---
title: "Change Champions: Three Roles and How to Pick People"
description: "Change champions after Warrick (2009): initiating, facilitating, implementing. How they differ from change agents, and who to pick in a 25-person firm."
url: "https://staging.khoi.co.uk/en/blog/champion-thay-doi-ba-vai-tro"
lang: en-GB
author: "Lê Quốc Khôi"
date: 2026-11-03
updated: 2026-11-03
topics: ["Change management"]
tags: ["Change champion", "Change management", "Warrick", "Small business"]
---

# Change champions: three roles and how to choose people in a small firm

## Key takeaways

- According to Warrick (2009), a change champion is a person at any level who is skilled at initiating, facilitating and implementing change, distinct from a change agent, a trained organisation-development specialist (Warrick, 2009).
- The three roles: initiating (a change mindset, visionary leadership, being well informed, involving stakeholders), facilitating (working with people and teams, networking) and implementing (planning, making things happen, keeping people motivated, building feedback, persevering) (Warrick, 2009).
- Warrick does not assign a type of champion to each stage; he says different champions tend to excel at different roles, so match them to the right project (Warrick, 2009). Matching roles to three stages in this post is my inference.
- This is a practitioner article by an academic and consultant who is also president of a training company, with no outcome figures; I do not use the 70% failure figure at its start.
- Company T, 25 staff, and its details are invented.

Company T, invented, runs a delivery fleet with 25 staff and is about to switch to route-planning software. The owner asks who should lead it. Warrick's (2009) article gives one hint, and I use it to ask whether to choose by role rather than by title; that framing is mine. This post also sets the roles beside the three stages of a change. Company T and all its details are invented.

## Who is a change champion, and how does one differ from a change agent?

Warrick defines a change champion as a person at any level of the organisation who is skilled at initiating, facilitating and implementing change. He distinguishes champions from change agents, who are trained specialists in organisation development and change (Warrick, 2009). In his view every organisation, large or small, needs to have or have access to one or more change agents, especially when the change is large or complex, and change agents can help train champions. His proposal is to develop champions at all levels, which he says needs only minimal time away from regular jobs (Warrick, 2009). He adds that champions have always existed and have been responsible for most significant changes that succeed, since change is rarely accomplished without someone championing it; this is his argument, supported by three references I have not checked (Warrick, 2009).

> **Figure:** [Change champion roles](https://staging.khoi.co.uk/en/framework/change-champions) (redrawn from the site's library framework)

## What skills do the three roles involve?

Warrick draws the three roles from studies of people who lead change and from more than 30 years of observing them (Warrick, 2009). The right-hand column is my example for Company T.

| Role | Skills according to Warrick | At Company T |
|:--|:--|:--|
| Initiating | A change mindset; visionary leadership; being well informed about the issues, opportunities and how to get things done; involving key stakeholders and building commitment | The person who explains why the old routes burn fuel and wins over the dispatchers and the long-serving drivers |
| Facilitating | Working with people and with teams; networking and getting the right people together | The person who runs the trial sessions and mediates when drivers and dispatchers argue about a route |
| Implementing | Planning and managing the change process; making things happen; keeping people focused and motivated; developing feedback mechanisms; persevering until the change succeeds | The person who checks each week how many routes ran on the software and who hit errors |

Warrick stresses that champions learn at different rates and have different strengths: one may excel at initiating, another at facilitating, another at implementing. Awareness of these strengths helps match people to projects (Warrick, 2009).

## Who should lead each stage?

There is no direct answer in Warrick's article, and this is where I must be clear. He calls three-stage models, beginning with Lewin, the clearest, and recommends adopting or tailoring a model so that all champions share one way of planning (Warrick, 2009). His change-planning form has three stages: preparing for change, implementing change, and sustaining change. The form also has a line asking who would be the best person to champion that change, which means the question "who" is put for each change, not for each stage (Warrick, 2009).

Here is my trial pairing. Warrick does not say this, and I have no evidence that pairing this way gives better results.

| Stage in Warrick's form | Role I would guess should be strongest | Sign you need to change the person |
|:--|:--|:--|
| Preparing | Initiating: needs vision and a knack for drawing people in | The initiator talks a lot but nobody has signed up |
| Implementing | Implementing, with facilitating alongside | The implementer works alone and nobody connects the groups |
| Sustaining | Implementing, with an initiator to remind people why | The weekly feedback stops after the second month |

This pairing only works if you have all three people. In my judgement a firm of 25 often has only two or three people with enough standing and enough hours. When you have only two, ask each which role they are strong in and which is empty, then find a third person only for the empty role. Do not make one person carry all three roles for six months.

