Change is inevitable. It is part of the evolutionary process that every company must endure. Yet change can be disruptive, difficult and dearly-won.
Change agents are those natural individuals who thrive on making change happen. Selected from within various levels of the organization, based on their individual skills and capabilities, the onus of guiding the organization forward rests on the shoulders of these individuals.
Considering the critical nature of this role, the careful selection and mentoring of change agents is vital to the success or failure of the change process. This article will focus on some practical tips for mentoring change — contributed by managers that have seen all sides of the change process.
Should the change agent be someone with considerable managerial experience i.e. from the top management or should individuals from the lower rungs be trained and equipped to induce change?
Staci H. Zake, program director in Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Communication (MSC) program (www.msc.northwestern.edu), an interdisciplinary one-year professional master’s program designed to address organizational and technological factors shaping managerial decision-making, understands the importance of bottom-up innovation where there is often greater ownership related to the success of the initiative.
“Only managers living with the organization change can truly understand how well innovation is working and where further adjustments need to be made. Forcing change from the top can have negative consequences when senior management doesn’t fully understand the nuances of change or the human impact,” Zake says.
Coley Perry, sales and marketing manager with Naperville, IL-based Solution Partners, a technology staff augmentation firm, and a student in the MSC program, points out leadership characteristics to watch for when evaluating the potential for good change leaders.
“If you are looking for a change agent or how to mentor them you need to look for the following: climbers within the organization, politically savvy individuals within your organization, charismatic individuals, and people who understand and embrace evolutionary (not revolutionary) change,” says Perry.
Change agents from within the organization are likely to posses a deeper understanding of internal issues, politics and challenges. This knowledge places them in a better position to garner support from across the ranks.
JR Samples, president of Accountability Partners, an executive coaching firm located in Aurora, IL urges organizations to identify “undercover” change agents. “Find the grass root change agents. These are people on your staff working in a full-time role who are savvy enough to find a market opportunity or a method of improving a process to increase productivity and customer satisfaction,” Samples says.
It is up to the organization to identify potential change agents, understand their capabilities and mentor them to achieve their full potential. Change agents have to influence organizational behavior. They have to challenge existing practices including the accepted culture and introduce changes in the process followed by the organization.
To ensure this, the manager/mentor needs to first provide them with a broad understanding of the need for change. The change agent has to understand the goal of the change process, and its short term and long term impact. The mentor should focus on aligning the change agent with the overall organizational goal before authorizing them to effect change in others.
Dana Sacks, Vice President of Human Resources for PepsiAmericas, emphasizes the importance of defining the desired change rationally. According to Sacks, this helps put reasonable goals in place and ensures the change agent has the right tools to make the change happen.
“One of the most important things that change agents need to do up front is make sure that the nature and scope of the project is very clear so that expectations can be set,” said Sacks. “Some of the areas to focus on are whether the project involves strategy and design or just assistance with implementation. Also, determining whether behavioral changes will be important - as changing behavior is very complicated.”
Lyn Bulman, EVP Global Human Resources at Fellowes, agrees with Sacks. She feels it is necessary to understand the critical success factors in order to effectively cultivate a change agent.
“Enthusiasm and support are easy to provide. The challenge is to ensure that the change is effective, by ensuring that the change-agent knows how their work fits with the overall direction of the company. It’s important to start with a vision of what success will look like and how it can be measured. That way, everyone can identify the benefits,” adds Bulman.
To gain the necessary skills the change agent or the mentee should have a learning attitude. Change is a learning process and no one ever knows it all right from the start. In change, nothing ever goes exactly according to plan so change agents must be able to identify issues as they arise, learn new ways to cope and effectively implement new plans.
The most successful change agents will not only be open to new ideas but they will actively pursue them – within and outside of the organization.
David Chun, CEO of Equilar, (www.equilar.com), an executive compensation benchmarking organization, believes the mentor should tap the mentees’ inherent desire to learn and succeed. Chun points out that analyzing success factors is not always complicated. It can be as simple as noting whether or not someone is built to be a change agent. According to Chun, in general, people will fall into one of two camps — ones that thrive on change and ones that don’t. He feels there is no sense investing time and resources in the latter group. “Before you even begin to mentor someone, make sure change is wired in their DNA,” said Chun
Patience and empathy are essential for implementing a change strategy, and especially important to setting expectations and project scope.
Managers, continues Manthey should embrace being a change agent. A manager needs to understand what makes his or her people “tick”. It’s the manager’s responsibility to understand what drives his people so he can speak to them in a way that influences behavior. By understanding where the target is coming from and what the target is bringing to the table a change agent is able to speak them in a way that can influence behavior. Influence over the behavior of others is ultimately what being a change agent is all about.
It is a given that resistance to change will happen. The mentor needs to gauge whether this resistance is the initial psychological reaction to question the need for change or whether there are other underlying issues. Human nature is selfish and it’s no different in change management. People will resist change when the benefits are not immediately visible. The mentor should overcome the initial resistance by outlining the likely benefits and the expected positive outcome.
