The Change Agent’s Handicap

A Change Agent is typically assigned the task, “Make this happen!” and it is their responsibility to force/cajole/steer/entice/motivate etc. the community towards a specific destination. The CA fails if ‘this’ doesn’t happen exactly as. In the real world, the CA typically does not have a lot of wiggle room.

Regardless of the specific task assigned to a CA, they must function within the context of how people respond to Change in general. This is why the Change Agent role is a difficult one.

How do people respond to “Change in General”? The honest answer is that we don’t, or rather we can’t, respond to Change “in general”. We can, and do, respond to specific Changes.

If confronted by a CA exclaiming, “I’m here to Change how you do things!” no rational person will gleefully respond “Okay! Do what you have to do!” Instead we immediately try to get specific and respond (retaliate?) with a simple question, “Why should we change?” This in turn, is immediately tagged as resistance, and even as a mild form of insubordination.

If the statement, “People resist Change” is true, then it is true in the same sense that Newton’s 1st law of Motion, The Law of Inertia is true, “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

Like a stone unconsciously following Newton’s Law, we will continue doing what we’re doing, until we have a reason to do something else.

When we ask “Why should we Change”, we’re not trying to annoy or frustrate anyone, we’re merely following Newton’s 1st Law.

The CA’s handicap is not only that they’re here to Change us, for reasons as yet unexplained, but they’re here to Change us regardless of how we feel about it. Remember, the task of the CA is to “Make this Happen” if they don’t, they fail.

So, the CA must Change us, otherwise they fail. This flies in the face of how we decide whether or not Change is necessary. Not only is the Change Agent’s task a threat, but the very title isn’t conducive to a participatory environment. Change AGENT… brings to mind James Bond 007, secret AGENT – license to kill you… oops… license to CHANGE you.

When a Change Agent is appointed, the decision to Change is fait accompli. Nothing anyone has to say has any bearing on the matter. They do, in a very real sense, have a license to Change us.

There’s an alternative approach to this problem, perhaps the term, “Change Coordinator” would work better? It suggests that at worst the person is assigned the task of coordinating the Change of others, rather than inflicting them with a predetermined decision?

The term “Change Agent” has accumulated far too much negative baggage, and isn’t conducive to the notion that real Change is not mandated, but instead grows out of a common understanding that it is necessary, for specific reasons, to respond to a growing threat, or to seize upon a potential future opportunity.

© 2009, Peter de Jager – Peter is a keynote speaker, writer and consultant you can read more of his work and contact him via http://www.technobility.com/. Four And A Half Decades Of Putting Knowledge To Work: A History of The Toronto Chapter Special Libraries Association 1940 - 1984

The following is a history of the SLA Toronto Chapter written in 1984 by Helen Katz with Donna Ivey, on the occasion of the Association’s 75th Anniversary (1909-1984). It was originally distributed to the Chapter readership with the June issue of The Courier, volume 21, number 7, June 1984 rather than being published within it. We have followed suit by publishing the article as a separate attachment scanned from its original format.

Thanks to Brenda Wong for finding this snapshot of our chapter.

Link to PDF.