15 Key Competencies of Change Agents

“Change for Change Agents”

Genesee Valley Chapter ASTD
June 12, 2009

Karen B
K Barrow, MSOD
Baybridge Consulting, Inc.
585-218-4024
www.baybridge-consulting.com

Your Presenter is:
• Karen Barrow, MSOD, RODC
• President of Baybridge Consulting, Inc.
• Organization Development practitioner
• Specializes in facilitating organization, team,
and individual change processes
• Researcher, educator, author, and evangelist
of OD - its theories and practice, and
continuous learner
ti l

Copyright © 2009 Baybridge Consulting, Inc. www.baybridgeconsulting.com

Overview
Purpose: To share with you the dilemmas in
dealing effectively with the complexities of
human behavior in organizations as a change
agent
Objectives:
•Provide a point of reference with one model of
change
•Use that model to address real issues in your
organization from a change agents perspective
Outcomes: An appreciation for the joy and
difficulty found being a change agent
g g g

15 Key Competencies of a
Change A
Ch Agent
1. Sensitivity to changes in key personnel, top management
perceptions and market conditions, and to the way in which these
conditions
impact the goals of the project
2. Setting of clearly defined, realistic goals
3.
3 Flexibility in responding to changes without the control of the
project manager, perhaps requiring major shifts in project goals
and management style
4. Team-building abilities, to bring together key stakeholders and
g , g g y
establish effective working groups, and to define and delegate
respective responsibilities clearly
5. Networking skills in establishing and maintaining appropriate
contacts within and outside the organization
i hi d id h i i
6. Tolerance of ambiguity, to be able to function comfortably,
patiently and effectively in an uncertain environment


Competencies Continued
p
7. Communication skills to transmit effectively to
colleagues
and subordinates the need for changes in the project goals
and in individual tasks and responsibilities
8. Interpersonal skills, across the range, including
selection,
listening, collecting appropriate information, identifying
the
concerns of others, and managing meetings
9. Personal enthusiasm in expressing plans and ideas
10.
10 Stimulating motivation and commitment in others
involved.
11. Selling plans and ideas to others by creating a desirable
and challenging vision of th f t
d h ll i i i f the future


….and still more competencies
p
12. Negotiating with key players for resources, for
changes in procedures and to resolve conflict
procedures,
13. Political awareness in identifying potential
coalitions, and in balancing conflicting goals and
perceptions
14. Influencing skills, to gain commitment to project
p
plans and ideas form p potential skeptics and
p
resisters
15. Helicopter perspectives, to stand back from the
Immediate project and take a broader view of
priorities


What does this mean?


However…


Nature
Nat re of Change*
• Nature of Perceptions
• Nature of Motivation
• Nature of Changeg
• Nature of Resilience

*Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where
Others Fail by Daryl R. Conner


Nature of Perceptions
Perceived Reality
i d li
Matches Expectations
Control is Achieved
Need Anticipate Expectations
For Established
Control Future Future

Perceived Reality
Does Not Match Expectations
Control is Lost


Perceptions
p
• Change uses up assimilation capacity
• Assimilation consumes capacity whether;
positive/negative, self induced/thrust upon us,
accept/reject change
• How assimilation capacity is used up affects us
• Assimilation problems happen when many
changes overlap
• Resilient people have more available capacity and
use l
less with each change
ih h h


Nature of Motivation
• When expectations are significantly disrupted,
resistance is the result
• Resistance to change reduces motivation
• Expect the natural patterns of resistance
• N
Negative response to change reduces motivation
i h d i i
• Kubler-Ross eight stage model: stability,
immobilization, denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
g g g p
testing, and acceptance
• Positive response to change also reduces motivation
• Conner five stage model: uninformed optimism,
optimism
informed pessimism, hopeful realism, informed
optimism, and completion


Nature of Commitment

• Three phases in commitment process:
preparation, acceptance, and finally
commitment
• Preparation: contact and awareness
• Acceptance: understanding and positive
perception
• Commitment: installation, adoption,
institutionalization,
institutionalization and internalization


Payments
Commitment Resistance Payments
y
Payments
• Price of Resistance Paid early Paid later
• Initial Investment High
g Low
• Maintenance Cost Low High
• Implementation Slow Fast
• Assimilation Fast Slow
• Target Investment Bodies & Bodies but not souls
Souls
• Target Motivation
g Project
j Compliance
Success
• Commitment Level Internalized Institutionalized (?)


Resilient People
• Display a sense of security and self-assurance
p y y
based on view of life as complex but filled with
opportunity
• Have a clear vision for achievements,
• Demonstrate pliability to uncertainty,
• Develop structured approaches to managing
ambiguity
• Engage change rather than defend against it


Non resilient
Non-resilient People
• View change as threatening and feel victimized
• Find it difficult to reorient when there is
disruption of expectations
• Think life should progress in a logical and
orderly fashion
• Undeveloped tolerance for ambiguity
• Feel insecure about self
• Insecure about ability to manage change


Continued
• Feel a need to defend against the mysterious,
g y ,
random emotional reactions they and others
have when facing disruption
• Interpret unexpected change as the result of
personal vendettas or conspiracies
• Shift the focus of attention to someone else and
blame
bl
• Feel overwhelmed and incapable in an
unpredictable, confusing, and contradictory
p , g, y
world.


Educate
Perceptions of Change
1. Realize that control is what we all seek in our lives and
the ambiguity caused by the disruption of expectations
is what we all fear and avoid.
2. Are able to exercise some degree of direct or indirect
g
control over what happens during the implementation
of change.
3. Can assimilate change at a speed commensurate with
g p
the pace of the events taking place around you.
4. Understand the micro implications of organizational or
macro change.
5. Face a total assimilation demand from the micro,
organizational, and macro transitions in your life that
is within your absorption limits.


Educate
Motivation toward Change
1. Understand the basic mechanisms of resistance.
2. View resistance as a natural and i i bl reaction to
i i l d inevitable i
the disruption of expectations.
3. Interpret resistance as a deficiency of either ability or
willingness.
illi
4. Encourage and participate in overt expressions of
resistance.
5. Understand that resistance to positive change is just as
common as resistance to negatively perceived change
and that both reactions follow their own respective
sequence of events which can be anticipated and
events,
managed.


Educate
Commitment to Ch
C i Change
1. Realize the sequence of steps involved in committing
q p g
to something new.
2. Are provided with the time and appropriate
involvement to become emotionally as well as
y
intellectually committed to a change.
3. Are sponsored by people who invest the time,
resources, and effort to assure specific p
p plans are
developed that will increase the likelihood people will
commit to change.
4. Understand that commitment to a major change is
always expensive, and that you either pay f achieving
l i d h ih for hi i
it or pay for not having it.


So that Shift Happens…
• Resilience is the competitive advantage of
change


15 Key Competencies of Change Agents

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