Specialists needed for any Change

How many type of people do you need to bring about a change ? KurtVonnegut(1922-2007), an American writer has an interesting answer through his book Bluebeard. In the book, one of the characters by name Paul Slazinger is working on a non-fiction titled The Only Way to Have a Successful Revolution in Any Field of Human Activity and claims to have an answer to the question.

For what it is worth: Slazinger claims to have learned from history that most people cannot open their minds to new ideas unless a mind-opening team with a peculiar membership goes to work on them.

According to Vonnegut, any revolution or change needs a team consisting of three types of specialists.

The team must consist of three sorts of specialists, he says. Otherwise, the revolution, whether in politics or the arts or the sciences or whatever, is sure to fail.

 The first specialist is the person who comes up with a rare and special idea

The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius -- a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation.

Vonnegut says that the person on his will be considered a madman or Lunatic. Though a genius, this person is someone with very poor people skills. you can think of Howard Roark's mentor Henry Cameron. Cameron is a classic example of a person who had a revolutionary idea, but was repudiated by the society and is shown as a failure in the book. Tesla can be another example.

"A genius working alone," he says, "is invariably ignored as a lunatic."

The second specialist is the one who is already trusted by the society and one who also understands the idea , the need for it and certifies the idea. This allows the idea to get an entry in the minds of people. This is important because the person is already trusted and we, human beings are wired to believe in people whom we already trust

The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius, and who testifies that the genius is far from mad.

 On his own, this person who is trusted by the society may hope for a change, but can't do anything more because he/she doesnt have the know-how to bring about the change. This person can be looked at as the coach who finds the sparkle in a person

"A person like that working alone," says Slazinger, "can only yearn out loud for changes, but fail to say what their shapes should be."

Now that the idea has gained the trust of important persons, it is necessary to take it to a wider set of people. For that we need people who can communicate the idea to people in the simplest possible terms and enter the communicator

The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain anything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people, no matter how stupid or pigheaded they may be.

 On his own, the communicator doesn't amount to much because he doesnt have a great idea to communicate. In the absence of the genius and the great idea, this person will be doing a good job, communicating a bad idea. Vonnegut equates such a person to a turkey full of stuffing :-)

"He will say almost anything in order to be interesting and exciting," says Slazinger. "Working alone, depending solely on his own shallow ideas, he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey."

To sum-up, to bring in a change, the following three types are needed and without each of them, the change will not happen. If you want to talk about Change Management in mathematical terms, the relation is an Logical And operator :-)

• The first one is a genius who comes up with an original idea.
• The second one is a person who already is trusted by the society and also yearns for a change, but can't bring about the change on his own since he lacks the idea. This person helps the idea to gain acceptance in the minds of important people,
• The Third person is the communicator . The idea has to be communicated to a larger audience and the communicator who has the ability to simplify even complex ideas and make it understandable to people, plays a key role.