The Change Cycle: How People Can Survive and Thrive in Organizational Change

I travel a lot. Often my seat neighbors will ask me what I do. “I’m a corporate trainer,” I say. “I help organizations trying to change. Because no matter what their business, how well they manage change will determine their success. They need to be ready.”

Change in the same sentence as success often gets their attention, and then they ask, “How do you train a company to change?”

My answer is always the same: “Well, once I teach a company’s people the stages of change and how to navigate them, workplace changes are much easier to take.”

Marketplace shifts, new industry standards, a current event with company impact—businesses are hit with myriad changes. I make the point that when speaking of change, the emphasis must go to the company’s people. Change only becomes a reality within a business or organization when its individual members commit and carry out the new initiative, accommodate the new structure, follow the new system, or turn out the new product.

This sometimes causes a moment of skepticism in my seatmates. “Yeah,” they say, “that’s all we ever hear— change this, change that.” They comment on how fast change happens, how it happens all the time—how 2important change is—but no one ever seems to know how to do it well, whether personally or professionally.

At this point in my airplane conversation, I usually admit that despite fifteen years as a “change agent,” I, too, struggle with life’s changes at times—at home and at work. Some changes are great—a new love, a promotion, a financial bonus—but many changes in life (maybe most) are simply hard, really hard: a company layoff, a divorce, the death of a loved one, a business failure. They hurt. They make us feel out of control.

Knowing that even a change professional can have trouble coping with change seems to somehow comfort my seatmates. The next question they typically ask is, “Can you help regular people deal with change?” By this time I know a conversation about some difficulty of theirs is coming. So I make it easy for them by explaining that managing change is more about understanding and accepting a set of common human reactions than it is about some kind of “attitude adjustment.”

Change is life, life is change. It just happens, like the weather. Changes result from chance, choice, or crisis, and are generally unpredictable. But the process of “how” we move through life’s changes is predictable, I explain. This usually brings a measure of both curiosity and relief.

In my work I have seen many employees struggling to adjust and regain their productivity following some new initiative or shift in leadership and direction. Both professionally and in my personal life, I have seen people grasping at straws trying to make sense of circumstances that leave them at a loss as to what to think or do next.

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I’ve seen people in “change pain”—sad, mad, angry, blaming, afraid—their sense of loss and confusion often driving their lives into uncharted emotional waters. These are places they wouldn’t have to go (or at least enter so deeply) if they understood more about the universal process of change: what to do, and what not to do, as they progress through the regular and sequential pattern of experiences that is The Change Cycle.

By this point in the conversation I’m drawing on a napkin, explaining how we as humans are wired to react and respond to change in six stages, how these stages are defined by characteristic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and how (best yet) they occur in an order that can be anticipated, so much of the mystery of What’s happening? or What will happen next? is eased.

Then I ask my seat neighbor if there is a change in their life that is causing some angst. Sensing I won’t judge them and seeming appreciative to have a chance to talk, they tell me things like, “My husband just got laid off,” or, “My mother recently passed away.” “My oldest just dropped out of college,” they might say, or, “My best friend has breast cancer.” Sometimes it’s just, “I have a new boss.” I listen as they tell their stories. The way they talk—the words they choose, the thoughts and emotions they describe—are clues I need to determine which stage they are in now. I show them where they are, explain what it means, and suggest what they might consider or explore or do next. Sooner or later, I assure them, they’ll feel back in control, though they may not ever actually like or appreciate the change.

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I love this moment. It’s the one when they get it—”it” being the reminder that whatever they are going through, it’s only temporary. After all, I tell them, just because you have a flat tire doesn’t mean you have forgotten how to drive.

And then we share a laugh.

Knowing what’s likely to happen next is the part that gives people the most comfort. Yes, when brought to their attention, they see the pattern—the natural sequence of change, just like there is a cycle of the seasons or phases of the moon.

Through the years, I’ve heard hundreds of change stories. At 37,000 feet I have listened to tales of life’s battles lost, and life’s wars won, of changes that brought some people to their knees and propelled others to new emotional heights. For all the good and bad that can be said about life, the fact is we will all face challenging transitions—personally and professionally—that will continue at varying intensities throughout our lives.

Learning to manage change is a skill we all need to acquire, improve, and master—in all aspects of our lives. I hope this book will assist you in improving your change resiliency and help you find your footing during times when the going gets tough.

The Focus of Our Book Change@Work

When we speak of work or professional changes, we mean both the “big ones” and the mundane ones, the ones that took weeks or even months to complete and the ones that kicked in overnight, the ones that seemed ridiculous but

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turned out pretty good, and the ones that appeared to be no-brainers but crashed and burned. This book provides a framework to assist you in gaining perspective on the change and its impact, insight that will guide you through the transition.

Our central goal is to help you take responsibility for how you react and respond to a changing work environment by giving you tools of self-awareness and assessment—instruments to light the curves and bumps on your change road. It’s all about getting through the change emotion and commotion with minimal damage to your blood pressure, career, relationships, productivity, and confidence—whatever your role in the company or organization.

It is our belief that there is no magic way to achieve a pain-free experience of a significant work change—or a significant life change, for that matter. But understanding the regular, cyclical nature of the process helps you navigate the change in a conscious, anticipatory way, minimizing the fear, loss, resentment, and anxiety which to one degree or another accompany so many changes in work and life.

For all we know about the science and predictability of change, there is still the mystery of intensity when it comes to individual reactions. A change that might rock one person’s world can be a speed bump to another. Each of us experiences change with our own scoreboard...