Engage
- Create opportunities for growth
- Provide resources for success
Expect
- Alignment to the change initiative
- Continued learning
Change agents are the on-the-ground resource that keeps
change initiatives running. Acting alone
on smaller projects or in concert with other change agents and change managers
in larger projects, they translate the plan into action. Change agents may be directly engaged by the
change management office, may volunteer for service, or may be “voluntold” by
their managers as they’re looking to carry out a change themselves and are
required to support an organization-wide change.
The defining characteristic of a change agent is that they
don’t have much professional experience with change. They may have been involved in a few prior
change initiatives and may have some training. However, they are not experts on change but instead
are competent, if still learning, members of the team.
Change agents are often less intimidating for others to talk
to than change managers, success owners, and executive sponsors. As a result, they can sometimes have more
open conversations about the good and the bad of the change initiative, particularly
conversations which capture weaknesses that could be remedied.