Chapter Five
Making Sense of What Was and What Is

128

Stage 5: Understanding the Benefits

In work as in life, understanding sits between discovery and wisdom. You journey into newness, you map what you have seen, you move on to where you don’t even need the map.

If Discovery brought an upsurge of energy, perhaps in a burst or two, and you worked to channel your renewed vigor, in Stage 5, Understanding, something else happens. A calmness comes. An equanimity. The change that threw your life and the life of your company or organization into a spiky, aggravating place, a place uncertain and exhausting, has now become simply a part of things, the “new normal.” The rollercoaster has come to rest. Your world has leveled out.

Not that you step off the ride a zen master. Some things may still—and always—bug you. Nor would we bet you’ve become president of the [insert name of your change here] fan club, dispenser of buttons and souvenir mugs. No, maybe your take is closer to this person’s: I wouldn’t have chosen this change and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but I will say I learned a lot along the way—about myself, about others, about change.

How We Feel in Stage 5: Confident

Stage 5 is about self-assurance. In Discovery, you might have been charged up, even inspired, but you were still grabbing hold of things, weighing decisions, checking fuel levels. Here your touch feels sure, plus confidence—and all the good things that go with it—returns.

In Stage 5, morale is high, company-wide. People seem themselves again. Is it possible to feel good at work even though, in your heart of hearts, you still wish the change hadn’t happened? Yes. It’s a bit like having an annoying in-law you see once or twice a year. This person might never get any less annoying, but he or she doesn’t succeed in ruining the rest of your year. (Unless you have a true “monster-in-law,” a holiday Godzilla, with deep impact. In which case, our sympathies.)

It’s a sign of the emotional distance you’ve come that one of the few Stage 5 traps is actually a case of too much self-esteem. Some people yo-yo so high from feeling low that they become impatient of those who might be a little further back in The Change Cycle. Their self-assurance 130hardens into an arrogance that hinders teamwork and rigidifies their thinking.

Most people, however, don’t go on a Stage 5 ego trip. In fact, we often feel a little humbled, recognizing the assistance we got along the way (or maybe the push, even a kick in the rear). We realize our early-stage thinking wasn’t always accurate, and we’re happy for the broadening and deepening of our assessments. We feel confident—but not omnipotent.

How We Think in Stage 5: Pragmatically

Stage 5 thinking is “higher-order” thinking, to use a term from cognitive science. It’s sophisticated. It’s multidimensional. It excels at conceptualizing, solution-finding. The “executive brain,” not the limbic region with its primitive pulses (fear! anger! envy!), is in charge.

Now is the time to take on the more mentally challenging aspects of your post-transition job. You’re seeing things from multiple angles. Instead of coming at a problem with a single format of understanding, you’re able to think flexibly, using a multiplicity of categories.

Lest you worry about getting over-analytic, consider this quotation. It comes from the philosopher Confucius, and it is a good way of summarizing the green-stages breakthrough:

Simplicity is the last thing learned.

The statement is less a judgment on the value of complexity vs. simplicity, and more an observation about the 131process of understanding. When hit with something new, when taking on a cognitive challenge, the mind tends to overcomplicate things, fueled partly by anxiety about the newness. You inevitably overthink—it’s part of the process. You can’t just vault to simplicity. But do the work—and it’s often hard work—and your reward is clarity, a reduction of variables. Sweet simplicity.

You find the most direct, the most efficient, the most common-sense way to get it done.

How We Act in Stage 5: Productively

If energy and teamwork raised productivity in the Discovery stage, here it rises even higher as flexible thinking, job competence, consistency, and goal-setting dominate. Stage 5 is where all the initial losses in output and quality are recouped by the organization, and then some. The investment of time and money, of heart and soul, begins to pay off—for employees and management, for shareholders, vendors, customers, and communities.

People hit their strides. And the pace is steady—no more spiking up and down of energy levels, attitudes, project commitments, hours worked.

Motivation deepens. Not only that, some employees begin acting as ground-level motivators and mentors to their fellow workers. This not only helps those lagging to move forward, but also enriches mentor learning. Recent studies by education researchers have shown that learners who help their peers along gain a deep-grained knowledge of the new subject.

Managers may want to consider ways of enhancing worker-to-worker learning.

To Know More, Notice More

People moving through Stage 5:

• Display clear competence in post-change tasks
• See how ideas can be implemented
• Focus on the change’s benefits
• Consistently produce
• Flexibly respond to continued challenges and upgrades
• Show appreciation for those who helped them adapt and adjust
• Help and mentor others

Someone stalling in Stage 5:

• Shows impatience with those still lagging behind
• Feels determined to identify every last perceived error during change
• Spends time closely reexamining the origin of the change
• Responds rigidly to ongoing readjustments
• Ignores the suggestions and feedback of others

Language from people in Stage 5:

• “I couldn’t see it before, but now I understand how this can work.”
• 133“A lot of people helped me through this and I really appreciate them.”
• “I’m tired of other people being so slow to catch on.”
• “This is working better than I thought it would.”
• “I don’t need any more feedback because I know exactly what I’m doing.”
• “This change really did have benefits. I’m glad we did it.”
• “We made about a million mistakes along the way.”
• “I feel like I know enough now that I can really look ahead.”
• “The thing is, we would have gotten to this same place anyway.”
• “It feels great to get to this point. I say we celebrate.”

