CHANGE AGENT'S GUIDE - organizational change management
CHANGE AGENT'S GUIDE - organizational change management CHANGE AGENT'S GUIDE - organizational change management
What is the change agent's guide?
The Change Agent’s Guide is knowledge designed to illustrate the systematic “Process of Change”, and how new ideas and innovations can be implemented and institutionalized in today's business, education, government and non-profit organizations.
It started as research, then a book, which has now been revised and adapted into several editions for different audiences in specific fields. The book and related workbooks have formed the basis of curriculum for university courses in change management education.
From the beginning, however, The Change Agent's Guide was intended as a practical guide for anyone aspiring to be a "Change Agent," putting in their hands a framework for tackling their change management challenge with the best possible recipe for success.
Today we have put the content of The Guide into this website and are currently working on a new edition of the book, which is due out in 2023. Our Goal is to assist you in understanding that “process of change” whether through the website or the book.
We welcome your feedback! Feel free to contact us at anytime.
Visualizing the 7 stages of change
The Rainbow Logic of Change
The rainbow logic of change is your key to navigating this site. You will see it again and again and it's your key to understanding how the CHANGE process works.
The color scheme of the diagram is intended to have a certain logic.
It starts with red for CARE, think hot, angry, upset but not necessarily thinking too clearly.
Then, as various people get involved in constructive ways, it cools down to orange in RELATE, and then YELLOW, as in “Let’s figure out what the real problem is that we are so upset about.”
As we move toward solutions, (ACQUIRE and TRY) the world becomes greener, and when the solution spreads (EXTEND), we enter the clear blue sky of solution land.
From the blue, we begin again to be concerned with (a) whether we have really done a good job, and (b) whether we should be thinking again about the whole swath of problems that are out there. This brings us to RENEW, blue merging to red as in purple or violet.
The circle keeps turning, and the rainbow follows.
Why use the Change Agent's Guide?
The importance of checklists
When you have a checklist, your success rate goes up. This is true in all kinds of contexts from medicine to aviation to education. The more complexity in the environment, the more checklists matter. Using The Change Agent's Guide as your master checklist for managing change can help ensure your success.