Comments on: The birth of a part-time change agent

By: Bob Gold

Bob Gold — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:16:34 +0000

In 1979, I was a very young computer operator at an insurance company in Evanston, IL. I made a suggestion to my boss about a small change in the way the system worked that would help my fellow operators and me be more efficient. My boss had me write a memo directly to the systems programming group with my idea. They weren’t able to implement the idea, but a couple of months later, I was recruited into their group, with a nice raise. That’s when IT went from being a job to being a career for me.

By: Tim Gardner

Tim Gardner — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:54:19 +0000

I got a position as a trainer for technical skills in a new operation, which sort of grew to training team skills, conflict resolution, and developing pay and progression paths. From that job I got my first formal change agent position, working in a union facility to move from a traditional hierarchy structure to a team work-share approach.
So I sort of drifted into it.

By: Maria Gajewski

Maria Gajewski — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:33:38 +0000

My first job in the nonprofit world was at a small agency that underwent two mergers in two years, as well as ending an affiliation with a national group. This was a crash course in change management!

I got started as a change agent by being as involved in the restructuring as I could get away with. I had conversations with our strategic planning consultants, I attended board meetings whenever I could, and I shared my ideas as much as possible.

Ever since then I’ve been fascinated by the changes that organizations go through and whether they are top-down, bottom-up, or something in between.

By: Guido

Guido — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:56:50 +0000

Hello there, great idea to write your birth day story as a change agent.

I studied Industrial Engineering @ the Eindhoven University of Technology and did my final project and thesis at Philp Morris in the Netherlands. though my taskl was to teach and implement a maintenance model, there i was asked to help the Maintenance Department to “become friends again” with the Production Department. I introduced a top down and bottom up appraoch to get them on speaking terms which indluded of course change management for both departments.

I loved this kind of work and still do!! I teach bachelors now the fun and importance of change management! Can we share our expericences somwhere on facebook or on linkedin? what’s you idea?

By: Holger Nauheimer

Holger Nauheimer — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:58:36 +0000

I started as a consultant and specialists for nomadic ways of life; did studies in Somalia on pastoral production systems. At that time, I understood that we live in an unstable environment – in constant insecurity.

My life took a couple turns until somebody asked me to facilitate a workshop. My first facilitation, 1994 in Kazakhstan! I have proceeded a path through change ever since. There were probably two encounters that influenced me most: Systemic NLP as tought by Robert Dilts and Open Space Technology by Harrison Owen.

By: Pascal Vanden Bossche

Pascal Vanden Bossche — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:48:57 +0000

Hi there, this is a great idea, the call to action, I myself am being a change agent all over the place, as I am a freelance trainer in project management (actually more of the leadership than the management part)

Wouldn’t it be a great idea if we could get people to share this on Facebook?