Can you pick out the thrum of momentum—vs. the grinding of gears—in these statements?

Managers and leaders supervising employees in Stage 5 will want to:

• Maintain focus on results
  It is important to continue affirming and empowering employees, but not at the expense of steady results. In Stage 5, you can and should expect to see results.
• Refrain from being overly hands-on
  People have a clear grasp of the process by now— allow them the freedom to do their jobs and chances are they will respond. Productivity should hit new peaks here.
• 134Mark, even celebrate progress
  If something were going wrong, you would point it out. Do the same for what’s been going right. Doing so helps people believe in—and seek out— success.
• Prize employee confidence, not cockiness
  You want employees confident and inspired, not brash and full of themselves.

Learning takes place in—and is vital to—all Change Cycle stages, but most markedly here in the Understanding stage. Consider this story pointing out learning’s role in Stage 5.

Case in Point: Cadden Academy

Stage Priority: Understanding the Change in a Deeper Way

Primed for learning in Stage 5, you break through to a deeper understanding of the change and its benefits. Part of this understanding comes naturally—there is a rhythm to what you assimilate as you move through the six stages, and here is a point where you see through to another level. But in Stage 5, you also actively seek to map the change from all sides with understanding—through things like after-action reports, group discussions, your own private reflection, and more.

After that? You integrate this understanding with the rest of your life—with your memories of prior work and life changes, with your present, with your goals and vision for the future. What you’ve learned becomes an integral part of you. That’s when you’re in Stage 6.

Acknowledgment’s Value

If self-esteem is good in an organizational setting, cockiness not so good, it follows that doing some acknowledging at this stage should have benefits. That you’re ready to do this is another sign of your progress. Acknowledgment builds 137in more self-awareness. It builds in engagement. Acknowledge the distance you’ve traveled. Acknowledge that your hard work is paying off. Acknowledge those who helped you, and the fact that your early vision of the change was not as clear as it is now. Acknowledge things to do better, things you’ll never do again.

Acknowledge things you’ve done right.

In almost every area of high human achievement, whether in sports, the arts, even chess, new studies are showing that practice, reinforcement, dedication, and support are even more vital than we thought. Obviously inborn talent plays a role, but the idea that people are simply “born to be great” grows less convincing the more it is studied. The chess whiz, the teenage violinist, the power forward, and the like, not only log much more time learning their craft than others, they’ve also discovered ways to “learn deeper.” They’ve discovered better reinforcement methods. What does this have to do with acknowledgment? Acknowledging is a form of self-reinforcement. It deepens learning. So go ahead, do some acknowledging. And, if you like, a little celebrating, too. You’ve earned it.

Learning Curves

Stay on the Learning Road

In the Discomfort stage, you pursued ways of energizing yourself, even if it was something as simple as taking a new route to work. Here, take time to reflect on your own experience with learning. And consider learning something new outside work, or deepening what you know of something, to complement your work learning. Why? To stay mentally limber. To reinforce your learning habit, which will help you in rounding off your work change and prepare you for coming changes. Our brains were made for learning, no matter how many decades we have under our belts. The research is clear—a learning brain is a healthy one.

Consider your own education: what helped you learn best? Who were your best teachers, and why? If you have school-age children, no doubt education is never far from your mind. As you watch your children learn, and as you teach them, reflect on your own recent change: training-wise, what was successful? Have you needed to do any other kinds of new learning recently? Maybe it’s simply a new computer program. What worked?

Is there some craft, some sport, some home-improvement step you’d like to learn? Is there a book or magazine with interesting knowledge you’d like to acquire? What about listening to an audio book exploring some corner of history or politics or science while you commute? Maybe you used to do crossword puzzles years ago—why not restart? Or how about dipping into a little of the foreign language you took in high school or college. Learn a word a day. Or just a word a week. They still add up. Pauciloquy—know what it means? We didn’t until reading Annie Dillard’s new novel. It means “brevity in speech.” You wish we’d learned this sooner, huh?

The point is, keep feeding your mind. The change has just given your mental muscles a workout—they’re stronger. Exercise them as often you can. Maintain their strength.

Reel Learning

To deepen thinking about learning, you need not run to the education-research bookshelf. There are a number of memorable movies focusing on what makes a good 141teacher or mentor, what gets students (of all ages) motivated, what makes a special student. Watch any one of these one night or on a weekend, and you’ll find yourself doing… pedagogical reflection. (Pedagogical: “of, relating to, or befitting a teacher or education.”) Here are some movies that fit the bill:

• A Beautiful Mind (Russell Crowe, 2001)
• Akeelah and the Bee (Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, 2006)
• The Browning Version (Albert Finney, 1994)
• Educating Rita (Michael Caine, 1983)
• The Dead Poets Society (Robin Williams, 1989)
• Freedom Writers (Hillary Swank, 2007)
• Mr. Holland’s Opus (Richard Dreyfus, 1995)

We might also mention three documentaries: Spellbound, Wordplay, and Hoop Dreams. The first is about the national spelling-bee competition, the second is about crossword fanatics, and the third, our wild-card choice, is about two youngsters from inner-city Chicago, gifted basketball players who are learning about the game and sports in America. And learning about life. One of their mothers is also attending school at night, and in one unforgettable scene she literally jumps for joy at a good grade.

