The focus of this chapter is on the human side of change. It looks at why people resist change even when logically they can see that it is the right thing to do. Often technology fundamentally changes our relationship with our work and our working colleagues; it enables new ways of working, thinking and relating; and such all-embracing change can be disorientating. How people react to change is as much about what is already in their head as it is about the realities of the proposed change. In this chapter, we provide some critical insights about how you as a leader can help people through the various stages of change.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

For many people, the prospect of organisational change can trigger a strong, even overwhelming, sense of anxiety. In extreme cases, a department or even a whole organisation can drift into a state of listless near-paralysis. These are the conditions that often result in entrenched resistance to the idea of change and can be the death knell for new ways of working or the adoption of new behaviours. As a manager, your job is to guide your people through these turbulent times.

Most organisational change initiatives fail to produce the outcomes that were hoped for at the outset. Sometimes this is because the environment moves on again and the change is no longer relevant, but more often the issue is that not enough people really appreciated the need to change or actively refuse to change before significant damage has occurred. Once you get to that stage, change is like pushing a rock uphill; it is difficult, exhausting and essentially futile, and if you let up for a moment, it will roll back and squash you.

To be successful at preparing people for change you have to start the process before they even get the idea that a change may be needed. In the same way that a gardener spends time enriching and preparing the soil in flower beds long before the time comes to plant out the seedlings, you, as a manager, need to work to create a state of readiness for change. You need to give your team the tools and the attitudes to see the positives in prospective changes and the will to take action and make those changes a working reality.

THE IMPACT OF THE ISSUE

Change is now an ever-present feature of organisational life, yet our understanding of how to bring about change in human systems is still tenuous, and many managers feel ill-equipped to deal with the human fallout from their change initiatives.

The thinking behind how to bring about and manage organisational change has moved on considerably in the last 20 years and now most managers appreciate that change is a process; however, most of the models used to guide managers view change as something that you do to other people, or other systems. Yes, such models emphasise the importance of taking people with you, having a vision, communicating urgency, building a network of committed people and so on. Yet, laudable though all this is, they are still stuck in the belief that change is something done to others. The reality is that where human behaviour is concerned change can only come from the inside; each and every individual must come to the decision to change for themselves, and for each person the trigger for that change will be different.

When faced with change, very few people will find it exciting and exhilarating, and a similarly small proportion will become very active and vocal opponents of anything that looks different. But the normal reaction to change is ambivalence. Let’s be clear about this, ambivalence does not mean ‘doesn’t care’. To be ambivalent is to simultaneously hold two opposing and conflicting attitudes or emotions. Because change is all around us, most people have learned to be ambivalent until they understand how the proposed change will affect them at a personal level. You have a position where people cannot motivate themselves to change unless and until their very personal ambivalence is resolved.

So, at any given time, most of the people who work for you will be ambivalent to change. This means that they are subconsciously caught in a conflict of opposing attitudes and emotions that results in competing commitments. These competing commitments will undermine morale and performance and could, ultimately, paralyse any change initiative. The following story illustrates such a conflict:

In George’s case, he achieved a number of small wins but failed to achieve any significant change either to the culture of the organisation or in the behaviour of its people. George therefore left the organisation for another where the culture allowed him to make a significant contribution that benefited his new organisation as a whole.

MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

People react to change, or the threat of change, at an emotional level. Change evokes strong emotions and that internal turmoil tends to produce observable behaviour patterns. Much of the thought about human change comes from working with people undergoing profound change; often this work has been done by clinical psychologists working with people coping with bereavement, terminal illness or substance abuse and dependency. These ideas are then picked up, generalised and reshaped to fit the world of organisational behaviour.

The most widely known model comes from pioneering work carried out by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and published in her book On Death and Dying (1969). In this she identifies five stages of transition for people facing death, namely denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. She was at pains to stress that the order of these stages is not necessarily chronological; nor will everyone experience all five stages. It is also not a linear process – people don’t progress neatly from one stage to the next; they experience setbacks and can flip from stage to stage.

The model was quickly appropriated by organisational psychologists and subsequently expanded, and is often now termed the change cycle or the change roller coaster. A typical representation of the roller coaster is shown in Figure 6.1.

There can be no doubt that the Kübler-Ross curve is a valuable insight into the human response to change, but, sadly, the change roller coaster concept has been widely shared by people with no understanding of where it comes from or its underpinning philosophy. The result is that too many managers wrongly believe that this is some form of mechanistic process where everyone goes through all the stages in this order, and that their role as a manager is to help their people get through the stages as quickly as possible. Such a belief is less than helpful and can do irreparable harm to people who are in a vulnerable emotional state.

Most of us can cope with a few changes at one time, but for each of us there comes a time when we reach a tipping point where we fail to cope. At this point, we can become overwhelmed with ambivalence as a sort of defence mechanism.

