The Transferable Skills That Have Defined My Career
When I was being interviewed for my first startup job many years ago my resume still reflected that I had been a minister and a missionary. One of the questions that came up in the group interview was how I thought my ministry experience might benefit me in this particular role. I must have given a good response, because I got the job. In fact, I've brought to my career learnings from both ministry and English teaching (ESL/EFL).
From the world of ministry I first brought working with people toward a goal. This sometimes involved volunteer management as well, though mostly it was working with a team. In Brazil I worked with a team of Brazilians to start a church. In the United States I worked with staff and volunteers to grow the church. People management is one of those so-called "soft skills" that's essential for project management, particularly when it follows a servant leadership model.
When I got involved in Agile, and Scrum specifically, I quickly realized that in retrospectives I was drawing on my pastoral skills to draw people out about how they felt the project went. One of the managers of a team I led through an Agile transformation called it "group therapy." It was effective because of the experience in another field I brought to it.
Then there was public speaking, which is useful in making presentations to stakeholders and others. This aspect of my experience was accentuated by my teaching experience.
In ESL/EFL teaching I found myself not simply doing rote teaching, but varying my style and subject matter to fit the class's style and culture. I used props, my laptop, the whiteboard, and once even my own son (more on that here) to convey language lessons. This dynamism in the classroom translates over to my style in workplace instruction, and came particularly in handy when I was introducing the concept of an Agile transformation to teams.
Along with that, cultural awareness and sensitivity play a large part in ESL/EFL teaching, as different cultures are meeting in the language classroom. This has helped with interpersonal relationships and especially in understanding offshore workers.
Finally, English teaching helped me learn about goal setting and making incremental progress. In the classroom it's about improving language skills, and in the business world it's about delivering projects on time, in scope, and under budget.
While neither ministry nor ESL/EFL teaching turned out to be my career path, both have contributed richly to my ability to work as a project manager. Over the years I've built up these and other skills that help me help teams deliver on their commitments.
For more details on my background in ministry and language instruction, see the following:
