Shapeshifters Group exist in order to give shapeshifters voice and visibility. If you would like to help, and wonder what you can do – here’s how:

For shapeshifters and individuals

• Refine this. Review it, expand it, contextualise it, test it, challenge it. Help us make it more accurate, relevant, and clear. You should be able to leave comments buy default. Contact us at hello @ shapeshifters.group for deeper editorial access.
• Socialise this. Every act of repeating the framework normalises it. Talk about it, post about it, share the website link or this wiki with shapeshifter colleagues.
• Platform this. Give us a seat at the table, an interview on your panel or podcast. Mention us in your newsletter, your speech, your company meeting. Every repetition helps.
• Name the work. When you see something resembling shapeshifting, name it. If you do something shapeshifetr-y, name it. Using our vocabulary or other, that doesn’t matter. Just acknowledge that ‘this is a thing’.

For HR practitioners and organisations

• Develop PDs and KPIs. Our bet: we can clarify what shapeshifters do. This will benefit organisations. Including by discerning what’s a good or bad shapeshifter.
• Apply our uses cases and case studies. Some people might resist the naming and recognition of shapeshifters, feeling that it’s taking the spotlight away from them. Which is precisely what we propose to do. This is precisely why we developed use cases: adopt them!
• Appoint Shapeshifters. Try it out. A safe place to start could be to have one fractional or contract role alongside key program leaders. AI integration, transition to new forms of environmental accounting, work from home arrangements. Appoint a shapeshifter to work alongside the CTO, CFO and CPO for each of those projects.

For policy makers and industry bodies

• Set Shapeshifters as a default. One of the biggest challenges faced by shapeshifters is that they ‘don’t fit in the box’. They go to a networking event, and have to list one job in one organisation. They fill in a survey, and must list one profession. Change this – either with more boxes, or by adding the label ‘shapeshifter’ (or an equivalent) to your default list.
• Training and certifying pathways. For now, shapeshifting is something you learn ‘on the job’, with a limited sense of what would be the most valuable experience. But this could be improved, especially with government and institutional support. Could there be an MBA stream? A peak body that ensures minimal certification? A community of practice?
• Grants, funding, and awards. Shapeshifters are often unseen and under-recognised. When they seek recognition, they don’t fit in the box. Why is funding for start-ups directed so much to founders, not the first followers who make their work possible? Why do awards reward people in one category rather than bridging them? What would it look like if our systems of recognition made room for shapeshifters?