Figure 6.1 Behaviour through the transition curve⁹

More recent work has focused on trying to understand the root causes of personal ambivalence or, in the words of Kegan and Lahey (2001; see the ‘Further food for the curious’ section at the end of this chapter), ‘competing commitments’. This is the idea that people’s backgrounds, early experiences, education and so on cause them to adopt ‘big assumptions’ about how the world works. These mental frameworks are often unexamined and unconscious, but they colour everything we see and generate the internal competing commitments. A competing commitment may blindside us to the need for change, or paralyse us into a state of confused inaction where we know that we need to change, but cannot find the motivation to do so, or to maintain our course of action.

It is becoming clear that people don’t change because they hear your words, no matter how eloquent and persuasive they may be; they change when they take part in a discussion about their own competing commitments and the roots of their ambivalence. This sort of discussion is called change talk and is at the heart of a technique practised by clinical psychologists called motivational interviewing. Getting people to engage in change talk is a critical element of motivational interviewing. We recognise that it is unrealistic, and possibly dangerous, to expect managers to become amateur clinical psychologists. However, it is reasonable to expect managers to understand that their role is not to talk at their people about change, but rather to openly engage their people in change talk in such a way as to allow them to surface and explore their own competing concerns and commitments. Through this understanding, they can find a route to their own motivation to change.

PRACTICAL ADVICE

If you have had any change management training, you have probably come to view organisational change as a process. Typically, that process will have four or five stages; for example, the eight factors for successful change that are set out in Kotter’s book Our Iceberg is Melting (2006) can be mapped into a model of four phases: setting the scene, deciding what to do, making it happen and making it stick.

Helpful and insightful though this is, you must remember that this is a model of how you implement change, not how people respond to change.

If we are looking for a model that maps this change process, but explicitly deals with human reaction to change, it would be better to take the five-stage model that underpins motivational interviewing and the world of competing commitments. The Stages of Change model¹⁰ helps those making an organisational change to keep on track and to embrace best practice in change management. It identifies the five stages of change as being:

i.

pre-thinking;

ii.

thinking;

iii.

deciding;

iv.

doing;

v.

maintaining.

The model reminds you of your role as the leader of your people during change.

The manager’s role and approach differs in each of the stages. Yes, you need to do all the things associated with the process model of change, but, in addition, you should be working on a one-to-one basis with your people to help you understand their motivations and engage in change talk. Here is some general guidance on how to approach each of the stages.

Pre-thinking stage. When people are in this stage they are not yet considering change, or are unwilling, or unable, to accept that change may be necessary. The manager’s role is to:

• Start to raise doubt in their minds that things can go on as they are.
• Give them information about the risks and problems they face; give concrete examples of how the same sorts of problems have beset other departments, companies or industries and the consequential fallout from these issues. Involve them in brainstorming and prioritising the risks that could impact your change initiative.
• Bring an awareness of the outside to the inside. This form of open and honest communication about the changing world and our place in it will reduce the shock that we tend to experience at the start of the change curve.

Thinking stage. Now people can see the possibility of change, but are ambivalent about the change. They cannot find within them the motivation to begin the change journey and remain uncertain and unconvinced that it is the right thing for them. This is the time when you need to engage in real change talk:

• Bring the reasons for ambivalence to the surface.
• Discover together the big assumptions that are held about how things work and what their place is in the scheme of things.
• Avoid being judgemental.
• Don’t take sides, but do encourage people to challenge their own beliefs and support them in the process through reflective questioning, affirmation and summarising. This will help people to get through the denial phase of the change curve.

Deciding stage. They are now convinced of the need to change and are motivated to do so, but remain unclear about what they need to do and how they should go about it. This is a critical stage and the manager now has a role to:

• Help them think through what they might do first. Maybe create a simple plan of things they can do tomorrow or next week; avoid the long term and keep things low key.
• Explore with them through questioning and active listening what they might do if things don’t go to plan.
• Use reflective listening and affirmation to help them through the emotional turmoil of the change curve.

Doing stage. They are now actively taking steps to achieve the change, but their steps are hesitant and faltering; they have not yet stabilised themselves into new routines and patterns of thinking and are prone to doubt and uncertainty. As a manager, you can help:

• Help them to be realistic about what they can achieve and to plan in terms of small steps.
• Use open questions and affirmation to help them develop coping strategies when they experience frustration and setbacks.
• Help them look for opportunities to reinforce positive behaviours and anchor them in their daily routines. Discuss openly things that are good about the new ways of working and things that are not so good; avoid being judgemental.
• Give them support and guidance and the resources they need to experiment with new ideas and ways of working. They are now letting go of their old ways and a key element will be the space to try out new things and help when they hit speed bumps and roadblocks.

