Are You an Agent of Change? Find Out!
Helen Wilkinson, Pablo Cardona

Year: 2007

In a world of increasing competition, stagnation is the arch enemy of progress. To move ahead and improve results, we must adapt to the new needs and challenges before us. Change is necessary and is a vital survival strategy for organizations. Associate researcher Helen Wilkinson and IESE Professor Pablo Cardona analyze the role that corporate executives must play as "change agents" who successfully promote internal transformation processes within companies.

An agent of change is someone able to accept, internalize and promote change. All corporate managers should be able to act as such. If they can't, the attempted change will either fail or its implementation will be painful due to unnecessary layoffs or suffering. In the long run, change will be defeated if visionary leaders are followed by submissive employees, who are incapable of dissenting for fear of losing their jobs. Employees must be able to think critically in order to implement changes and new processes in the future. If not, more dismissals will likely occur and the cycle will continue.

Accepting change means being open and capable of adapting to it. In general, people tend to show more or less explicit resistance to change due to a lack of hope, self-esteem or self-awareness.

There are two possible causes for lack of hope: not believing that the change is worthwhile and not believing that one is capable of realizing it. Thus, managers who feel that change is necessary should consider the meaningfulness of the change with regards to their work. They should consider the positive aspects it will bring (personnel training and learning, higher revenues, better interpersonal relations, consolidation of their professional career, etc.).

To overcome a lack of hope, self-esteem should be reinforced, since it fuels people?s motivation. Oftentimes, reviewing our previous failures and the reasons why we feel incapable of change can weigh heavily on us. Therefore, we must find the root of these failures and try to fix it, perhaps by taking on smaller challenges to start.

As for self-awareness, it is essential to reflect on the internal blockages hindering the acceptance of change. Some of the most common include fear of failure, complacency, arrogance, rigid proposals, lack of perspective and impatience. Are we conscious of these things?

How to Internalize Change
Internalizing change involves making as many internal modifications as necessary in order to absorb it and make it work. Internal blockages impeding change should be addressed by shifting attitudes and by repeating the actions that lead to the desired change. For instance, when faced with the fear of failure, there is nothing better than action, since delaying the reform process only increases the fear of undertaking it. So, if one considers studies indicating that most people's fears never become reality, why waste time, energy and creativity imagining negative scenarios?

Change brings along great opportunities for personal growth, which in the long run usually increases a manager's sensation of complacency. To overcome this obstacle, it is necessary to embrace the resolution of change and to start by modifying a specific area. Later on, managers can expand their goals.

When faced with arrogance, agents of change must be courageous and ask themselves if they are permeable to the criticisms, if they are open to the possibility of improvement and, therefore, of change. This requires humility, and the effort of seeking out objective information and asking someone trustworthy about the proper way to act.

When faced with rigid proposals or a lack of perspective, managers must try to increase their cultural and human knowledge. They can do so by reading books on different tendencies, by participating in training seminars, by learning to prioritize matters, and by setting aside time in their agendas for thinking about long-term objectives. When feeling impatient, they must foster optimism, knowing that change doesn't happen overnight. As long as one doesn't throw in the towel, persistence will ultimately pay off. In short, in order to change, there must be reflection, resolution and diligence, along with the courage and conviction that things are moving in the right direction.

Promoting change is only possible if it has first been accepted and internalized. For managers, being an example is the first factor in promoting the change, but not the only one. Managers must understand that members of their team will experience the same blockages that they did. Thus, managers must first look inside at their own blockages, aspirations, incentives, background and learning capacity. Only in this way will they be able to support, motivate and coach their coworkers.

Managers must also clearly communicate the direction of the change and its urgency and necessity. Urgency should not be mistaken for stress, which is different. Urgency leads to positive mobilization because it brings along the conviction that the change is worthwhile. It gives it content and credibility. In the march towards change, managers should celebrate small victories without declaring victory too soon. They must persevere.

Lastly, to inspire change, nothing works better than fostering an enjoyable, relaxed atmosphere in the workplace. Clearly, change (and with it, openness and creativity) works best in places where laughter is present and confidence and freedom reign.