In McKinsey article “Building an effective change agent team” the case is made for change leaders who can cross the silos and functional areas that exist within organizations. I would like to give you my take on this. If you have read my past blogs then you realize I believe that one way to define strategy it the responding to changes in ones environment or creating changes to ones environment. This is primarily done by modifying business processes or creating new business processes. Since business processes commonly cross silos and functional area a method must be in place to do this. Change agent teams can be one way of doing this. What did not seem to be stated exactly by McKinsey was that the two main functions required are:
1) Communication, communication, communication. The Change agents become an important channel of communication that fills in the gaps that may exist between functional units and silos. They act as the facilitators to collaboration.
2) Shared understanding. Many times you have a blind men and the elephant situation. Each silo or functional area sees the business process from his or her own worldview. The Change agent transcends these views. The functional areas and silos create a common understanding of the whole elephant through the change agent.
