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How does one describe a change agent? In the most general terms, they are good at creating changes in organizations. To clarify they tend to be a person tasked with creating desired changes in the behavior of employees. This is job that inevitably will demand an extraordinary amount of leadership coordination. They are often the person called on to organize events, write scripts, and deal with upward managing.

For the amount of coordination required to have any meaning, try to keep in mind that the change agent is trying to manage coordination between four distinct leadership positions. You have the executive, top management, middle management, and the supervisor/employee level of the organization. For the change agent to make organization change happen, they need to get all four of these levels working on the same page to accomplish the same things.

To do this means that they need to, essentially, know everyone’s job better than they do. On top of that, they have to be very competent in organizational change. It is not unusual for the change agent to intervene at multiple levels. When someone is falling down on the job at little at some level, the change agent jumps in to correct the problem. This can be more complex than it seems.

In most cases, change agents have been given responsibility for organization change but lack the authority to compel compliance. It’s a rare occasion when a change agent is an executive. Change agents are typically volunteered for the change initiatives they are given. This means that they are often required to be a force behind the scenes. Their duties can be finding outside talent to fulfill goals, group facilitation and process design. It almost invariably demands extensive upward management.

The big challenge in managing upward is a question of whether or not the executive involved understand the size of the organization change task. It’s common for them to lack that understanding. In this situation, the change agent may not be provided the support, resources, or executive attention needed to make the change successful.

When faced with this, the change agent needs to employ the full range of their diplomatic skills. The change agent has to bring the executive around to providing the necessary resources and support to create a successful outcome. These things should be actively sought. Yet, there must be respect for the fact that the executive has a mind of their own and can only be pushed so far. At times, this can mean accepting that the organization change might fail. [spin]This is the great risk in being a change agent.

For more information, please visit this web page: Implementing Change

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