Introduction & Methodology In models of organizational change and in various literatures a factor that is often anointed as mandatory for

support in organizational change is the change agent. The change agent is often talked about in textbooks to change management and in case studies. However, what exactly is the change agent? Cameron and Green (2004) define a change agent as simply an individual who is the facilitator of change. Considering this, it might be realized that, anyone in the organization can be one. Even a frontline manager can become a change agent with respect to his department if he aims to. Some organizations even focus on inspiring individuals within to becoming change agents leading to innovation. However, with respect to organizational change or transformation cases, it is the norm to hire an external change agent. The external change agent is usually a consultant who has previously undertook many supervised and conducted other organizational change projects and is also an expert at change management. The use of external change agents is however sometimes thought of as peculiar. The issue of organizational change is already one which raises so many emotions within organizations and with these emotions so much resistance, that it might be thought of as absurd to bring in someone from the outside to deal with it. However, businesses do it, and the purpose of this paper is to understand and assess the role and benefits of external change agents to organizational change. The essential pieces of information that are to be realized from this essay are; whether external change agents or necessary or not, whether external change agents are effective in dealing with organizational politics and what skills are the most important for an external change agent. The following line of argumentation would be followed for the paper: for change to be effective achieved, third party change agents are a must specifically those wellversed in building trust-based relationships. The essay would initially discuss the role of change agents. There is a lot of grey area with regards to the role of change agent. In Cummings & Worley (2009), it is specifically discussed that the power of change agents should be limited or monitored as change agents interference can often cause change to fail. However, the essay would look at the overarching roles of the agents that have been described in literature and is documented in practice. Subsequently, based on the roles of the change agent it

would be discussed whether an external change agent is appropriate or an internal change agent. After it has been realized which change agent is more appropriate, the most necessary skills of a change agent would be discussed. Based on all of these discussions, it would then be assessed whether the line of argumentation holds or not.

The Role of a Change Agent and Consultants The overarching role of a change agent is quite simple; to enable change. However, it is the complex duties and responsibilities needed to enable changes that are many and that need to be realized first. An understanding of the various roles that a change agent might possess can be understood from Miller (2011). The first role that Miller (2011) observes that a change agent is responsible for is providing support in building an overall change plan and then helps in executing it. In order to build the plan, the essential duty of the change agent is to assess the readiness to change of the organization (Gilley, 2001, p.34). It should also be noted that after the plan has been built, change agents are to assess the potential impact of the change on individuals throughout the organization. While the support for building a change plan is a duty realized by nearly everyone in literature, the view on how much should a change agent is responsible for executing the change plan differs. For instance, Kotter (1997) believes that the actual should be led by a change coalition that should involve people who possess authority (managers), expertise (consultants) and employees. Gilley (2001) contends that managers should be trained and relegated the duty of change agent for their individual departments as this would allow for lesser resistance from middle managers. On the other hand, Schabracq (2010) believes that the burden should fall upon the change agent as the agent is supposedly the one who understands the plan the best. It should be realized that the literature however does contend at least minimal participation from the change agent (Cummings & Worley, 2009). Actual practices in change management show that often change agents are the most involved with executing the overall plan. The subsequent roles described of the change agent by Miller (2011) mostly dwell on the area of designing and implement relevant processes and work-streams with respect to the changed organization. Herein, the burden of execution often falls upon the change agent as they need to train managers and

employees in the new processes. The greater roles of the change agent however are monitoring the change, continuously pushing the change and initially evangelizing the change; and not executing it (Cummings & Worley, 2009). These areas have been realizing in management literature as essential to actually cause the change (Kotter, 1997; Hayes, 2010; Piderit, 2000). For instance, monitoring the change is essential to realize whether change is actually occurring or not, and whether the change is taking place according to the plan. In accordance to the monitoring, it also falls on the change agent to work to clearing out any bottleneck or issue as it is realized. Subsequently, it is also the role of the change agent to continuously push on the change. It should be realized that throughout the change process there is bound to be resistance from several fronts and often this resistance can create pressure for change not to occur. However, the change agent has to continuously address these resistances and reiterate the argument for change to occur. The last and one of the first duties of the change agent is training the executive management in change processes and gaining their support. It should be noted that most often failure in organizational change tends to occur because of a lacking management support or resistance from that front. For instance, Miller (2011) even goes so far to say that resistance from all fronts can be addressed except resistance from the executive level. If it is not addressed, organizational change will fail. Hence, it is important for the change agent to convince each and every individual in the executive management of the change agenda and bring them on board. In realizing these roles, the main thing that is realized is that the change agent needs to interact with people a lot and also needs to be able to appropriately gain their support if change is to be made successful.

