The role of the change agent.
BEING
What you can do is very different from what you are. What you are can change, of course, as life events impinge on you—you may even seek out situations that help you to change. But if you try to 'learn' to be different in the same kind of way that you might learn contract law the changes can seem rather phoney, at least until you have made them part of yourself.
People show what they are by how others react to them. Spending time with people who are at peace with themselves and value listening to you feels very different and much safer than being with people who are very tense, and seem driven by inner demons that are quite unaware of your existence.
A team of people trying to put an idea into practice face many anxieties, some of which are objective (-will X be delivered on time?), some personal (-can I really do it well enough). There will often be periods when no-one can distinguish between realistic fears and unfounded panics.
If the atmosphere in the team feels safe and trustworthy, the unfounded panics and anxieties can easily be checked out and absorbed. But if external pressures such as job insecurity, or internal pressures from 'inner demons' are too great, the anxieties may easily take over, with people becoming suspicious of one another, defensive manoeuvering, scape-goating, leadership conflicts distracting side-issues and all the paraphernalia of a group at war with itself.
Ground-work includes maintaining a g~good atmosphere, with good communication and trust. You may have to start by changing yourself.
As an agent of change you must expect such responses. It is in the nature of the role, and the change agent needs the skills, adaptability, resilience, and groundedness, to cope with it.
Some of the pressures and uncertainties within an organisation are transmitted in from the turbulent world outside, and some are generated from inside by the tensions between the needs of the organisation as a whole, and the needs of the individual members within it But wherever the pressure comes from, every sectional interest expects to have to defend itself, to 'guard its patch' from real and imagined threats, and change is almost always a potential threat.
There is no single 'correct' way to be a change agent Many different styles are possible. There are 'high profile' styles that 'lead from the front' such as the entrepreneur, the visionary, the autocrat and 'low profile' ones that 'work from the back' such as the non directive facilitator, the under cover agent, the adviser. Some aim to sell particular ideas; others aim to help people to find their own ideas. Some aim to provide information: others aim mainly to inject
energy and vitality, others to increase the level of trust and communication.
It will certainly help if you can let the angry confront you; fire enthusiasm in the bored and disillusioned; provide a safe place for the hurt, the tense, and the anxious to open out in; hear what the arrogant have to say, without being pushed around by them; satisfy the sceptical; and explain carefully and respectfully to the confused.
Back to index testing:
