Change initiatives are so much more complicated than what many believe. They always involve a lot of effort and a highly-concerted effort that appears at many different company levels. Both the board of directors and top management staff stand out as crucial parts of the entire operation. These are what is known as “change agent”. Besides them, we also have to talk about steering committees, sponsors and various vital change aspects.
To put it as simple as possible, during change management, according to German Trujillo Manrique, the role of the CEO is to manage the entire change process. This is much easier said than done. Some things that should be known about the process include the following.
Change Initiator
Many organizations understand the fact that there is a need to make a change but this happens only in the event that a loss appears. Loss can mean various different things. For instance, it can mean dipping sales figures, some key people departing, market share falls or losing a highly valuable client in favor of the competition. In many situations, the change is initiated because someone inside the organization manages to react to such an event. A need to make a change is signaled.
Change Agent
A change agent is a person that is responsible for implementing and driving change in the organization. Change agents can be internal or external consultants. At various change process stages there are different teams or individuals that occupy the change agent position. As an example, in the event that change management is outsourced and an external consultant takes over, he becomes the change agent. If there is a project team that works on consultant recommendations, team leaders become change agents. Simply put, the change agents are pushing the change through reinforcing a need to make a change.
Official Sponsor Team
In most cases, the organization is going to identify a department or a team that will coordinate change. In the larger organizations, sponsors can be the IT department or the HR department. In a smaller organization, senior leaders make a team that play the role of the sponsor.
As change efforts take place at ground levels, they have to be steered by the work of the top management staff. This is paramount in making sure that an initiative does not lose focus or ends up stranded due to motivational issues or operational issues.
Final Thoughts
No matter what you might think right now, change will make or break the entire business. It is important to understand the fact that change will never just happen. The entire management team has to work together and the input the employees offers needs to be taken into account. A failure to do this will lead to many problems. You need to be sure that you focus on creating a management strategy, which is much easier said than done. Be sure that you analyze everything before you start the change process and that every single person that will be affected is aware of what needs to be done.
