How to Be an Effective Change Agent

• During change implementation and sustainment, change agents play a vital role. They are influential advocates of the change.
• Change agents are scattered throughout the organization and engage with different networks and stakeholders. As a result, it can be difficult to provide individual change agents with the support and clarity they need to know what’s expected of them, how to succeed in their role, and where they fit into the broader change management network.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

• To maximize a change agent’s ability to influence the success of an organizational change, they need to clearly understand their role and responsibilities.
• Change agents should be able to recognize and respond to different change reactions across their network and disseminate key messages about the change.
• Change agents must also be able to receive and share input about the change and navigate relationships with key stakeholders during the change.

Impact and Result

• This interactive role guide clearly outlines change agents’ roles and responsibilities and contextualizes their importance within the larger change management project.
• The role guide provides change agents with strategies for recognizing and responding to different change reactions, disseminating key messages, receiving and sharing input from employees, and navigating relationships with different groups of stakeholders during the change.
• The role guide is accompanied by optional activities to help change agents apply insights from the role guide to a current or future change, reinforcing and deepening their learning experience.