External Change Agents and Organizational Politics After having a look at the role of change agent, one thing is quite clear. The change agent would be required to face, assess and address the organizational politics in an organization if successful change is to be brought about. This is even addressed extensively by Badham & Buchanan (2008). Considering this, the notion of an external change agent might outright be deemed inapplicable or incompatible with organizational change. However, an external change agent is only made more necessary in these

situations. It should be noted that indeed an internal change agent is much more likely to be aware of organizational politics and have a better grasp of power dynamics and political structure in an organization (Miller, 2011; Hayes, 2010). Even more, internal change agents are likely to have access to the grapevine and rumor mill in the organization, more understanding to the different agendas and interest in an organization, and having greater access to political arenas in the organization (Self & Schraeder, 2009). The issue is that this very involvement with organizational politics makes an internal change agent inappropriate for dealing with specific instances of organizational change. As they would have greater knowledge of power dynamics, they might themselves become a resistance to change realizing that majority power dynamics are against an occurrence of change (Miller, 2011). Moreover, they have the tendency to become cautious and this could lead to change occurring in a delayed manner or being too slow (Caldwell, 2003). Moreover, lack of experience can make these individuals often tangled in issues that are not actually relevant to change management but which internal change agents might feel are. On the other hand, if an outsider appears, he/she would have yet to form a relation with major political influences in the organization. As such, an external change agent can individually form positive relationships with those who have political authority in the organization and influence them. It should also be noted that employees at lower level are more likely to be trustful of external change agents than internal change agents (Miller, 2011). The rationale behind this is that most employees would assume that the external change agent is likely to be more impartial than the internal change agent. There is, however, the issue of distrust from most frontline and middle level managers (Badham & Buchanan, 2008). That is because often the authority that external change agents are provided with allow them to change processes that middle level managers are in-charge of. It has been witnessed in literature that even when this is done in consultation with middle level managers, it often results in latter hostility as the manager might feel his authority has been reduced (Cameron & Green, 2012). Moreover, a common sentiment in low level managers is that they would effectively be downsized if change is to take place (Badham & Buchanan, 2008). This is because monitoring and IT systems have nowadays greatly reduced the need for low-level managers, whose task often was

monitoring and ensuring quality. As such, from the middle-managerial level there is bound to be a lot of resistance for external change agents. Another issue is the board room dynamics. In a study of the executive management during organizational change, it was found that there is indeed some politics involved at the executive level management as executives often tend to portray themselves as pro-shareholder (Luscher & Lewis, 2008). Moreover, these politics only tend to be intensified at times when organizational change are necessitated, i.e. when company is shown to be declining in performance. However, once again it should be noted that an external change agent is more capable of addressing this issue than an internal change agent. An internal change agent would eventually be associated with the executive he reports to and other executives might feel distrustful of him and might not allow him the appropriate staff authority he needs to make changes. An external change agent, being impartial, would not face the same issue. Another issue that should be realized is that the discussion so far has focused on either internal change agent or external change agent. However, this is rarely the case in practice. Recent trends have showed that businesses now invest in change agent groups which have different balances of external and internal change agents involved (Cameron & Green, 2012). Hence, it should be noted that if there are benefits of external change agent than they are not necessarily downplayed simply because an internal change agent holds advantage in other areas. It should be realized that both internal change agent and external change agents can be used. If such a practice is existent, it should be realized that the necessity of an external change agent is only further exacerbated. This is based on the discussion so far and the other benefits of the external change agent that has been provided so far.

