Why is the role of an external change management agent important during the change management process?

Hi Jelena, I hope this information may help you a bit.

Kurt Lewin and John P. Kotter are the known as key management thinkers who have contributed significantly for management of change. John Kotter (1995 & 1996) of Harvard Business School built on Lewin’s three step model to create a more detailed approach for implementing change. Peoples’ ‘readiness to change’ breeds ‘change proneness behaviour’ which acts as foundation for effective management of change. Kotter (2002) spoke about the eight steps for successful large-scale change. In this process of change management, the role of change agents is critical. On perusal of the references given at your end, you will find that when change agent is external, people are more receptive who facilitates the change management process in a better way. The following studies may help you more:

Kotter, J. (2002), The Heart of Change, Harvard Business School Press, Boston

Kotter, J.P. (1996), Leading Change, Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Kotter, J.P. (1995), “Leading Changes: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” Harvard Business Review, March – April, pp. 59-67.

Lewin, Kurt (1951), Field Theory in Social Sciences, New York: Harper & Row.

Wood, T. (2003), Managing Organisational Change, http://www.organisational change. co.uk /mbc_article.htm.

Change management is essential for organizational development in dynamic environment. Any change is likely to be resisted by the employees, if their confidence in the organizational system evaporate. The role of external change agent is to establish the faith and confidence of the employees on the organizational management system, as a first step. Effective change management depends on absorptive capacity of the organization and adaptive skill of the employees. The same may  be assessed and suitable measures may be suggested by the external change agent. Further organizational architecture and agility are important factors in quick decision making and adaptation to change. The external change management agent may study and suggest the suitable measures for improvement.

Excellent inputs by my colleagues here. I like to add that external change agents are necessary specially when the change process is subject to internal organizational politics among internal management persons of influence, this way one reduces political interventions which are poisonous to the change process.

The role of external members to the organization is to act as catalysts in the process. Furthermore, they can be excellent coaches. However, the most important role: to maintain restricted to this, and know to leave on time, leaving the process with the internal members.

A importan rol of any external change agent is to highlight any professional deficiency of one or more member of the project team. This is often a very unpleacent job but is as necesary  as all others. And more important: the most off the times this deficiencies are do to lack off social skills rather than technical skills

Dear Jelena:

                     Your question is quite interesting. DO theorists used to say that an external agent may not be subjective when he analyses the organization. So according to them, an external change agent is a must in DO. That´s following the classical readings in DO, like Blake y Mouton, Schein or Beckhard. Have that in mind because these authors, based on Lewin´s idea of change, began their work in the 60 and seventies, so they may be outdated.

                     Last, let me ask you and everybody in this web a question: which are the "modern" authors in OD that are important to read in these days?

Regards

Gustavo Concari

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Dear Mam,

Your question is very interesting. According to Wilson and Rosenfeld (1990) in his book "Managing Organizations", McGrawHill, set out a long list of possible reasons for external agents of change not being successful in promoting change. It is not an easy process neither is it impossible. The external agent of change working alone is unlikely to cause significant organizational change. The best strategy is to work with several internal agents of change who are preferably drawn from different departments within the organization. These can provide the external agent with the detailed information, which is needed, and they can also act as a forum for trying out new ideas. Support from the  highest authorities in the school will be required.

The Solution: The  solution lies in the development of an internal-external consulting team. Maximizing the advantages of both internal and external agents. External agents can combine their special expertise and objectivity with the inside knowledge and acceptance of internal agents. Whether an internal or external change agent is more beneficial for an organization would depend on various factors such as the organizational type, structure, size and culture, and on the nature and scale of the change needed. Research evidence suggests top managers view external agents as having more positive role than that of internal agents in large-scale change programmes (Harvey and Brown, 1996, p.91). If a large bureaucratic organization like the Ford Motor Company needs drastic change, an external change agent may be more beneficial than internal change agent may. In this case the internal change agents may be less objective, lack the specialities required, and may not have the clout that an external agent might have. 

There are advantages and disadvantages with using internal or external change agents. There is no simple formula as to which may be most appropriate for an organization. Ideally, an internal -external consulting team is best particularly for a large-scale change programme in a large organization to provide complementary consulting skills (Harvey and Brown, 1996, p.93). In addition, an internal-external team can achieve a greater continuity over the entire OD programme. Continuity may be a problem with using only external agents because they are normally involved in other outside activities and commitments, and hence are generally available to the organization only on a part-time basis for certain duration of time. This is also addressed by using internal change agents who provide a continuing point of contact for organization members when problems arises, especially when the external change agents are unavailable. 

