Change agents
Whether they be internal people or externally hired consultants, play an important role in the innovation and change process. Many of you reading and using this change management tool will be playing the role of change agent.

Change agents communicate with clients, individuals and/or groups of individuals/firms, and influence their innovation decisions and methods. Change agents are linkers, they facilitate the flow of information, provide alternative perspectives and experience and, therefore, facilitate the implementation process. There are five main change agent-related factors to consider. Information on each can be accessed by clicking on the listing below or by scrolling down the page:

• Change agent tasks
• Change agent qualifications/characteristics
• External change agent roles
• Change agent success factors

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Change agent tasks
Change agents must accomplish several things:

1. Stimulate a need for, and an intent to, change in the client(s). This is the primary task. It is the job of the change agent to help make change happen by clarifying the need to change and helping to crystallise people's intentions and plans to change.
   
   
2. Establish relationships with many people. One of the best ways to facilitate change is to talk to as many people as possible. If you know people and have established relationships with them, it greatly facilitates your activities. See related information on communication systems and procedures.
   
   
3. Diagnose the problems and situation. As an agent for change, you must have a good handle on what the relevant business problems and issues are, how what you are doing will address those problems, and what the likely benefits of the changes will be for individuals and the organisation. You should communicate this information to relevant people regularly, clearly and consistently.
   
   
4. Translate intent into actions. Many firms and individuals embark on change programs with all the good intentions in the world. Once the realities of what they are trying to accomplish set in, however, they may become less enthusiastic. It is the change agents job to translate these good intentions into realistic, actionable plans and concrete achievements.
   
   
5. Stabilise the change and prevent premature project termination. When change begins to happen, by definition you de-stabilise the system and upset the status quo. Because of this, a major role of the change agent is to help calm people down and let them know that what is happening is expected and "normal". If this is done effectively, people will be less likely to want to discontinue the changes once they have begun.
   
   
6. End the relationship with the client(s). The final task of the change agent is work themselves out of a job. If the system is able to assimilate the change successfully, there will come a point when you are no longer needed on this particular project. It will then be time to go and look for the next challenge.

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Change agent qualifications/characteristics
Not everyone is cut out to be a successful change agent. Some of the qualifications and characteristics of change agents are:

• Technical expertise. A change agent must have technical competence and experience in the specific area/tasks of the change project.
  
• Administrative ability. Change agents must not let details slip through the cracks. They do not have to be detail-oriented people themselves. They must, however, be detail-sensitive to ensure that someone is looking after them. Implementing innovation and technical change is a complex task that requires excellent project management and administrative skills including planning, selecting and training others.
  
• Interpersonal relations. A change agent exercises her/his craft by interacting with others. Successful change agents are people-oriented. They have to have excellent listening, empathy, communication, and relationship skills.
  
• Motivation and drive. Significant personal and organisational change requires massive amounts of energy and effort. If you do not have the motivation and the drive to make it happen, you can not be successful. See related information on the style and scale of change in the section on initial implementation planning.
  
• Acceptance/rejection of constraints. Change agents have to have a set of paradoxical skills in order to be successful. They must simultaneously have the ability to tolerate constraints and the creativity to work around them. The first things that will show up when you make a change are all the norms, values, expectations, and systems that are in place to keep things from changing. The change agent role, therefore, requires the "grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other" (The Serenity Prayer, 1934, Reinhold Niebuhr).
  
• Emotional maturity. Change agents must be powerful people (see related information in the Background Information on leadership). In other words, they must possess strong commitment, poise and backbone. When implementing innovation and technical change, success is achieved and maintained by those who keep trying.

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External change agent roles
There are several different roles that external change agents might play during the implementation of innovation and change.

Firms may wish to hire outside consultants, or to use government-supported staff or services, in order to play strategic, facilitating, operational, and/or training roles. Please remember that these differing roles may be filled by one, two, or any number of different individuals.

Strategic roles. External people may be sought for their strategic vision. There are people who are professional innovators. People who, because of their experience in a field or their location within a certain firm, have been at the leading edge of development and use in certain industries and technologies can be extremely valuable. These people may be called upon to provide expert opinion in terms of strategic vision and planning for an organisation and its technology implementation plans.

Facilitating roles. Other organisational outsiders may be valuable as facilitators of change. These classic change agents may be private consultants, vendor-based individuals, or government representatives. They can help an organisation by making the process of innovation and technical change easier as they can call on their technical expertise and their past experience.

Operational roles. Some individuals may be brought in from the outside because they have experience doing what the innovating organisation is now attempting to do. These experience-based outsiders bring the confidence and learning that come with having already done it, hopefully successfully.

Training roles. Still other outside individuals and/or firms can be brought in to provide training for innovation and new technology. These people can be professional trainers who deliver general courses in any number of areas related to your project, and they may be able to tailor their existing programs to better suit your particular needs. Of course, sometimes equipment vendors provide training either as a part of the purchase or as a negotiated add-on.

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Change agent success factors
There are several factors that have been identified as significantly impacting on the degree of change agent success (success in terms of the rate of adoption of innovations). These factors are:

Change agent communication effort. The more effort a change agent puts into contacting and communicating with clients, the more successful the innovation is likely to be.

Change agent orientation. The more the change agent is oriented toward the client and the client's needs, as opposed to the change agency, the more successful the innovation is likely to be.

Change agent empathy. The more the change agent is able to empathise with the client (i.e., the more the change agent is able to put him or her-self in the place of the client, and see things from the other point of view), the more successful the innovation is likely to be.

Change agent credibility. The more the change agent is perceived as credible in the clients' eyes, the more successful the innovation is likely to be.

Change agent use of opinion leaders. The more the change agent works through opinion leaders, the more successful the innovation is likely to be. See related information on opinion leaders and innovators in the section on innovator analysis.

Change agents and the evaluation of innovations. The better the change agent is at increasing their client's ability to evaluate innovations, the more successful the innovation is likely to be.

Therefore, if you are going to use a change agent (or if you are a change agent) and you want your innovation or technical change project to be a success, then you need to be sure that:

the change agent is in frequent contact and communication, is on your side, sees your point of view, and views your project as critical to his/her own success, and understands your business and your firm. Also be sure that you have confidence in your change agents' ability, experience, and judgement, that you and they identify who the likely opinion leaders are and use them, and that you both spend time considering the evaluation of the planned changes.

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