Hi. I need replies to these posts with scholar articles.

1. As this class has progressed I have learned far more about the change process and those involved in it than I would have imagined. With this class almost over it is helpful to look over my original thoughts on what I wanted out of this class as well as my role as a change agent. I will reflect on my proposed role as change agent, new insights I feel I have gained, and lastly what I have learn and still wish to learn more about.

My understanding of my role as a change agent for my proposed change has developed significantly from when I first thought about it. In my proposed change I would serve as a transition consultant on the team managing the change. Originally I had thought that this role would be largely self-explanatory, simply monitoring the change as it was implemented and controlling for deviations at individual Marine units. However now I see that I will need to account for a broad swath of activities. I will need to win over key stakeholders during the change process, get them engaged in the change process itself and work to break down resistance to change over time by helping the organization develop a sense of commitment to my proposed changes. It would be vital to ensure that robust communication is taking place and that information is properly reaching everyone that needs to stay in the know. Finally, its important to get feedback from stakeholders at all levels that are effected by the change. Their unique perspectives give a lot of insight not only into what is going wrong or right, but also how the process itself is being perceived and responded to.

An important factor in how I would act in my role as an agent of change can be seen in my change readiness assessment results. I found that I scored high in resourcefulness and adaptability while scoring low in tolerance for ambiguity and optimism. I believe this reflect that in this proposed change I would be best used assisting the change propose and providing support and advisement rather than being the central driving force behind it. Reflecting on my scores, leadership style, and personality I think I would be particularly badly suited for the role of central leader managing this change directly. I believe these results are in ultimately in keeping with my initial assessment of what would need to happen for the organization: that the Marine Corps appoint a high ranking officer to manage the change process guide by a transition team.

Turn next I want to address the two main areas where my knowledge of change leadership has progressed farther than others. The first area of knowledge is my understanding of how to use change models to better plan out changes. Previously I had simply followed a very piecemeal approach to implementing changes, but by utilizing different models to plan out a change I can better forecast possible issues that will be encountered. In addition to that, modeling makes it possible to see details that were otherwise easy to overlook or exclude and simplifies the process of finding the relationships between different factors. The second area that I have learned the most about is identifying stakeholders. Prior to this class I had never consider stakeholders as being part of the change process, much less understood the importance of having them engaged in the change. In retrospect a lot of actions taken by organizations that I have been a part of make a lot more sense, in many cases they were attempting to generate buy in from specific key stakeholders.

There are two areas I also hope to work on further so that I can make use of them in a real-world environment. The first is making use of effective communication. It is one thing to say an organization or individual needs to use good communication strategies and it is an entirely different business to actually do so. Communication in organizations is often far below what is necessary to create and sustain changes in organizations. Worse still ineffective communication strategies often go beyond simply not advancing a change plan but actively harden stakeholders against a change (Endrejat et al., 2021). For these reasons I think it is important to shore up my ability to effectively reach stakeholders. The second area that I feel I would like to improve my knowledge is learning more about sustaining the initial momentum of change. Often it is the case that a change will see initial success only to complete collapse after the first flash of enthusiasm wears off (Buchanan et al., 2005). By learning more about sustaining the momentum of a change I will be able to help organizations see their change through to the end rather than leave it an unfinished mess after the initial push.

This class has taught me a great deal about the nature of organizational change, my potential role in it, and about myself. Looking over what I have learned throughout this class I feel I am far better equipped to not only assess others proposed changes in organizations but to also create plans for change of my own. Most importantly I now understand that its not just about having a good plan but get other people on board with it, after all it takes far more than just one person to pull of change on an organizational scale.

2. My role in the midst of this major change at the Bettplex would largely revolve around me being there for my fellow employees. Having fired the last two cleaning companies that were hired externally to oversee the maintenance and cleanliness of the facilities, the Bettplex has now moved this work in house with the facilities employees largely being responsible for the entirety of this work. With the removal of the external cleaning company this means that each department at the Bettplex must take on additional responsibility to ensure the cleanliness of the facilities, but nobody will be taking on greater responsibility like the maintenance department employees will be. With that being said, my role as a change agent would see me take a collaborative leadership style. I would take a more collaborative approach because it's my understanding that the removal of the external cleaning company is going to have the greatest affect on the facilities employees. Therefore, proving to them that I value their input and that I understand these changes will affect them in a major way will go a long way in earning their respect and support as we slowly introduce significant changes. Additionally, I would provide the employees with more training, clear expectations, and provide specific examples for what is acceptable versus what isn't acceptable.

