Often the chief insecurity and main uncertainty at work of most staff is change itself. Company directors, upper level executives and senior managers responsible for managing organisational change do not, as a rule, fear change – they generally thrive on it. However, more junior employees and people in middle rankings generally do not enjoy change and often find it deeply disturbing and threatening. If you are the executive responsible for the change programme it is best to remember that your people’s fear of change is as great as your own fear of failure.

Much work has been done to understand how change impacts people not in control of change. The model that is most used derives from the work of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, (from her book titled “On Death and Dying”). Her work highlighted the ’5 stages of grieving’ affecting loved ones, relatives, family and friends of a dying person. Further research has been carried out by numerous institutes and associations to substantiate its validity for people’s reactions to severe change. The Transition curve model has proven to be both accurate and effective for understanding and planning actions.

When a change event occurs, it is often viewed as negative and individuals can “blank out” what they are experiencing. The next stage, is realisation that the event is actually happening and results in a feeling of hopelessness or lack of control on the part of the individual – leading to frustration with the situation. This behaviour is customarily openly displayed.

As the reality of the situation continues to sink in, individuals then resort to what is known as “defensive retreat”, characterised by strong emotions of anger and confusion. These emotions are often internalised and therefore not clearly visible to outsiders.

A characteristic of the above stages is a focus on the past – generally on how much better than the current state, the past state of things was.

Then comes the stage of depression, where most people hit the real slough of despond – ‘the trough of the curve’. As they move forward however, there comes a point at which the individual starts to accept the new order of things and looks to the future. The curve bottoms out and the individual becomes more sanguine about the current situation.

In time, the individual learns to adapt and grow to accommodate the new way of things, until they are back up around to the same level of positivity at which they started.

This transition curve might appear to be dramatic when we are talking about a simple change such as the implementation of a new system or process, but the principles of reaction to change remain the same.

Even if the individual has a positive response to the change event, their performance will fall below normal and descend some way into the trough of the transition curve. This is because it consumes considerable time and energy to adapt one’s automatic doing of ‘old’ or previous tasks and to learn new process and systems precipitated by the change initiative. In addition, time may be diverted into training and new skills education to implement and operate effectively, post the change.

Another useful reference point is the research work upon ‘learned helplessness’ undertaken over a period of 15 years, by Martin Seligman and various teams of researchers. This is applicable in understanding individuals’ reaction to ‘lack of control’ perceived by them during the change process in organisations. His work is publicly available in such books as “Learned Optimism”.

It is therefore important for executives to know that whatever they want, or have to change, will have significant ramifications for staff who may not have any control or contribution to make in the change. Working with this knowledge in an active way in the change implementation process can improve contribution and performance levels of your employees faster.

William Wallace©

Business Coach and Development Manager, Corporate Alchemy