Characteristics and Capabilities of Successful Change Agents
Change agents act as the champions or change catalysts. The change agents may play the role of a consultant who assists the client in strategically identifying and implementing solutions for overcoming organizational problems. They play the role of a facilitator and train the client on new skills, changes in the processes, vision, mission and organizational philosophy.
For efficiently handling such diverse roles and building facilitating mechanisms, change agents must possess some special characteristics which would distinguish them from others.
In the opinion of Morris and Shaskin, change agents should be an extrovert, must have effective interpersonal skills, needs to be creative and a risk taker, and should be good at organizing various activities as per the requirements.
Havelock and Shaskin identified some of the important characteristics of change agents as well as the organizations which they have denoted by an abbreviation HELP Scores. A detailed description of these characteristics is given below:
What Change Agents are Capable of Changing
Change agents are capable of enforcing change broadly in four areas: Structure, Physical Setting, Technology, and People. Structural change is all about making changes in the organizational structure, authority and hierarchical framework, job redesign, and various other structural variables.
Change in technology implies a change in the techniques, methods, processes or best practices or the way of working itself. Change in the physical setting involves a change in the layout and also the spatial arrangements. Change agents also facilitate a change in the attitudes of people, skills, behavior and also their perceptions.
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