A CHANGE AGENT COMPASS FOR SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION

Your change leadership paper is a critical reflection on change leadership considering the leader’s knowledge, skills, and abilities required for leading change at the team level, with stated implications at the individual and organizational levels. Your 5-6-page paper (excluding the cover page and reference page) will have the appropriate use of APA style and format.

This is a two-part paper: In Part 1, using the model on page 173, Figure 9.1, The Change Agent Compass, you will create a plan to make an organizational change. This change can be within your organization or department, or with an association to which you belong. It can be changing a process or a methodology, a training program, or a mindset/culture. Be sure to define your key stakeholders and who you consider your ‘client’. You will also include how it will affect the individuals involved and the organization as a whole. Because the leader’s knowledge, abilities, and skills are essential to a successful change, include those in your analysis.

Part 2, will be your reflection: Now that you have laid out your plan, where are there gaps in your thinking? What could go wrong that you have not thought about? Lastly, include how you will bring about this change. Feel free to use your discussion question responses (and your classmates’), along with your team assignments, as additional information for your paper.

Harnessing the Use of Self Aremin Hacobian

The term change agent refers to those individuals whose work involves trans- forming a system from its present state to some desired future state in a sus- tainable manner. Although there are many theories and models for how systems—at the group, organization, and societal level—experience change and progress through the change cycle, in reality we are typically confronted with change that takes place on multiple levels and in multiple systems. The model presented in this chapter focuses specifically on change agents who work simultaneously with multiple systems, faced with the challenge of draw- ing from numerous and varied system theories, grounding those concepts in project-specific data and desired outcomes. Based on nearly two decades as a project manager and change agent in the biopharmaceutical industry, I often searched—without success—for direction, a compass if you will, to guide my actions, behaviors, intentions, and impact on the client system. In order to further my own effectiveness, I have developed a compass to guide such sys-

Consultation for Organizational Change Revisited, pages 171–183 Copyright © 2016 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 171

EBSCOhost: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) printed on 8/17/2024 1:39:57 AM UTC via UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON. All use subject to https://www.ebsco.com/terms-of-use.

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172  A. HACOBIAN

tem transformation, with hope that this approach will resonate with change agents and support their day to day work, reflection, and personal growth.

The change process itself is often described in terms of a continuum, from the Gestalt Flow of Continuous Experience (Nevis, 1987) and Transitions Model (Bridges, 2004) to Theory U (Scharmer, 2007). These models are useful as a guide for change and transformation at a macro-level, but they also recognize that various people in an organization or societal system will often be at different places on the change curve. In fact, the same person can be on different parts of the change curve at the same time. An underly- ing challenge concerns how change agents can address such complexity and diversity of perspectives when managing a transformation project that involves multiple stakeholders, often across different groups, regions, and cultures. Moreover, the very presence of a change agent within the system can readily impact people’s attitudes, behaviors, and willingness to change. As a result, with so many factors to monitor and manage, it is easy to see why so many change efforts fall short of their desired outcomes.

Figure 9.1 is intended as a reference point for change agents—from project managers and OD practitioners, to HR partners and beyond—to assist their work within a client system while also providing guidance for managing one’s own presence and impact. Never intended to be static, the model represents an ongoing opportunity for self-reflection, learning, and growth. The chapter explores the challenge of transforming systems, draw- ing on examples from a project with a large global pharmaceutical com- pany to provide context and guidance for application.

The Change Agent Compass consists of four dimensions and three guid- ing principles. Chosen deliberately, the compass metaphor likens a change agent to a hiker who has set off in the wilderness for an adventure. Even with the best preparation and planning, the change agent often encoun- ters unexpected challenges, surprises, and risks that can result in a minor change of direction (e.g., slight refinements of a meeting agenda) or a major detour to a new destination (e.g., full revision of project scope and objectives). The compass seeks to organize foundational organization de- velopment (OD) theory and values into a framework that is practical and useful for those navigating the wilderness of system transformation. Con- tinuing with the compass metaphor, the guiding principles serve as the di- rectional needle that should always be top of mind for the change agent in every interaction with a client organization. The four dimensions of the model are similar to directional markers, which help guide the ideas, be- haviors, and actions of the change agent based on the situation. One will often have to operate in two or more dimensions at a time, and an artistic management of presence occurs when a change agent balances these key considerations within and across dimensions and achieves a desired impact in service of client objectives.

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