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| CRBJ Home > June 2006 | ||||||
Throwing your employees a curve
But change is a difficult process because it has the element of the unknown. It requires that you and your employees move outside your comfort zone and the tendency is to revert to what you know, what you are confident about. It is very easy to get excited about change after attending an informative workshop, after having a great management planning session, after thinking about what you really want to do next year, but the tendency is simply to revert to your old, comfortable ways as soon as you recognize the personal effort that you have to put into the consequences of living with the unfamiliar. In a business environment there is a consistent pattern to the way that employees react when change is required. This attitudinal pattern can be represented by a chart, the change curve, that has been recognized by human relations experts for many years. In most situations, the motivation for change is driven by either inspiration (vision) or desperation (dissatisfaction) that is sufficiently strong to warrant actually taking a specific action of change to improve performance. The change curve reflects the reality that people consistently experience change in distinct phases that usually follow a sequence, although individuals will "process" change in different timeframes. Examples of how staff may react to the first notification of the need to change, the confusion and denial stage, could be: "This can't be real," "This doesn't make sense," "This won't affect us," or "They've talked this way before. Nothing will really change." As it becomes clear that change is happening, the anger or blame stage sets in: "How could they do something so stupid?"or "This is xxxx's fault: they make really bad decisions," or "If they had listened to us years ago, we wouldn't be in this mess." With change seeming to become real comes the bargaining stage: "I'll tell them what they want to hear. That will calm them down," "If we go along with all of this now, it'll probably get back to normal in a few months," or "I'll change a little bit but no way am I going along with all these changes." And with the realization that change is here and there is no going back to the old ways, the depression stage: "This is really bad," "We're in big trouble -- no one cares about us," "Things will never get better, it's all over now," or "The company is going out of business." This is the turning point for the survivors who now are willing to accept the benefits of change and move into the testing stage: "You know, maybe there are some opportunities here," "I'm going to try to make this work," "Other organizations have gone through things like this and they seem to be OK," or "OK, I think I can deal with these changes!" And then the acceptance stage: "My new direction is clear," "I understand my role, how I fit in," "I feel energetic about my team," "I know I can contribute" or "I can see myself succeeding in this role in the future." Even though this change curve may seem daunting, there is no bad spot on the curve, as long as you understand the process. It is important that you acknowledge that your company is going through a normal process, that you recognize where your organization is as a whole and where your staff are as individuals on the curve, and that you as the owner or leadership executive assume the responsibility to continue to move forward and to maintain a positive and proactive commitment to achieve the targeted results. And most importantly, communicate your understanding of the reactions to change as reflected in the change curve. Be honest and deal with issues as they arise; do not put off dealing with these reactions as they are a normal process of change. madison.com ©2009 Capital Newspapers. All rights reserved. |
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