report like the PDA Assessment”, says Hugo Ojeda.
Recognising both past and present has been essential to being able to set the scene in terms of their goals and future plans: AWE, which has already been recognised by the Women Economic Forum, aims to benefit 1500 women, implement the programme in 50 cities, provide business coaching, and offer seed money for businesses with opportunities for expansion.
Let’s become drivers for change by supporting the dreams of those around us!

A winning team… should never change?

DIEGO ROMÁN | Influenser – Ecuador
www.influenser.ec

“Get out of your comfort zone” and “never change a winning team” are phrases we hear often, which are becoming increasingly more common, but which are completely different. In fact, they denote opposite ideas and this is what Diego Román, co-founder of the HR consulting firm Influenser, faced during one of his projects.
Being a driver for change can be just as easy as it is difficult, depending on the context in which we find ourselves. In the case of Diego, the Director of an organisation with 25 years of experience in the financial industry, which had good results and was consistent with employees, realised that the company had “plateaued and wasn’t growing” and thus he called Diego and asked him to make a change and challenge the employees to make a shift and turn things around at work.
The process was difficult and, in all honesty, he faced resistance from some staff who didn’t believe it was necessary to change, to create alignment, to solve problems and, to some extent, even to move forward. As steps were taken and completed, past unresolved problems resurfaced, mistakenly thought to have been previously resolved. There was resistance from key sectors and executives, who after navigating a separate awareness process with different methods, finally surrendered to change. “Never change a winning team”; while the goal wasn’t to change team members, it was to change their attitude so they could overcome and achieve results they didn’t have nor envisioned. The road was long and at times quite challenging, but in the end they achieved their goal. The organisation began to have more communication, cohesion, managerial team alignment and the results were notable both in employee working style, organisational culture and selection processes. The project was so successful that today, Diego Román is tackling phase 2 of the project: individual coaching, follow-up with employees and various interventions in work meetings. Getting out of our comfort zone turns us into catalysts for change!

More human organisations. Meet Javier

JAVIER DE LA GARZA | Aeter Quest – México
www.aeterquest.com

Javier De La Garza, founder of Aeter Quest Mexico, decided to focus his attention on people that form part of organisations, not just as employees, but precisely because of what they are, human beings full of energy, who have families, friends, loved ones, activities outside of work, projects, and dreams. “People have their own reasons for living the life they live or how they live it”, affirms Javier.
Any process that exists in an organisation can serve as an excuse to start a cultural transformation that involves individuals, what happens to them and where they want to go. One of Javier de la Garza’s areas of expertise is change management, but not in the traditional way focused on methods and processes, but rather with the added value of people. He decided to focus on developing the company as a social, work and economic space in which people can perform at the personal and human level in alignment with their mission and life purpose. For Javier, being a driver for change means understanding that employees want to realise themselves as human beings in the companies for which they work, to feel fulfilled there.
One of his most important cases was the service he provided to a multinational support services company in Mexico. He met his challenge when he found out the annual staff turnover figure in the call centre: 80%. Drawing from his proposal to uplift the human being in the context of the organisation, connect the collaborative factor, and high-performing teams, he was not only able to make the company grow, lower costs, and increase employee performance, happiness and fulfilment, but he was also able to achieve his (at first seemingly impossible) goal. The turnover rate had dropped to 8%. Why? After adding the office of operations, providers and human resources and everything that entailed, people began to have a feeling of self-realisation and intentions to go that “extra mile”. We are drivers for change because we listen to people!

Experiment and adapt. Meet Elena

ELENA CERÓN | People Awareness – México
www.pawaremx.com

Woman, wife, mother, expat… these are some of the characteristics of Elena Cerón, Director of the consulting firm People Awareness. What changed was that she expatriated. Elena has been married for more than ten years, and over ten years ago she had to face perhaps one of the most costly and different experiences she’s ever been through: moving to Argentina from Mexico because of her husband’s job. For five years this talent management professional was in a foreign land, but one she eventually came to call home and where she raised her children. “I think I had to adapt to many things all at once: being a mother to small children, in a different country, and also trying to find satisfaction in my work life during a period of change in my professional life”. At the start of her career, Elena had focused on processes and structures. But as was to be expected, moving abroad opened doors to a series of changes in mindset. “It was a period of constant adaptation. Asking myself what I wanted for my family, how I wanted to tackle this new phase, etc. (…). For me, Argentina meant allowing myself to let go of beliefs, to experiment, to adapt and help myself”, Elena Cerón says with great joy.
She began to study coaching, a major challenge since she didn’t know anyone and didn’t know who to form a work group with… her first assignment. It was a huge challenge, but she said that “[she] was starting from zero so [she] could only go up“. Coming with habits full of processes and structures and facing life itself and each one of its areas was an obstacle she knew how to face successfully, which she happily shares with us today. All the changes she went through and that shaped her helped her adapt, learn, unlearn, grow, get to know herself, create her own consulting firm, enrich herself through experiences, see situations and people from another perspective and understand that “changes are good or bad depending on the connotation you give them”. Today, Elena affirms that everything she experienced led her to where she is now, to offer integral solutions from the organisational and personal point of view, to challenges truths and to be grateful for each thing and change that made her grow. We’re constantly changing!