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Change Catalyst

Evidence of Knowledge Acquisition


The competency of Change Catalyst is one that requires both wisdom and action.
Wisdom is required in order to make a change, because to make a change without fully
understanding the purpose or reasoning is futile. A successful catalyst of change must be able to
see the underlying issues regarding a needed change, whether it be personal, interpersonal,
organizational, or otherwise. Objectively seeing an issue within an organization can be difficult,
as there are many competing views and layers in any given situation. If individuals are
complacent with how an organization is currently functioning, it can lead to stagnation, as
change will not occur if it is not viewed as necessary. According to Kotter (2012), the biggest
mistake people make when trying to change organizations is to plunge ahead without
establishing a high enough sense of urgency in fellow managers and employees (p. 4). Thus, it
is vital that the organization understand the importance of the proposed change if anything is to
happen. However, once the need for change is discovered and an area of growth has been
identified, action must be taken. This is the second imperative area as a change catalyst. If there
is not an action taken to create a change, then growth and improvement will not occur.
The process of creating change can be a long and arduous road to walk upon. This is true
whether the change is personal and internal, or organizational and external. Therefore, patience
and constant communication are vital in order to keep others on board with the vision and help
steering in the desired direction. Further, there are many that do not warmly embrace the idea of
change in their organization or lives; not all will jump in headfirst to a proposed idea. Because
different people have different needs in these ambiguous situations, it is important for a change
catalyst to be intentional about reaching out and affirming others so that buy-in can be created as

much as possible. Finally, the change process can be greatly frustrating and draining at times.
Remaining faithful to the end goal and continuing on is central to being a successful catalyst.
Interpretation of Knowledge
Upon entering the MAiL program, my understanding of creating change was that it was a
fairly simple process as long as the right people were in charge of it. I put all the trust and
confidence into the idea of a stereotypical leader that could use his or her charm and wit to enact
organization-wide change. Even on a smaller scale, it seemed to me that creating change equated
to having a charismatic ability to charm others into believing in what was being proposed.
Adjusting my skewed and stereotyped view of leadership has been a common and constant
theme throughout my time in the MAiL program. Wren (1995) affirms me in stating, the
concept of the charismatic leader is not the popular version of the great speech maker or
television personality, thus helping me to understand that a leader can be charismatic without
living into the stereotypes of the word (p. 109). It was not until both the Leader as an Agent of
Change and Research Methods classes that I was able to view myself as truly capable of
spearheading a change in my work environment. Being forced to search for an area of growth
and actually do something about it was empowering and vastly altered my understanding of what
it is to be a change catalyst.
Further, Kotter (2012) states that a transformation must be derived from a vision, rather
than plans and programs attempting to push a change. My top strength is Discipline, in which I
find pleasure in planning and organizing everything in my life. This makes it difficult for me to
put my focus on finding and following a vision, rather than planning out the steps to create
change and following them. Prior to reading and learning concepts like this, it would not have
even crossed my mind to attempt to base a change off of a vision rather than creating and

following a plan. However, following procedures, goals, methods, and deadlines does not
show others an ultimate goal of where the desired change will eventually lead (Kotter, 2012).
Following a plan is not necessarily a negative way in which to implement change, but if there is
no overarching vision then it may be difficult to create buy-in and support from the rest of the
organization.
Application of Knowledge
Professional. I was able to utilize the skills from the change agent competency in my
workplace through the implementation of a coffee service for our department. There are roughly
130 employees in our area, and in the past there was no shared coffee source offered to those in
the department. The break room was rarely used as a place of community, and I believe that was
because there was nothing in the break room that allowed employees to create a space of
community. Simply put, coffee brings people together. Thus, it was decided by my team that we
should find a way to house enough coffee to allow all employees to partake if desired. I then
spent over three months researching and working with various service providers in order to draft
a proposal to the Vice President of the department. When the proposal was approved by the Vice
President, I had to continue working with the chosen vendor to negotiate a price that worked
within the departments budget.
Throughout this process, I had not spoken to anyone in the department about what I was
doing so that it could be a grand surprise when all was said and done. When the day came for the
machine to be installed, we held an unveiling party and sent an email to our department to come
down to the break room and see the new coffee machine. It is amazing not only how much joy
this gift brought to employees throughout the department, but how much it has increased the
morale and community. Since the installation of the coffee service in February, there is

observable evidence that change has been created. A once empty space is now often filled with
various groups of people standing around tables with cups of coffee and having conversations
that they previously may not have had otherwise. Below is an email that I received from another
employee in the department, as well as a photo of the machine in the break room.
Academic. A second artifact of creating change is evidenced in the Leader as an Agent
of Change class. In this class, we were presented with a hypothetical situation that was
occurring at a hypothetical organization and asked to dictate where there were issues and offer a
plan to address those issues. As a group, we read the information that we were provided and
discussed where we each saw underlying (or blatant and glaring) issues that were negatively
effecting the organization. Once we had identified our main points of growth, we then
deciphered what would be the best route of addressing and improving those issues. This
assignment was challenging in that we were given very vague information and were forced to
make many assumptions based on the information that we did have. Further, each member of the
group interpreted the information differently at times, which forced each of us to be open to
various ideas and points of view regarding the details of the organization. Below is the brochure
that we as a consultant group provided the organization during our presentation.
Creation of New Knowledge
In order to continue gaining knowledge and experience as an agent of change, one goal
that I have set for myself is to be intentional about speaking to my supervisors about areas for
growth that I see within our department. In my current position, I can work to create relational
change on a personal basis, but in order to enact any larger scale means of change I require their
backing. In their positions, they often do not see the various struggles of the department firsthand
because they do not interact with all of the employees in the way that I do. My specific goal is to

discuss my observations in my weekly staff meeting. That is not to say that I will have
groundbreaking thoughts about the subject each week, but I would like to make it an engrained
portion of the meeting for me to present any observations I may have. The way that I will know
if I am succeeding is if I am able to continue sharing my observations with my supervisors rather
than moving backwards to feelings of intimidation or inferiority.
I am currently on a committee in my department called the Staff Relations Committee.
Being that I work both for the executives, as well as with everyone else in the department,
sometimes I am able to see things that one side or the other cannot. However, in our group I
often find that I feel intimidated and hold back my thoughts and ideas during meetings.
Therefore, a second goal that I have set regarding the change catalyst competency is to continue
meeting with this committee and continue challenging myself to share my insight. In order to
hold myself accountable for this, I plan to involve one of my coworkers who is also in this group.
I will share my goal with her, which will help motivate me to speak up during our meetings and
allow her to hold me accountable if I am not following through.

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