Why change is hard (and what you can do to help the process)
An oft used quote from Mark Twain is:
“The only person who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper!”
And this does seem like a good summary of people’s overall resistance to change.
Major change, as seen in a large Transformation program, can impact many people in the workforce. It’s important to understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a major Transformation and how the Improvement team can help the workforce through this period.
This guide will explore the well-known ‘change curve’ and also some of the strategies for helping people through the change curve.
1: The change curve
The Change Curve – image
The change curve is based on work by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the 1960s to explain the grieving process. She proposed that a terminally ill patient would progress through five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, expression) when informed of their illness.
This thinking has then been further refined and applied to corporate change with some modifications. Instead of five stages, there are now seven stages but the shape of the curve is broadly similar:
- Shock: The first reaction to change is usually shock as they respond to the challenge to the status quo. This shock can result in a loss of productivity due to a lack of information and fear of the unknown. People will want as much information as possible (to understand if the rumours are indeed true)
- Denial: After shock, a common reaction is denial with some people convincing themselves that the change isn’t needed, won’t happen or won’t impact them. There may even be a lift in performance levels as people convince themselves that the status quo still applies.
- Anger/Frustration: Anger or frustration often follows the initial shock and denial as people start to accept that change could happen and that this will result in major upheaval and that they will be impacted. With anger and frustration, comes blame – ‘someone’ needs to be blamed for this change. Performance levels start to really drop off.
- Depression: The lowest point of the change curve comes when the anger changes to depression and people realize that the change will in fact happen. Morale is low, and self-doubt and anxiety are high.
- Experiment: People first begin to accept the situation as they ‘experiment’ and test/explore what the changes mean in practice. Some people accept the change because there is no choice but others start to think of the change positively. Productivity actually begins to improve for the first time.
- Decision: People continue to learn how to work with the changes – accepting them and embracing them. Productivity continues to rise. At this stage, the organization starts to benefit from the changes.
- Integration: The changes are fully accepted and embedded into the organization and viewed as the ‘new’ normal.
Some of these stages actually look like active resistance to change (e.g., denial, anger/frustration) but they are simply emotional states many people go through when faced with major change.
You’ll need to allow people time to transition through these stages before getting to the ‘experiment/decision’ stages where people actually start to view the changes in a positive way for the first time.
2: Helping people through the change curve
Understanding these stages, enables an Improvement team (and business leaders) to understand how they can best help the workforce through the changes.
There are three major forms of help that can be provided to support people through the change curve:
1. Provide communication: In the early shock/denial stages, people will demand information to understand what is happening. If there are no communications, then rumours will abound in a vacuum. The workforce will generally have three questions:
- why the change is needed ?
- what will the change involve ?
- how will they be impacted – individually ?
As such, it’s important that in the early communications from Senior Leaders and the Improvement team that the ‘need for change’ communications include not only the need for change but also what will happen if no change is made, an idea of what the future will look like (and how they fit into it) and also an approximate road map of how they will get there. This information will not only help them through shock but also denial as people need to understand why change is needed. Also it’s critical that the ‘need for change’ is communicated from the most senior leaders down – messaging needs to be consistent but also it should be clearly established that the senior leadership is saying that change is needed and that change will happen.
2: Give support: In the ‘anger’ and ‘depression’ stages, people need support. They may, at this point, understand the changes and the reason behind the stages but any support that can be given here will help.
Allow them time to be concerned and to ask questions. Listen to their concerns and ask how you can support them. Answer their questions as honestly as you can. Some of their concerns may be about things that won’t happen (in some people’s minds – everything is changing). Check with leadership if these concerns are valid or not – you may be able to dispel some fears by simply understanding what’s not going to change. But also continue to be honest – and don’t commit to promises that can’t be kept.
At some point you may be able to give further support e.g., further understanding of the new processes and how they will work or training in the new processes. Some organizations also provide re-deployment support for impacted employees.
3: Enable input/control where possible: From the ‘experiment’ stages onwards, change is accepted and people are starting to think positively about the changes. People who can control some of these changes themselves will actually fully embrace the changes. In a large transformation, there may be many initiatives and process changes; initiative owners who can define some of the changes, implement those improvements and accelerate the overall transformation and value achieved.
Conclusion
This guide provides a detailed look at the change curve and the seven stages people naturally go through when faced with major change in their lives.
We’ve also provided some insights about what you do to help people through these changes and when.
Hopefully, this post is a useful guide of how your team can help people through a major a Transformation program.