Skills Required of External Change Agents (600) Now that it has been understood that an external change agent is necessary the question comes up about what skills are needed of an external change agent so that he/she may perform his duties effectively. Various skills are said to be needed by an OCD practitioner throughout the course, and a collective reading of Miller (2011) and Cummings & Worley (2010) illustrate that the most importance skills required are;

influencing others, working with employees, working with executives, building role model relationships amongst middle-level managers and employees, coaching managers, sensitivity to social changes, being the role model and self-management. A survey of OCD practitioners on these capabilities by ChangeFirst (2010) found that influencing others and being the role model were regarded by OCD practitioners as the most important skills in instituting change. Indeed, this is quite true if we consider the aforementioned role of the change agent and also the manner in which the external change agent would have to eventually deal with organizational politics. Initially the external change agent would have to influence the behavior of executive management so that an effective support is retained. Subsequently, the change agent would need to change the behavior of those who resist the project, and also those who are not reflecting the change. An immense part of organizational change should be realized related to influencing behavior. When organizational change occurs, organizations do not simply get new employees and managers but rather the same employees and managers have to be largely changed and as such influencing others also logically sounds to be the most important skill. However, it should be realized how others can be influenced. If the discourse on organizational politics in the module is considered, this would be through power. In the words of Pfeffer (1992, p. 30), power is the ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance, and to get people to do things that they would not otherwise do. In other words, an external change agent needs to ascribe to possess power. However, is there any other skill that is important? The survey by ChangeFirst (2010) stated that working with employees as the overall important activity, i.e. they were not deemed as unimportant by any reporting OCD practitioner. It should be noted that working with employees is essential because employees tend to be more disruptive in resisting change than employees at other level. Especially those belonging to trade unions are quick to resort to strikes and other forms of opposition that are deemed quite undesirable at times of change. Resistance to change primarily occurs because employees either mistrust or have a lack of trust with respect to the change that is about to occur (Hayes, 2010). This is even more so with employees perception of the change agent. When the agent is external at times employees tend to feel that he/she might not be as fearful as them as he/she does not

have anything to lose from the failure of change occurring. It should be realized that to overcome these trust issues, then the more important skill that becomes necessary of the change agent is trust-building. If a successful change has to occur, employees have to be part of it. For employees to be a part of it, the external change agent should be able to build trust for himself and then for the change amongst employees. Hence, building trust along with power are two essential skills that an external change agent should possess.

Conclusion In the aforementioned discussion, it was first realized that the change agent is an important part of change process as he/she fulfills most of the role throughout the process. Subsequently, it was observed that external change agents have some benefits over internal change agents, but eventually it does not matter as both of them could be utilized during organizational charge. Nevertheless, it was also noted that due to the benefits external change agent possessed, their presence during organizational change was necessary. Lastly, it was noted that based on the two activities rated most important by OCD practitioners, the two most important skills required of change agents were power and trust-building capability. Taking into account these findings and assessing them against our line of argumentation, it might be said that the line of argumentation holds.

Refrences Badham, R., & Buchanan, D. (2008) Power, Politics, and Organizational Change: winning the turf game. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Limited. Buchanan, D., & Badham, R. (1999) "Politics and organizational change: The lived experience". Human Relations, 52(5), pp. 609-629. Caldwell, R. (2003) "Models of change agency: a fourfold classification". British Journal of Management, 14(2), pp. 131-142. Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2012) Making Sense of Change Management, 3rd Ed. London: Kogan Page.

ChangeFirst. (2010) "A research-based exploration of the role of the change in organisational change". ChangeFirst White Paper. Available at http://www.changefirst.com/uploads/documents/Role_of_the_change_agent.pdf (Accessed 11th December 2012) Cummings, T. & Worley, G. (2009) Organizational Development and Change. Mason, OH: Southwest Cengage Learning. Hayes, J. (2010) The Theory and Practice of Change Management. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hughes, P. (2010) Managing Change: A Critical Perspective, 2nd Ed. London: CIPD. Lscher, L.S., & Lewis, M.W. (2008) "Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox". Academy of Management Journal, 51(2), pp. 221-240. Miller, D. (2011) Successful Change: How to Implement Change Through People. Sydney, Australia: Bookpod. Pfeffer, J. (1992) "Understanding Power in Organizations". California Management Review, 34(2), pp. 29-. Self, D.R., & Schraeder, M. (2009) "Enhancing the success of organizational change: Matching readiness strategies with sources of resistance". Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 30(2), pp. 167-182.