Just looking at her face you can see the reinforcement setting in.

Change Lessons

With an eye to getting this particular change experience to pay guidance dividends down the road, you want to maximize your learning—you want to absorb as many lessons as you can. It helps to make this a conscious goal, which is what some of the preceding has been about. Of course your organization is also going to want to maximize learning. Management should formalize an employee-feedback process to ascertain what channels and formats communicated best, what made learning the new stuff easiest.

Highlight what was successful. What needs tinkering?

Whether sharing orally in meetings, through survey sheets, conferencing, or via e-mail, now is the time to have a company’s people reflect on the recent learning and training. Lessons compiled will be a valuable feature in any kind of change after-action report.

Choose your query language and modes carefully, however. Anyone who has ever focus-grouped something has seen this happen. A room of people, asked to “critique” things, to list what they “didn’t like” or what they thought “didn’t work,” will dutifully, even zealously, set to work sifting for perceived flaws in every direction, on occasion going right back into early-stage negative thinking that for some will last. Gathering info is good— a gripe-hour, not so good.

Sometimes simply asking for in-depth feedback on “what worked,” or where process “positives” became clear, is sufficient—the process of elimination tells you what can be improved.

The Rearview Mirror Trap

An after-action report, whether formally representing the collective findings of a team, unit, division, or company, or whether simply the guided reflections of an individual employee (even just a “memo to self”), is one thing; fixating on the past is another. Just as avoiding ego-inflation is important in Stage 5, so is being careful that looking back doesn’t grow into excessive rumination. Now that the change has become the new reality, now that you have a moment to breathe, some people find themselves looking back more than is helpful. Are you almost too good at identifying your mistakes? Okay, you’re equal to the change but has your mind been drifting back to the start of the process and starting a whole new round of inner criticism about why the thing had to happen in the first place? Nothing wrong with looking into the rearview mirror as you move. Unless, that is, you look too long, or the mirror’s angle needs adjusting.

The trick is to balance identification of missteps with recognition of strengths to build on. This goes for company-level retrospection as well. A backward look is smart and essential up to the point where it becomes deficit-vision—the road ahead full of traffic and twists.

Case in Point: Big Table Eats Catering

In Stage 5, you’re able to rather clearly identify some short-term “features” of the change and some longer-term “benefits.” Features add to your present motivation, and your insight into longer-haul benefits informs your decision-making and your vision of the future.

All that remains is to turn your understanding into wisdom.

Things to welcome and avoid have to do with making the most of your deep learning.

Things to Avoid in Stage 5

• Believing you’ve learned enough
  Chances are, even with this particular change, there’s more to know, more to get better at. Enjoy this feeling of competence, but ask yourself whether you know “all.”
• Captiousness
  The fact that there’s even a word for “a tendency to point out trivial faults” tells you that the thing 147exists. Identify what needs correcting—then move on.
• Keeping your understanding to yourself
  Not everyone might be as up to speed as you. Since “we’re all in this together,” look for opportunities to bring others along with your grasp of the workplace change.

What to Welcome

• Initiative
  The creative autonomy you experience in Stage 4 should keep paying off here as well.
• Desires to “take stock” of the change and understand new aspects of the job
  Both things are good—one involving looking back and gleaning lessons, the other involving looking forward to take full advantage of this learning mode.
• A willingness to teach and lead
  Knowledge communicated by and among employees grows deep cognitive roots.

Keys to Moving On

• Harmonize your change-learning and selflearning
• 148Identify the change’s long-term benefits
• Ask, “What else can I learn to be even more productive?”

“Flow”

Learning—it happens here. The lasting kind. Of course ever since the change was announced, you’ve been absorbing new information. But here the picture of both the change and the way you best deal with change is fully internalized; job competence and self-knowledge lock into place and if mastery is too strong a word, then perhaps “flow” is appropriate, that term in performance psychology for when you no longer have to think but simply do. Athletes call it being “in the zone.” What you need to do your job is in your bones.

In the green stages, you have flow.

When you turn the page, you reach Stage 6. There’s something almost mysterious that happens in Stage 5, something almost alchemical, where all that you’ve learned about the change and about yourself begins blending together. When this blending is complete, you’re ready for Integration, the last stage of The Change Cycle. To help this blending, it helps to focus on what you have identified as positive features of the change and to focus on what the change has helped you understand about yourself. Maybe it’s the way this change has led to some changes inside you—in your vision of things, your perspective on work and life. Understanding is peaking now, and some of the things 149you understand will be of assistance for a very long time.

Are you ready? Go ahead. The light is green.

Note to Self:

I understand. I’m ready. I’m moving!