The change readiness assessment lead me to have the highest score in the adaptability and optimism categories. This wasn't necessarily a surprise to me because I tend to be optimistic about most things, and I personally take it upon myself to be adaptable in every situation. When I played sports I always took it upon myself to be a glue guy. This meant that I wanted to provide whatever it was that our team needed. For example, if our team was a really good offensive team then I worked harder on the defensive end, if our team needed help scoring then I would try to provide a spark for the team offensively. Ultimately, I prided myself as being a teammate that could play with anybody because I always cared more about our team success rather than individual accomplishments.

One of the biggest things that I learned throughout this course is to consider who is most being affected by any changes taking place. As I touched on above, it's vital to recognize who will be most influenced by any changes on a day-to-day basis, then proficient leaders identify how they can best be there for their employees or how they can best offer them support as they navigate through said changes. One of my other major takeaways from this course as I work towards becoming a better leader was the content relating to economic and organizational development. A lot of times organizations focus heavily on the bottom line, or the profitability of a particular situation. As a leader I want to take this into account, however; I want to acknowledge that our employees are humans with feelings who might benefit as recipients of additional training, attention, and support. Some scholars suggest this very idea stating, "the leader's 'main job is to do, or get done, whatever is not being adequately handled for group needs.' If a leader manages, by whatever means, to ensure that all functions critical to both task accomplishment and group maintenance are adequately taken care of, then the leader has done his or her job well" (Zaccaro, 2001, p. 7). As I continue to develop my leadership skills, I want to continue to be there for others and do what I can to make things easier for every team that I'm part of including my role as a coach and in the workplace.

3. The change that I have been working on throughout the course is the MiLB reorganization that is currently taking place. There is a lot involved in this change, so the role of the change agent is very large. It is important to understand yourself if you are to be successful in making a change. You also need to fully evaluate where the organization is before starting to make changes.

In order to be successful as a change agent for the MiLB reorganization, there is a lot of variables to work through. First of all, there are a lot of stakeholders involved due to the large amount of teams and communities involved in the minor league system. On top of that, there are all the players to consider. The change agent has to be able to work with all of these stakeholders and convince all of them that this change is the right way to go. There are also a lot of changes that need to take place, such as player salaries, alignment with MLB teams, facility upgrades, etc. The change agent needs to understand what is most important, when to make each part of the change, and how to best implement them. It is important that I am able to get the minor league teams up to modern sports standards.

When I took the Change Readiness Assessment, the highest score I got was on "Passion/Drive" with a 23. This was followed by a 22 in "Optimism", 21 in "Adventurousness", 18 in "Adaptability", 17 in both "Resourcefulness" and "Confidence", and 15 in "Tolerance for Ambiguity". This fits me well, as I am very passionate about what I do, and put a lot of my time and effort towards my job. I think this also helps me in making changes as I am able to put a lot of time and effort into them as they are something I want to see happen in order to make things better for everyone.

Before this course, I didn't think much about changes that were being made. One thing I learned was the amount of variables that need to be considered when making a change. I didn't realize how many things should be looked at before starting a change in an organization. The second thing that I learned was that there are many different types of changes that can be used. For example, the book I read for the book review talked about nudge change management. This was an interesting topic to learn as it wasn't a traditional way of making changes and allowed people to make the changes on their own instead of having it forced on them.

One can always work to get better in life. The first thing I think I need to get better at after this class is that I need to think more about why I am making a change before I do it. In the past, I have typically just done it, but never thought about the why. Moving forward, if I think about this more, I will be more successful in the changes I make. The second thing I need to work on is to create more of a plan. I think due to my job, I tend to work a lot on the fly and adjust as needed, but if I were to plan things out more, I might be more successful in the changes that I make.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot in this course. Beforehand, I didn't think a lot about change, and just did it. After this course, I think I will be more likely to think before I do. Understanding change is very important as "change is ever present; there never is a conclusion (Watson, 2020)."