ms-10 mba assignment july dec 2010 Question 5

5. Briefly describe the competencies required for a change agent and discuss the diverse roles of a change agent.

CHANGE AGENTS

            Change is enevitable in the history of any organizations. Organization that do not change or keep pace with the changing environment suffer from entropy and soon become defunct. Organizations have an internal environment, but exist in an external environment. The internal environment is in terms of the task, structure, technology, social (people) and economic variables, while the external environment is in terms of the larger social, political, economic and cultural factors. To function effectively, organizations have to achieve an equilibrium within the internal variables in active interaction with each other and also with the external environment. However this equilibrium is not static but dynamic. Hence organizations have to modify and change to adapt to the changing internal and external environment. Thus no organization can stand still and “tread water” for very long.

ROLE OF CHANGE AGENT

            Some professionals consider three main roles of change agents, of course somewhat overlapping and with varying focus and emphasis.

Main roles are:

·        Consultant

·        Trainer

·        Researcher

Sub roles are:

·        Catalyst

·        Process helper / facilitator

·        Solution provider

·        Resource linker

·        stabiliser

COMPETENCIES OF CHANGE AGENTS

            Competency is an underlying characteristic of a person that results in effective and/or superior performance (Boyatzis, 1982). After going through various roles of Change agents, it would have become clear that they have to be master of many competencies. It needs to clarify here that it is not possible for a particular Change agent to be the master of all skills / competencies, that is why, Change agents also engage other Change agents / Consultants. It is very difficult to make an exclusive list of Change agent competencies — the roles themselves indicate many of them. The competencies include knowledge, skills, attitudes, traits, value, motives and it is difficult to draw a line between theses. A skill is used for applications or working for performing a task / satisfying a role, which is a result of a number of visible and invisible competencies. In general, competencies for Change agents may be broadly classified into :

·        Cognitive Competencies

·        Functional

·        Technical Competencies

·        Personal (Effectiveness) Competencies (Interpersonal Competencies

·        ‘Consulting’ / Problem solving competency.

·        Comprising of all the above mentioned competencies is also essential for Change agents.

Cognitive Competencies

            Cognitive competencies are required for perceiving and thinking and are again a combination of a number of competencies.

·        Analytical thinking.

·        Conceptual thinking.

Analytical Thinking

            Enables a person to understand a situation by breaking it apart into smaller pieces, or tracing the implications of a situation in a step-by step causal way indicators of ‘Analytical thinking’ dimension in a person are:

·        Setting priorities (for tasks) in order of importance.

·        Breaking down systematically a complex problem / task into manageable parts.

·        Identifying / recognising likely causes of events or different consequences of actions.

·        Anticipating obstacles and thinking ahead about future / next steps Using a mix of  analytical techniques to identify several solutions and weighs the value of each.

Conceptual Thinking

            It involves understanding a situation or problem by putting the pieces together and seeing the large picture. It includes identifying patterns or connections between situations that are not obviously related and identifying key or underlying issues in a complex situation. Conceptual thinking uses creative, conceptual or inductive reasoning for applying the existing concepts of defining novel concepts.

i) The complexity of thought processes and their originality — ranging from ‘using basic thumb rules’ to ‘creating new theories explaining complex situations’.

ii) The breadth or the size of the problem analysed.

Functional/Technical Competencies

            These are the skills required to perform effectively in a particular discipline, functional or technical area such as — Heat Treatment, Corrosion, and Investment analysis. According to Spencer and Spencer, there are four main dimensions to Functional / Technical/ Professional competencies:

           i) Depth of Knowledge and

          ii) Breadth of Knowledge and Skills

         iii) Expertise Acquisition Motive

         iv) Distribution / Dissemination of Expertise

Personal (Effectiveness) / Self Management Competencies:

            These competencies help a person to be effective in achieving his goals, actions even amidst environmental difficulties and pressures. For effectiveness of Change agents / Consultants, the following personal / self management skills are quite essential.

Self Control

            It is the ability to keep emotions under control and retain / enhance one’s effectiveness even when faced with hostility and severe stress.

Self Confidence

            It is an individual’s belief in one’s own capability to accomplish a task. It also includes the individual’s expression of confidence in highly challenging situations, in making decisions, forming opinions and handling failures constructively. A positive self-concept perpetuates self-confidence.

Flexibility

            Ability to adapt to and work effectively in a variety of situations with different individuals or groups.

Organizational Commitment

            The individual’s ability and willingness to align one’s own behaviour with the organizational needs, priorities and goals indicate organizational commitment.

Initiative

            Initiative indicates a preference for taking action; doing more than is required or expected in the job, doing things that no one has ordered or requested. Improving or enhancing the results and avoiding problems or finding or creating new opportunities on one’s own without anybody’s orders or instructions are indicative of initiative.

Inter-Personal Competencies

            These competencies are essential for dealing with other people effectively. Inter-personal competencies are a bunch of different skills largely overlapping with each other. It is very difficult to clearly enumerate all such slots.

Communication

            There are three purposes of communication:

   i) Ensuring that the message conveyed has been fully understood

   ii) Ensuring that the conveyed message has been accepted by the receiver

   iii) Ensuring that the receiver of the message has got motivated to act fordoing what he has accepted to do. A few of the important communication skills are

·        Speaking;

·        Writing;

·        Asserting;

·        Listening;

·        Questioning;

·        Paraphrasing;

·        Giving feedback;

·        Receiving feedback; and

·        Empathising.

Inter-Personal Understanding

            For having effective inter-personal relations, a desire and capability to understand other person is essential.

Help / Service Orientation

            These competencies are oriented towards a desire to help or serve others to meet their needs. By these skills, a person is able to focus his / her efforts on discovering, understanding and meeting the other person’s customers’ or clients’ needs.

Influence and Impact

            These skills help in expressing an intention to persuade, convince influence or impress others in order to get what one wants to get from them or getting them support one‘s agenda or the desire to have a specific effect on others.

Understanding and Using Power Dynamics

            For developing effective inter-personal relationships, the understanding of the prevailing power relationships in the organization or between people is essential.

Relationship Building

            With the help of this competency, a person is able to build and maintain friendly, warm and trusting relationship with people and need work within and outside one’s organization for achieving work related goals.

Negotiation

            This competency also is referred as a cluster of traits and competencies and enables an individual or groups with differing / opposing wishes or views to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.

Consulting Competency

            Although Change agents are also considered to be Consultants, however, in this section, this is being taken as a specific competency of Change agents. These are needed to complete the various phases of a change project and adapting the consulting role as needed for a variety of situations.

General Skills           

            These skills are necessary for selecting and expediting different roles as a consultant.

Contracting Skills

            It is the skill needed for building a verbal agreement with a client.

Sensing and Diagnosing Skills

             Ability to gather and summarize huge volumes of complex data and to involve the client in understanding and interpretation.

Problem Solving and Decision-Making Skills

             Using a variety of techniques for creative problem solving.

Implementing Skills

            These skills are essential for successfully carrying out a project of planned

change.

Evaluating Skills

            For determining the success or failure of a change initiative / project, evaluating skills are necessary.

Maintenance Skills

            Creating a sense of responsibility, passion for the new system, procedures after change.

Diagnosing

            Action Researcher , Diagnoser ,Survey Designer, Data Analyst ,Evaluator

Consulting

            Role Model, Relater, Expert in Processes, Confronter, System Analyst