The best Change Agent is not a Change Agent

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"Change Agent" is a title that undermines itself. Those who make change their full-time profession rarely manage to credibly model it — because real behavioral change doesn't come from explaining, it comes from doing. LinkedIn lists over 150,000 people with this title. Most achieve little.

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The Information-Action Fallacy

People don't change their behavior because someone explains why they should. COVID-19 proved this convincingly: MS Teams wasn't adopted because someone pitched it well — it was adopted because there was no alternative. Habits form through repeated action, not persuasion. A change agent whose primary job is explaining rather than demonstrating cannot credibly trigger behavioral change. Theory is information. Change is action.

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A Case Example: Output Orientation Over Methodology Overhead

In a complex B2B software project with 100+ participants and an overloaded SAFe framework, methodological overstructuring created confusion instead of clarity. Anding's response was not classical change management — it was rolling up sleeves, taking clear positions against dysfunctional patterns, and rigorously prioritizing by customer value. What worked: getting hands dirty, not facilitating workshops.

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Four Steps That Actually Work

The approach follows a clear sequence: (1) Know what you are optimizing for — with customer value as the lowest common denominator across all stakeholders. (2) Define and prioritize deliverables that generate that value. (3) Devise simple but binding processes to create those deliverables. (4) Only then assign the right people to the right roles. Reversing this order means building structures without a foundation.

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The Best Change Agent Is Not a Change Agent

Effective change requires someone who gets involved, voices clear opinions, and becomes part of the team they want to change. Change is not a job profile — it is a byproduct of doing effective work.

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