Maintaining stage. They have now achieved the change goals they set themselves and are working to sustain the new patterns of behaviour and ways of thinking and seeing the world. As a manager, your role now is to help:

• Maintain supportive contact.
• Monitor progress against personal objectives and help to set new short- and medium-term goals.
• Help them to find new meaning and motivation as they settle into new working patterns and practices.
• Help them to increase their circle of influence, so that they can create a new support network for themselves.

As you try to help your staff through the phases of change, you will find that you increasingly need to call upon and develop four key skills. Fortunately, these are not new skills; they are the same skills that you use to coach, provide feedback, delegate and facilitate group problem solving. They are:

• Open-ended questioning. This is how you get change talk going. Use question structures such as:

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How would you like things to be different?

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What would you be able to achieve if we could take ‘x’ out of the way?

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What are the good things about the current situation and what are the not so good things about it?

• Affirming statements. This is an important skill and is not just about saying nice things or flattering people. Your aim is to:

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Recognise strength when you see it. Sometimes it is easier for you to see that they have made a big step than it is for them to see that they have moved.

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Share with them the things that they have done that you really appreciate and would like them to do more of. Get them to give similar feedback to you.

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Once you have built a trusting relationship move on to talk about the things that they are doing that are less effective and that you would like them to do less of. Similarly, you can have a discussion about the effectiveness of your own behaviours.

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Build their confidence in their own ability to change.

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Be genuine and make sure that your actions, words and body language all match.

• Reflective listening. When you ask questions you need to become very good at listening. You also need to show that you are listening and understanding them by reflecting back what you hear:

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In the first instance, stick to simple reflection – repeat and rephrase what they have told you, sticking as closely to their words as possible.

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Later, and if you suspect that there may be a deeper meaning behind the words being used, you can start to work towards amplified reflection. This is where you paraphrase and then use gentle probing or analytical questions to find out what’s going on below the surface. In such cases, how you say things is as important as what you say. Avoid any form of words that might convey judgement or cast doubt on their right to hold and express the views that they have.

• Summarising. This is a special case of reflective listening and generally is used as a transition point in a conversation. You might use structures such as:

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Let me see if I understand what you are saying …

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I think what you are saying is … in which case that might lead us to consider how we might …

Practise these four key skills, but remember the context in which you use them will determine how you use them.

THINGS FOR YOU TO WORK ON NOW

Below are some questions that will help you build a picture of how tuned in you are to the emotional and psychological effects of change, whether it affects your team members, your customers or clients or your business partners. It is not enough to be technically capable and good at managing processes; business benefit is always delivered through people, and as a leader you need to be able to support people as they wrestle with the competing commitments that inhibit fundamental and lasting change.

Reflect on your answers to the above questions and pick one aspect to work on over the next few weeks. To make this real you need to think about your approach within the context of a real organisational change that you have worked through recently.

Below are some suggestions about things you can work on that will help you to better understand your own subconscious drivers and the possible effects of your behaviour on others. This sort of deep critical reflection is not easy and you may find it best to work on these ideas with someone with whom you have a strong, trust-based relationship.

If you are inspired to find out more about any of the themes covered in this chapter we suggest that you start by reviewing the resources listed below.

FURTHER FOOD FOR THE CURIOUS

• Robinson, T. (2017) ‘Helping People Change’. Training Journal, July, 16–17:

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This short article contains 10 tips for helping people change.

• Kegan, R. and Lahey, L. (2001) ‘The Real Reason People Won’t Change’. Harvard Business Review, November, 84–92:

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This article introduces the idea of competing commitments: subconscious hidden goals that compete with their stated commitments. It is an interesting paper that will make you examine why you believe the things you do, how you came to believe them and how those beliefs can constrain your options for action.

• Miller, W.R. and Rollnick, S. (2012) Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (3rd edn). Guilford Publications, New York:

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This is not for the faint-hearted, but for anyone who is serious about finding out more on the subject of motivational interviewing this is a great place to start.

• Kotter, J.P. and Rathgeber, H. (2006) Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding under Any Conditions. Macmillan, London:

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This is a retelling of Kotter’s earlier work, The Heart of Change (2002), using an ecological metaphor. It is simple to read and engaging, while losing none of the theoretical underpinning of his previous work. It is an ideal text to give to your team members to help them focus on the stages of change and the challenges.

⁹ Behaviour through the transition curve is based on an adaptation of the grief cycle, devised and published by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross (1969) in her seminal work, On Death and Dying, first published in the UK by Tavistock Publications Ltd in 1970.

¹⁰ The Stages of Change Model was originally developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente (1983) at the University of Rhode Island in their work on addiction. This model now underpins many approaches used in helping people to bring about fundamental behavioural changes.