Training Manual for Change Agents

This year alone, 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers landed in 76 foreign countries and embarked on ambitious projects that aim to change the world -- one village at a time.

Largely working alone, Peace Corps volunteers take root in unfamiliar territory and champion massive change initiatives, ranging from the installation of new irrigation systems to the implementation of AIDS education classes in public schools. They labor alongside strangers who speak unfamiliar languages and who hold unfamiliar beliefs. In short, they are agents for change working in some of the harshest and most frustrating environments imaginable.

Peace Corps volunteers undergo an intensive training program before embarking on their first assignment. Technical-training specialist Shari Howe and cross-cultural specialist Raquel Aronhime work with hundreds of Peace Corps volunteers each year, preparing them for culture shock and related challenges associated with working in an unfamiliar environment. Fast Company spoke with Howe and Aronhime about the organization's advice and guidance for new recruits before, during, and after they embark on global change initiatives. The following are six change-agent edicts from that conversation.

Scrutinize Your Values

Volunteers lug piles of baggage accumulated over the years in playgrounds, classrooms, offices, and social settings. No matter how open-minded or tolerant, every person who steps through the Peace Corps doors holds preconceived notions about right and wrong, good and bad. The same holds true in the business world.

The first step to becoming an effective change agent is acknowledging these personal, ingrained beliefs and values. Aronhime says this self-inspection is terribly necessary, yet extraordinarily challenging, for many first-time volunteers. "How do you get a fish to describe the water it's swimming in?" she asks. "You often don't realize what you take for granted until you are placed in a strange culture. Your assumptions about work, time, and power are ingrained from childhood, and are not often challenged until you enter an uncomfortable environment. Common sense here is rarely common sense elsewhere."

The Peace Corps encourages its volunteers to ask themselves how they value time, how they prioritize various tasks, and if they work well in group settings.

"You must have an understanding of these issues before you can enter a new community and work with new people in an effective way," Aronhime says. "For example, a lot of volunteers work in countries with completely different concepts of time. In the United States, we believe time is money. Elsewhere, time does not rule people's lives. Oftentimes, our volunteers will call a meeting, and none of the villagers will show up on time. A volunteer who doesn't understand the cultural differences at work might assume that the people don't care and that they don't want to improve their lives, when that's actually the farthest thing from the truth. A change agent can assume nothing."

Start Slowly

When new volunteers arrive at their destination, they are brimming with energy and with enthusiasm. Often, the last thing they want to do is sit back and take notes. But Aronhime says volunteers must fight the impulse to hit the ground running -- a slow crawl ultimately works much better than a full sprint.

"During your first two weeks on site, don't start calling meetings and making pronouncements," Aronhime advises volunteers. "Spend time observing your village and listening to people talk about their lives. Slowly, you will identify some natural places where you can intervene and share some ideas. In order to earn trust, you must demonstrate a presence and show that you're genuinely interested in learning as well as teaching."

Build Capacity

"Peace Corps volunteers concentrate on building human capacity rather than building things -- monuments to their work that are gone or are useless in a few years," Aronhime says. The Peace Corps aims to leave behind not houses and hospitals, but carpenters and doctors. It upholds the tenet that a truly effective change agent will train other change agents to do greater things than one person could ever achieve alone.

"We would all like the Peace Corps to be around for a long time, but in an ideal world, we would work ourselves out of a job," Aronhime says. "The Peace Corps is working to eliminate itself by helping people around the world develop tools to achieve their goals."