1. The power of an excellent speaker with communication skills is tremendous. Kristin Von Hoffman was probably the best orator the class saw—which makes sense since she is a politician! Likewise, in our day to day job as a change agent, we must be able to talk to different stakeholders and be able to understand and address their needs. Even outside of working as a change agent, good communication is important in every aspect of our lives.
2. The 5 most impactful insights for this course were:
a. The most important, by far, is the big assumption. We all constantly make assumptions (or mental models) without knowing it and identifying our assumptions will ensure they don’t get in the way. In fact, identify and then change your assumptions so they benefit you.
b. Everyone has social fears. Even the senior leaders are worried about keeping their image and saving face. Everyone has similar fears so don’t let them overwhelm you. Be fearless.
c. Change agents are salespeople. It’s all about understanding who the stakeholders are, getting them engaged, and creating a win-win for everyone.
d. To implement change, you must remove people’s risks, instabilities, and fears and make it easy for them to change.
e. Truly open and honest group discussions are both extremely powerful and extremely rare.
3. More group work and group activities. Anything to get us to engage each other. Maybe shuffle the groups around in the middle. People need to get more comfortable talking to other people.
You can try this activity in each 4 person POD: you assign Person A to defend an idea and person B to play devil’s advocate. Then Persons C and D would give feedback. This may be like debate class but the idea is how do you convince someone who doesn't agree with you?
Dr. Leighton's E-210 class also runs a big negotiation activity over two full courses. This would be a great time to implement change agent skills and would be extremely fun in this change agency course.
4. More group work is always good. The condensed summer schedule also makes this course difficult. After all, we’re scheduling meetings with organizations during prime vacation time and at times it is very difficult to get the meetings scheduled in the summer.
5. I’m a salesman so every day I’m going to talk to people, find out their needs, and work with them to solve their problems. Our focus is to get as close to the customer as possibly. Similarly, as a change agent, we want to get as close to the stakeholders as possible, understand their needs, and use their needs to help you implement change.
6. We need an S-217 or at least more courses by Professor Sharp. That and more group work. Yes, always more group work.
