Chapter 20: Making Change Easier 317
Stages in the
Change Curve
How People May React What Actions Help- Denial People may have a false
perception about their ability to
cope. They may think they can
handle things. They think
everyone else is to blame.
People can stay here and
become dinosaurs who can’t
cope with change, which can
result in their losing their job or
being sidelined.
Coaching helps. The tool is to
give feedback, because without
feedback people don’t realise
that they’re in denial and
deluding themselves.- Self-
awareness
People feel worse as they
realise their toolkit of skills and
knowledge isn’t good enough to
cope with the change. They go
into survival mode. The state of
feeling bad and inadequate can
spill into other areas of people’s
lives.Here people need support and
to know where they are on the
curve and why they’re feeling
bad. People feeling like this need
to tell their spouse, colleagues,
and manager and ask for leeway
to be grumpy and scared. They
need to be given permission to
feel bad and behave
unresourcefully.- Acceptance People start to take personal
responsibility for dealing with
change as they realise they
have finally stopped resisting the
change. People’s perception
of their abilities is incorrect
because they feel useless.
This stage is where people are
shown how other people coped
with change by giving them case
studies, providing coaching and
exemplars to model.- Experiment This stage is the learning and
integrating of new tools, so
people start modelling others to
see how they deal with change.
They feel more capable and
competent.
Training people to acquire new
skills and give them room to
make mistakes. At this stage,
managers must have done
sufficient risk analysis and
contingency planning, so that
mistakes aren’t detrimental to
the company. A high-risk
management is necessary at this
point so that mistakes can
be handled and dealt with
appropriately. A blame culture
only kicks people back to stage 2.