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Greetings!
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We are all Change Agents
With the 2008 presidential election is in full swing
many people are thinking and talking about what it means to be a leader. Change
is a big theme in the race this year. This got me thinking about what it means
to be a change agent. The following passage is, with minor changes, taken
directly from this month's book recommendation, Change the World, by Robert Quinn.
Change
agent is not a common term. As the individual words imply, it refers to any
person who seeks to bring about some kind of change. Since we all sometimes
seek to create change, we are all change agents. Children try to change their
parents; parents seek to change their children and each other. Therapists
attempt to alter individuals, dyads and families. Executives seek to transform
groups, departments, organizations, whole companies. Politicians attempt to
alter entire societies. All of us, at some point, seek to play the role of
change agent.
Being a
change agent is not easy. Trying to change another person can lead to
frustration.The
mother is no different from the basketball coach who cannot get his players to
excel, the executive who cannot get her sales force to accept a new technique,
or the CEO who cannot achieve cohesion between conflicting groups in a
merger. There are very few people who have not experienced themselves in
the role of change agent, frustrated by efforts to effect changes that they are
certain would improve a situation or a person's life. Transforming a
human system usually requires that we transform ourselves, and this is the key
to the process.
What strikes me about it is how he recognizes that we
all, at one time or another, step into the roll of being a "change agent"
and, in doing so, experience the frustration that comes when we ask other
people to change. The part of the passage that I most want people to hear and
understand is that we will be unable to facilitate change in other people, our
organizations or the world until we look deep inside and change ourselves. In
the words of Mohandas Gandhi, "Be the change you want to see in the
world." To learn more about being a change agent, click here. |