Regards

Sujata.

My 1-cent contribution. Good reading.

Thank you very much Hussin

Thank you very much Hussin  Sir.

Some of the fundamental concepts remain the same - the success of a change effort requires an excellent partnership between the external agent and internal decision makers. External change agents can help with consulting, training and research. Some of the current readings discusses the characteristics of these change agents which will result in successful change. Experiences in the fields of organizational development and change management suggest that these limitations can sometimes be compensated for by building a team of internal and external consultants (Block, 1986; Newstrom & Davis, 1993:296). External consultants can offer their clients a "marginal" perspective, in the sense that they can add value to the client's learning process by bringing an outside view to the organization. During an intervention, consultants can choose to exert influence over the client's choice of actions in a directive or non-directive manner, whereby less directive approaches imply that the consultants play a more marginal role in the client's decision. 

Studies suggest that "Driven" clients will seek only to use the content input a consultant can provide but they are not likely to be interested in participative learning processes. "Crisis Managers" are in principle more

willing to engage with the consultant in a learning process, but still have a high focus on using the consultant’s input in order to resolve the immediate problem. "Cooperative Problem Solvers" are the ideal clients for consultants skilled in stimulating participative learning processes. Lastly, the "Image Managers" are the most likely to bring in consultants as a symbolic gesture, with little or no intention of learning from the intervention, so the consultant will be asked to provide content inputs but no process is put in place for the input to be used.

Some current readings in this area which maybe of help include:

Cristina Crucini Matthias Kipping, (2001),"Management consultancies as global change agents?", Journal of

Organizational Change Management, Vol. 14 Iss 6 pp. 570 - 589

Josune Saenz Andrea Pérez-Bouvier , (2014),"Interaction with external agents, innovation networks, and innovation capability: the case of

Uruguayan software firms", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 18 Iss 2 pp. 447 - 468

March, James (1991) "Organizational Consultants and Organizational Research" in

Journal of Applied Communication Research , Vol. 19, Nos. 1-2: 20-31.

Christopher C. Potter, (1989),"What is Culture: and Can it be Useful for Organisational Change Agents?", Leadership &

Organization Development Journal, Vol. 10 Iss 3 pp. 17 - 24

Anthony Berry Kate Oakley, (1993),"Consultancies: Agents of Organizational Development. Part I", Leadership &

Organization Development Journal, Vol. 14 Iss 5 pp. 12 - 19

Mark J Caprio , (2014),"Student publishing: future scholars as change agents", OCLC Systems & Services:

International digital library perspectives, Vol. 30 Iss 3 pp. 144 - 157

Burke, W. W. (2011). Organizational change: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Dawson, P. M. B. (2010). Managing change, creativity and innovation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Anderson, L. A. (2011). The change leader’s roadmap: How to navigate your organization’s transformation. New York, NY: Routledge.

Eikenberry, K. (2011). Championing change: Creating remarkable leaders. New York, NY:Wiley.

Stephen, T. (2010). Successfully managing change in organizations. New York, NY: Industrial Press.

Mansfield, J. (2011). The nature of change: An introductory text to designing complex systems and managing change. London, UK: Imperial College Press.

It seems that external change has implication leading to internal change process. This is called the state of "equilibrium". Fundamentally, organization change as the external forces change. There area several change tools. One common tool is Lewin's Three Step Model. Another famous one is Lawrence and Lorsch (Harvard scholars) who discovered the need for change resulting form environmental change.

Jelena,

as you are probably finding out, not too much empirical research exists about external roles.  I'm sure you can find plenty of industry research done by consulting firms justifying why clients need to hire external consultants.

In my recent experience as a doctoral student, I found the following book that addressed the difference between "change agents" versus "change recipients."  95% of research has been from the change agent perspective.  Only recently have researchers begun to look at the change recipient point of view.

Page 20 starts a section called "Organizational Change Roles." While this is not explicitly an answer to your question, they have plenty of references that you could track down.  Also, you could contact the authors too.

Cawsey, T. F., Deszca, G., & Ingols, C. (2011). Organizational change: An action-oriented toolkit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Good luck.

Ron