## Warrick's nine guidelines: which to keep in a small firm?

Warrick gives nine guidelines for a champion programme (Warrick, 2009). The table picks five that I think matter most for a small firm; the right-hand column is my inference.

| Warrick's guideline | At Company T |
|:--|:--|
| Name the programme to suit the culture; it can be informal, just keeping track of who has been trained | No need for the word "champion" on a business card; "the three people in charge of the switch to the software" is enough |
| Start with a small group of high-impact people, ideally with a senior leader | The owner is one of the three, not standing outside |
| Use an action training model: specific roles, practice with another champion or a coach | The three run one route together before it is rolled out |
| Value and reward the role: if it is not recognised, it is hard to keep people in it | Put 2 hours a week in the work calendar; include it in the year-end appraisal |
| Keep the programme flexible, with no stigma attached to opting out | Allow a change of person after the first month without loss of face |

The guideline on reward stands out. Warrick writes that one risk of being a change champion is that the organisation goes on valuing and rewarding champions only for their regular duties, which they continue to perform; if the additional role is not recognised, it is difficult to persuade anyone to continue in it (Warrick, 2009). In my judgement, in a firm of 25 this is much simpler than in a large company: the owner can take hours off other work.

On training, Warrick describes an action model: in his experience two days of formal training, practice assignments with another champion or a coach, and a half-day follow-up to share what was learned (Warrick, 2009). For Company T, my suggestion for the cheapest version is two half-days with an outside trainer, then one real route as the practice assignment, and a short review after the first month. That is one author's experience with no measured results, so treat the duration as a starting point, not a standard. The point of the practice assignment is that the three people learn each other's strengths on a small task before the whole fleet depends on them.

## How do champions differ from Kotter's guiding coalition?

The two ideas answer different questions. In Kotter, the guiding coalition is a group with enough power and credibility to lead the change. In Warrick, a champion is a person with the skills to initiate, facilitate and implement, at any level. My way of separating them: a small firm can use both, the coalition for who decides, the champions for who initiates, facilitates and does. The post [Kotter in a twenty-person firm](https://staging.khoi.co.uk/en/blog/kotter-cong-ty-hai-muoi-nguoi) goes through the first question.

## Going deeper: where is the evidence, and what did I not read?

Warrick's piece is a practitioner article in the OD Practitioner, based on the author's more than 30 years of experience and on studies of change leaders that he mentions. I found no figures in it measuring the results of a champion programme, so the title's "high payoff investment" is the author's claim, not a measured result. The author note describes him as a professor of management and organisation change and president of a training and development company that specialises in developing and coaching leaders and change champions; I infer that he has an interest in the proposal. That does not make it wrong, but it is a reason to try it small first. The article opens with a 70% failure figure for change, citing four sources I have not checked, so I do not use it.

I read the full text through a PDF copy of the article on another website; text extraction of the last page was partial, and I use only the author note from it. The section on pairing roles with three stages and every detail about Company T are mine.

## Frequently asked questions

### How does a change champion differ from a change agent?

Warrick (2009) defines a change champion as a person at any level who is skilled at initiating, facilitating and implementing change, and a change agent as a trained specialist in organisation development and change (Warrick, 2009). He holds that every organisation, large or small, needs to have or have access to change agents, especially for large or complex change; champions do not replace them.

### How many champions should I start with?

Warrick advises starting with a small group of high-impact people, proving the worth of the idea, and only then widening it; the first group should include natural fits, such as HR professionals or people with a reputation for championing change, and ideally at least one top-level manager so that commitment is visible (Warrick, 2009). He gives no specific number.

### How long does it take to train champions?

In Warrick's experience, two days of formal training, several practice assignments with another champion or a coach, and a half-day follow-up; he adds that a shorter option for managers is a one-day session on the fundamentals (Warrick, 2009). That is one author's experience; the article has no data on results.

### Is there evidence that champions make change more likely to succeed?

In Warrick's article, there are no figures measuring that. He argues from more than 30 years of experience and from studies of people who lead change, and opens with a figure of 70% of changes failing that I have not checked, so I do not use it (Warrick, 2009). Treat the article as practical advice, not as measured results.

## References

- Warrick, D.D. (2009) ‘Developing organization change champions: a high payoff investment!’, *OD Practitioner*, 41(1), pp. 14–19.

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