The Eight Change Personas
Potential responses to the above questions were graphed along several axes, yielding eight distinct “change” personas:
The Visionary and The Bellwether instigate change. Both ensure good ideas get noticed.
Visionaries are leaders with big ideas, employees who see how things could be. This persona incites change, believes in the promise of technology, and brings vision, creativity, and business acumen to the organization.
Like the Visionary, the Bellwether is ambitious and wants to have a successful, varied career. Yet this persona is more focused on pure Accounting, rather than the business as a whole. While the Visionary’s creativity generates ideas, the Bellwether’s accounting expertise discerns which ideas hold merit. As the first follower, the Bellwether is key to making change actually happen.
Change is manifested through the activities of the Engine. Both the Architect and the Model Accountant personas do the work necessary to drive change forward.
Often found in managerial roles, Architects offer both broad expertise in the field of Accounting and a positive approach to change. As trusted employees in the organization, Architects drive projects forward, bridging ideas and reality. When change happens, this persona is responsible for figuring out how to make the change work.
In possession of flexibility, deep accounting knowledge, and strong communication skills, the Model Accountant can take on any role in the organization. While this persona doesn’t initiate change, the Model Accountant will embrace positive change.
These two personas are wary of change. However, the Perfectionist and the Guru can provide insight into flaws and pitfalls of potential changes, thus playing a key role in ensuring change is sustainable and successful.
The Perfectionist persona prefers the status quo and serves as organizational quality control. While this persona isn’t known for positivity, Perfectionists play a key role in mitigating the risk of change. They function as a crucial buffer between a great idea and how things work in the real world. They ask questions, challenge weak ideas, and scrutinize how change will affect the core of the business.
Gurus are fountains of knowledge. Not only do they know how to do every accounting process, but they know why it’s done that way. They carry a tremendous amount of tribal knowledge and can answer almost any question. The tradeoff? Gurus don’t like change, and they’re highly invested in the status quo. Yet, like the Perfectionist, the Guru persona plays a key role in identifying flaws and pitfalls in early change initiatives.
Challengers hate change. Yet their resistance can be transformed into advocacy through leadership opportunities.
Orderly and organized with strong business expertise, the Bureaucrat is both highly risk averse and highly ambitious. While this persona hates change, the Bureaucrat’s leadership aspirations can be used in service of change.
The Purist is the Guru made ambitious. This persona represents an extremely knowledgeable accountant, driven to perfect their craft and enforce order. For the Purist, Accounting is a center of excellence that doesn’t need to change, and their aversion to risk manifests in a distrust of technology. Yet, like the Bureaucrat, the Purist can become an advocate for change if this persona is offered leadership responsibilities.