Resistance is not an indication of the mentees failure to cooperate. Neither is it a reflection of a poor change strategy. On the contrary, resistance is an indication of the fact that the mentor is making progress.
John Aiello, CEO of The SAVO Group, says resistance should be embraced and viewed as a learning opportunity. “When trying to be a catalyst for change, remember that it is human nature for people to hear about change and first ask ‘what is in it for me? Rather than take that as a push-back or obstacle, embrace that feeling and let it help you refine not only the ideas but how you communicate them and motivate toward them,” says Aiello.
PepsiAmerica’s Sacks emphasizes strong communication for keeping things and people on task. A well thought out communication plan is critical to the success of the change initiative. Any change initiative is fraught with myriad risks. A communication plan defines the roles and responsibilities of the mentor and the mentee, and provides a plan of action in the event of an emergency.
Regular communication is necessary to ensure the mentor and the mentee continue to remain on the same page. The message of change has to be constantly reiterated till it’s embedded in the DNA of the organization. “There’s nothing worse than pushing a boulder uphill,” says Sacks. “As with everything else, a great communication plan that addresses the different audiences with the right media and message is critical. It makes things go as smoothly as possible.”
The mentor should provide the mentee with a risk free environment to make mistakes. Psychological safety is an important factor in successful change management. It encourages the mentee to explore ideas and be creative and innovative. This approach encourages the mentee to look for opportunities for improvement and reward their results.
Accountability Partner’s J.R. Samples says “A simple way to implement suggestions is to make it a point to let your staff know operational recommendations are expected. Your role is to highlight the people bringing ideas to the front. Make it a point to ask every week, ask different people and to publish the ideas prominently: Survey your people for broken processes - you will likely get a lot of suggestions. Compile it into a list and ask the staff to force rank them. Take the top 3 and tell your staff over the next 10 days to note anything that supports this reason for this being a broken process. This will actually ferret out the emotional “I just don’t like abc” processes from real ones that need attention. In the second 10 days, ask for recommendations on improving the process. At the end of this process ask your staff to force rank the suggestions. Take the top idea and over the next 10 days implement on a pilot basis.”
The organization should set up a strong support structure in order to transform the mentees into an effective body of change agents. Even though you’ve carefully designed your communications and training, it’s implausible to expect everyone to understand your message right away. Having the expectation that everyone will get it the first time around is setting up, not only for failure, but for resistance. Playing the blame game compounds an already murky situation.
Instead, Gerry Mann, Web Development Manager at Unitrin Business Insurance, encourages building a support structure within the change agent team.
Mann feels it requires a tremendous amount of emotional energy to effect change in an organization. “To sustain your elite cadre of change agents, there needs to be a structure for change agent peers to support each other, inside and outside of the organization. In my view, it is important to keep in touch with others doing the same work to share successes, issues and jointly look for answers to difficult problems,” Mann says.
According Sandee Kastrul, founder of I.C.Stars, (www.icstars.org) a Chicago-based non-profit organization that uses full immersion teaching to help future leaders develop skills in business and technology, trust and follow-through go hand in hand when mentoring change leaders.
“The beauty of mentoring a change agent is that you are walking through change together,” said Kastrul. “If you are mentoring someone to be a change agent and you yourself are not a change agent, they won’t trust your ability to drive change. Trust and follow-through are based in reciprocity – the mentor and the mentee are teaching and learning together. The mentor can only be trusted when he or she shares failure as well as success. The process of sharing and following-through is how trust is established.”
Question: "How is it a police department, that once had "questionable" pratices, can get away with continually classifying a change agent (dishonorable cops call change agents Whistleblowers) as mentally unstable?"
Pushing for change against 'questionable police training' is in no way shape or form, a form of mental instability! How so? 'you do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do' makes you mentally unstable? Really by who standards, the corrupt? Apparently so.
It is my opinion that men and women who push for change on questionable police practices should be held as hero, not outcasted and treated like the less desirable. Because fact of the matter is, if it was not for honorable police, the profession wouldn't be worth a damn. It would be just another way for the mob to control the public with an iron fist. It be worth a bunch of criminals wearing police uniforms. Talk about a threat to national security! If police acted like mobsters, our country wouldn't have any security whatsoever! Well, sorry that kind of "radicalism" is not going to happen, that only happens in 3rd world countries. We are not a totalitarian state and we never will be. So those of you who "think" we will be, get over it because it will never happen! America will never be a police state, being that it has already become a socialist one. Our intelligence agencies have already merged, this means we are officially a social driven community. Socialist do not do business with want to be police state supporters.
Hail to the change agents who have the courage to 'protect and serve' the rest of us....and for those who have no courage at all? Your already damned.
I, and the rest of society, have no respect for law enforcement officers who outcast the honorable in favor of those who have no honor at all.
Supporting and defending those who disregard the meaning behind; "why they were hired in the first place" does a dis service to those who value their careers in public service.
I salute the change agent. Thank you for keeping the profession of law enforcement honorable. And thank you, to all the honorable police officers who dispise other officers who ruined it for the rest of them.
Josh and Kade
