Planning For Change: A Reminder Checklist

 

Learning Assistance personnel functioning as change agents frequently find themselves in conflict with faculty, administrators, and students. They need to understand when and how change is more acceptable to others. They also need to check their own inordinate enthusiasm for change by reflecting upon changes that they propose. The following material, adapted from R, M. Besse “Company Planning Must Be Planned” ( Dun's Review , April 1957), may be helpful in thinking through proposals for change.

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Change is more acceptable if the organization has been trained to accept change  

• When it is understood by those who will be affected by the change
  
• When it does not threaten anyone's job security
  
• When those affected by the proposed change have helped to create it rather than having the change imposed from above
  
• When it results from the application of previously established impersonal principles rather than when it is dictated by administrative fiat
  
• When it follows a series of successful changes rather than when it follows a series of failures.
  
• When prior changes have been assimilated successfully and accepted rather than when a change is initiated during the confusion of other changes
  
• If the change has been planned rather than when it is experimental
  
• If the change is introduced to personnel new on the staff or administration rather than to personnel who have been there for some time
  
• If it is introduced to those who will share in the benefits of the change and know that they will share in the benefits rather than to those who do not share, or think they will not share in the benefits of a change

 

If the change agent is prepared to answer questions like the following :