Oh, My Friends.

I don’t know about you, but I have a love-hate relationship with social media anymore.  The one feature I love most is for sure the timeline, which allows me to so quickly see where my head was at (or who I was with), this time last year (or 10 years ago… eek).

This morning, as I started to sit down to write this, my timeline popped up with a memory that really hit home, as I was thinking about how to start this first personal message to each of you.  Exactly one year ago from the time I am writing this, I had just finished with a four-day citywide site inspection in Bangkok, Thailand, that wrapped up with a three-night extension in Koh Samui.  As we were planning for the site, murmurs had just started to evolve into warnings as Wuhan was locked down. Before bed the night before our long-haul flight, we got news of China closing its borders. We departed for our site without masks, and ready for a long-haul flight, a weird night of sleep, and a full day of hotel sites.  The four days flew by, China felt a million miles away, Thailand had almost no cases, and we were looking forward to wrapping up and decompressing at the resort we had extended at… we were exhausted.

We arrived to a rather empty hotel for our post stay at the beginning of the Chinese New Year Holiday celebration, a time that typically finds resorts throughout Asia Pacific jam-packed. The General Manager greeted us at the driveway, explained that they had about 80% of their reservations cancel that weekend, as a majority of them had been made by Chinese leisure transient travelers. He upgraded us into a lovely ocean-facing room, and we spent a few lovely days in a largely apocalyptically-empty resort, reading Western News Sources that just didn’t seem to reflect what we were experiencing…. But there were hints that the landscape was about to change.

We arrived in Chicago with the first four flights landing from China after their borders closed. We sat in customs for four hours; TSA literally didn’t know what to do with us. They were gathered in giant circles trying to figure out how to process us. We had transferred through Hong Kong and had not been in mainland China, so we eventually made it through. I left O’Hare that day with the realization that life was about to be very different. I had a program I was departing for in two days.

Two days later, I flew into Punta Mita concerned, but there were just a few cases in Washington State being reported. The incentive I was departing for was still happening. We brought extra hand sanitizer in case any attendees had concerns during the trip. Coming home, I contemplated throwing it away versus packing it to bring back with us, as it was so inexpensive to buy, and such a potential hazard to all the business attire in my suitcase. Little did I know that it was the most valuable item coming back with me and that I wouldn’t need those clothes for more than a year… likely two. In the shuttle on the way home, we heard about the start of the cases in Italy. The van ride to the airport was quiet. The “penny had dropped” for most of us on the ride as we scrolled through not only the news of Italy but the first cases popping up in New York City.

My takeaway? Life can change in an instant. We always knew we needed to have a plan, but we discovered that we also needed to be able to change the backup plan for a different backup plan. We have to plan as if the worst can happen because while rare, it does. That is where YOUR expertise comes into play. CMPs were MADE for this. You exist so that in times like these, you can help your organizations, or clients, adapt, change and grow in an impossibly short amount of time and make it look effortless. And you did it. A year later, I have to say, the stories I have read and heard on calls, forums, blogs, and more webinars than I thought possible, have just made me that much more positive that our community is comprised of some of the smartest, bravest and most courageous people on the planet. And the funniest… really, really funny.

What it takes to be a CMP is adapting and changing and growing. We are working hard this year to evolve our six-year-old Competency Profile (formerly known as the Job Task Analysis) to reflect how much global growth our community has done over the past year (well, really five years). We are going to be making an ask to our entire CMP community to help us with the evolution and revolution. It’s going to mean updating a manual or two, and a test question… or 150 test questions, but we are going to get it done together, as a community. It will take a village, and that village includes you.

We need our work to reflect all of the awesomeness that was YOU this year, with everything you learned – from every laugh you had or tear you shed powering through that growth, which was largely driven by leaning on your community to figure out a way through the other side of this. The expertise you put into action somehow needs to be encapsulated into something we can test for in a way that ensures that we embrace our global community and different ways that we do business. We are going to do it because as a community, we get it done, don’t we?

To help you stay a part of our community, we have maintained the COVID reduction for recertification fees until 30 April 2021 to enable you to renew your credential at a $50 savings. We offer a $50 COVID discount for both the initial application fee and the examination fees to new candidates from the comfort and safety of their home office, at a time of their choosing, that works with their schedule.

Now that we can see the light at the end of this tunnel, let’s make sure we all get out the other side of it. Check on your industry friends and make sure they are ok. Share job postings with your out-of-work or furloughed industry friends. Raise your hand if you want to help us with this next big endeavor… and know if you just can’t right now, we will get you the next time around. And the word, “pivot”?  Now that’s a word I can do without for about a year. Maybe two. Maybe forever.

Alisa Peters, CMP, CMM

Chair of the CMP Governance Commission