What is a change agent?
A change agent, or agent of change, is someone who promotes and enables change to happen within any group or organization.
In business, a change agent is an individual who promotes and supports a new way of doing something within the company. This can be the use of a new process, the adoption of a new management structure or the transformation of an old business model to a new one.
A change agent is sometimes also called an agent of change or change advocate. Champion, change champion and change agent are often used interchangeably, as well; however, some see differences between the roles each one plays in supporting change. For example, a change agent is viewed as having more responsibilities and accountability than a champion for ensuring that change happens successfully.
Internal vs. external change agents
Managers and executives are often expected to be change agents within their organizations. However, internal change agents are not limited to high-ranking C-level employees. A change agent can be a lower-tier worker with the right mix of skills, characteristics and authority to shepherd others through the transformation. The fictional book The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim tells the story of an IT manager who guides upper management through a digital transformation.
A change agent can also be someone outside the organization, such as an external consultant hired to help with a change effort.
Although a change agent can come from various positions inside or outside an organization, a successful change agent is someone who is respected by the people the organizational change affects. They also tend to be individuals who are well-informed about the various facets of the project, the organization and the staff members involved.
What change agents do
Regardless of the actual position or job title a change agent holds, an individual who takes on the task of being an agent of change assumes responsibility for the following:
Change agents generally follow four key steps in making change happen.
- promoting the value of the transformation;
- formulating how the transformation will happen;
- guiding and supporting others through the transformation; and
- ensuring that the new processes, procedures and organizational structures are implemented to deliver the value the organization expected.
Overall, a change agent serves as a liaison between an organization’s leadership that sponsors a change initiative and the people affected by the change. The change agent helps articulate reasons for the change, answers questions and persuades others on the necessity of the initiative. They also raise concerns to the attention of leadership and decision-makers.
Change agents’ roles and responsibilities
To achieve change management objectives, a change agent assumes responsibilities that start once leadership decides to undertake an initiative. That way, a change agent can contribute to the initiative’s implementation strategy, action plan and decision-making process.
Change agents follow basic change management and project management practices.
By assigning a change agent at the start of an initiative, their objectives, responsibilities and metrics for success can be incorporated into the project plan.
The specific change management tasks that fall to the change agent include the following:
- explaining why change is taking place and who will be affected;
- advocating for the change initiative;
- disseminating information;
- highlighting the potential benefits and drawbacks of the proposed initiative;
- anticipating and evaluating areas of potential dispute or disruption;
- developing strategies to counteract any potential areas of dispute or disruption;
- obtaining feedback to share with leadership and conveying responses;
- serving as a point person to hear others’ concerns, ideas and questions;
- advising stakeholders, as well as the individuals the change affects;
- mediating points of contention; and
- tracking and managing objectives of the project.
Change agent characteristics
There are three main types of change agents:
- People-centric. These change agents help boost employee morale and motivation. They help employees through a change and assist with goal setting, training and upskilling.
- Structure-centric. These agents focus on changing an organization’s infrastructure. They research and implement new technologies and perform systems analysis.
- Process-centric. These change agents focus on implementing new change processes and facilitating communication and cooperation among teams.
To ensure success, leadership should choose a change agent based on characteristics commonly identified as the most effective for positions such as chief transformation officers. Those characteristics include the following:
- diversified knowledge;
- experience in the business discipline impacted by the change effort;
- a willingness to ask tough questions;
- flexibility, creativity and an openness to new ideas;
- a strong network;
- trustworthiness and credibility;
- an understanding of the organization’s corporate culture;
- courage;
- the ability to tell a company narrative;
- excitement for new opportunities and potential; and
- comfort working through uncertainty.
Change agents have a range of skills, including the ability to effectively communicate with both leadership and lower-level workers in an organization.
Why agents of change are important
An effective change agent serves a distinct role within a change initiative as a proponent of the change, as well as a conduit between leadership and the rest of the organization. A successful agent of change can help smooth resistance to change. Another role of a change agent is problem solving and addressing issues before they derail an initiative, ultimately ensuring the successful implementation and adoption of a new change project.
Change agents are important to organizations as facilitators of digital transformation. Learn the top 3 challenges individuals pushing for change face when implementing a digital transformation.
What are change agents?
A change agent also referred to as change champion or change facilitator is someone who is employed to improve organizational effectiveness through utilizing planned, deliberate strategies (Kendra & Taplin, 2004).
The change agent aims to enable system-wide change within an organization (Kendra & Taplin, 2004). Several organizational science researchers have argued that the ability of change agents to stimulate change within organizations is an integral dimension of organization success (Tichy, 1974).
Organizations appoint change agents to transform the methods used to manage the way in which business is conducted. These change agents can be managers, employees, or external consultants, who are hired to facilitate change initiatives.
How do change agents support change management initiatives?
If an organization utilizes internal change agents then these individuals can be effective through having a knowledge of the organization’s history, operations, and human resources. External change agent can also enable change management initiatives through providing a novel perspective to the firm and not showing bias based on previous knowledge of the organization’s history (Anderson, 2011).
However, this lack of knowledge of the firm can hamper an external change agent’s effort. One way to overcome this limitation is for the organization to pair an external change agent with an internal change agent. This internal agent can, for instance, be recruited from within the human resources function (Lunenberg, 2010). In Fortune 500 or large organizations, the firm might have an internal change agent who can work directly with senior management to facilitate change (Lunenberg, 2010).
Change agents support change inititatives through consulting, training and research
Change agents can support change management initiatives in three ways: consulting, training, and research (Stephen, 2010):
- In the role of consultant, the change agent can connect employees with critical data external to the organization or can involve employees in data collection from within the organization. Data can be a useful source of information in creating change within the organization because it allows employees and management to build predictive models. Change agents can enable employees to solve problems through statistical analysis of valid and reliable data (Lunenberg, 2010).
- In the role of trainer, the change agent can facilitate learning, through educating employees how to use the data to initiate change (Lunenberg, 2010). As a trainer, the change agent can help employees initiate action through data analysis and provide employees with a new skillset such as the ability to collect and use new data to solve organizational problems (Lunenberg, 2010).
- The change agent can also take the role of researcher through development of evaluation systems that assess the effectiveness of action plans (Lunenberg, 2010).
What are the characteristics of an effective change agent?
Researchers have identified several characteristics of effective change agents (Anderson, 2011).
Openess to change
First, effective change agents are flexible in that they are open to change and are able to be creative through identifying non-traditional methods to help organizations grow. Through being flexible, change agents can connect with people of different generations, hierarchical levels and business (functions) to identify the skillset of each employee.
Openness to experience
Second, effective change agents display diversity in their knowledge and are not rigid in their thinking. Instead, they gain knowledge through finding techniques that are appropriate for their industry and organization.
Focus on results linked to strategy
Third, successful change agents are efficient in that they prioritize and have a results focus. Moreover, this results focus is tied to the firm’s objectives and is integral to the strategic plan. This focus on outcomes enables change agents to demonstrate clear and transparent expectations to employees and enables more effective decision-making.
Effective communication and listening skills
Fourth, effective change agents also have effective communication skills such as good listening and are able to empathize with employees (Lunenberg, 2010). Effective change agents are also open and are willing to listen and take advice from people within the organization (Lunenberg, 2010).
Empirical research also suggests that the language used by change agents is important in tackling resistance to change. When change agents use autonomy-restrictive utterances, employees tend to resist change, so it is important that change agents consider the language that they use in fostering change (Klonek, Lehmann-Willenbrock, & Kauffeld, 2014). The three basic psychological needs autonomy, relatedness and competence provide a possible theoretical foundation for this finding.
