The Leadership Year: Month Nine
By far one of the most popular topics I have encountered is change management. We are all wired to resist change. It’s unpredictable, it’s emotional and it takes a lot of brain power to process! But it’s also inevitable. We will all face change in our careers, and of course life itself. And this is why so many of us are seeking to be able to better handle change.
I am always taken aback by how people feel so disappointed in their ability to handle change. There have been countless times I have heard someone say that they “should be better able to deal with this” even when talking about a significant change. I think we need to give ourselves a break! Of course, we should look to build what I like to call “Change stamina”, but at the same time it may be just as beneficial for us to be able to identify and acknowledge how change is impacting us.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is someone who studied this extensively. A fascinating woman, she took her experiences looking at how people process grief and created a model that now has widespread use in many sectors, not least in businesses around the world. She discovered that people experience a wave, or curve, of emotions and need to process this emotion to be able to accept the change and truly move forward. Whilst the origins are in processing an extreme change, the model can be applied to almost anything.
The first stage of the change curve is Shock. Even when there is news, we are expecting there is often still an experience of shock that it has actually happened. I often remind people of the early days of the pandemic here, and how even though the news had built up to a National Lockdown in the UK, the day it happened still had that moment of shock. During this stage we may find that we struggle to take in all the information we here. It can be overwhelming and the best thing we can do is allow ourselves time to process the news. Perhaps try and absorb information 1 piece at a time. Businesses often flood messaging in the early stages in an attempt to ensure all Qs are answered. But it may be better to create a resource where people can go in their own time to find the answers rather than try and provide them all during a time of high cognitive processing.
The next stage is Denial. And I’ll be honest this is a stage I set up camp and stay in longer than most! Denial gives us a brief (in most people’s case!) feeling of security. By denying the change is going to happen, or denying the scale/impact of the change, we are able to prevent ourselves feeling threatened by what’s about to happen. Change is full of uncertainty, and our brains will actually work harder to resist change than they will to accept it. Whilst in denial we don’t face reality and this is comfortable, but not very rational. I’m not even joking when I say I experience denial in extreme ways. I was in denial about an office move that had been months in the planning even after we had actually moved office. I genuinely believed we would return to the old office (which wasn’t actually that great in the first place). What helps people move through denial is having solid proof that the change is going to happen and an opportunity to face up to what they fear. For me it wasn’t the change of office but the increased expense and commuting time that I couldn’t face up to, and had I been encouraged to discuss those (or perhaps even do a dry commuting run) I might have moved out of denial much sooner.
The 3rd stage is frustration. Here we position change as the enemy. It is common for us to be frustrated by the realities of the change even if they are small. System changes often prompt quite angered exchanges about what won’t work in the new version. There is still ultimately a lot of resistance and lack of belief that the change is going to be a positive one. If we don’t address this, it may even make us move back along the curve and consider the frustrations to be so valid that the change won’t happen at all. Frustrations are something we need to be encouraged to work through. Managing someone who is frustrated by a change means giving them time and ensuring you hear about their personal frustrations and seek to understand as much as possible about why they are frustrated, even if those frustrations don’t feel that big to us. Leaders may need some thick skin at this stage as although people should still behave appropriately, they are likely to need space to vent and often emotionally explain their thoughts and feelings
The next stage is the biggest dip of them all, and its depression. I always make the distinction that this is not the same as clinical depression, but it also could be in the case of extreme change such as grief. In a work-based scenario it might be more likely to take the form of low mood and a lack of engagement. The individual has accepted the change, worked through frustrations but still fails to see a future they want to buy into. They may feel increasingly isolated if their peers are embracing the change and can see it positively. This stage needs careful and personal management. People should feel as supported as possible, so a lot of listening and a lot of time needs to be offered to individuals to encourage them to move out of depression. Much like the Frustration stage, if needs are neglected an individual may move backwards on the curve and be even further away from accepting the reality of the change to come, so managers should work hard to ensure they are providing appropriate support to individuals in this stage to keep them facing forwards.
After this dip, we do start to see a more positive upward trend, and this starts with Experiment. I like to think of this as when you are prepared to try something, but not yet prepared to commit. It can actually feel like a really big step after Depression. Starting to consider that the change might be something you can make work for you is a giant leap forward. But as we are experimenting, we are still keeping ourselves in a space of safety. We don’t have to decide if the change is good or bad, will work or not, we simply just have to give it a go. Given how much effort it has taken to get to this stage, leaders should support individuals at this stage. Be positive and encourage them to identify the best way forward for them, but don’t rush them. Being pushed too hard may take them out of their safety zone and back down the change curve. More regular check ins may be useful here but try and establish a pace that feels right for the individual and be encouraging and supportive.
Only after we’ve experimented can we commit, and this stage is known as Decision. We have looked at options, we’ve undoubtedly spent a lot of time thinking about the change and how it impacts us and now we have decided to embrace it and make it work. It may sound only a subtle difference to the step before, but it feels far from subtle. If we have had quick successes at the Experiment stage we might quickly move into this space, but if a change doesn’t run smoothly, we may need some gentle nudges to reach our decisions. This may be particularly true of stubborn individuals who having voiced opposition to the change earlier in the curve now struggle to admit it will work! Questions about what is working, how we can make things work and bringing in more autonomy and ownership for individuals can cement this stage.
The last stage is integration. The change has happened, and it is now part of our usual routine. It can take a lot of effort to get here. Studies show that some major changes can take years with people reluctant to admit that the change is here to stay even after it has happened (remember my experience of Denial? I thought we would return to our old office even after we had moved into the new one!). But this stage should be one to celebrate. It has taken a lot of energy to reach this stage and that should be acknowledged. How to do that depends on the scale of the change, but if you want to motivate an individual to embrace changes needed in the business then the worst thing you can do is fail to acknowledge the work, they’ve put in to making a previous change work for them. So, point back to their contribution and ensure they know it has been seen by the business and thank them for it.
The change curve is one way of being able to make sense of the emotions we feel when experiencing change. We all experience these on different scales and different timeframes. If we feel we are not progressing along the curve at the same rate as our peers this can make us feel isolated. And simply understanding the principles of the curve might be helpful to stop us feeling alone. As leaders a key consideration is that we might find out about work changes ahead of our team. This means we might have experienced these emotions and be in the positive stage of the change curve and keen for our team to join us here. It’s a reminder to not neglect the early stages and try and ‘cheerlead’ someone further forward. Allowing for the stages of the curve to happen and managing them appropriately is a far more effective way to manage change than simply communicating the rational benefits. After all our brains are often more emotional than they are rational.
I have other content on the creator of the change curve (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross) and change stamina in other blog posts.
