Change begets change: emerging role of the human resources development practitioner.

This article has discussed three essential role shifts for the HRD practitioner: reactor to initiator, "pair-of-hands" to collaborator, and problem solving consultant to action learning facilitator. These shifts in role are required for the process of helping manage organizational change in our hospitals. Ongoing learning will be the essential ingredient to successfully manage change in health care organizations. This continual learning is not for clients alone, but is also required by HRD practitioners who want to be taken seriously as contributing to the achievement of their organization's future vision. While the effective HRD practitioner will need to continually experiment with new approaches, a starting point today is with the role changes described in this article.