Coping With Change

Coping with change Welcome Domestics Personal introduction Quick delegate introductions Subject for tonight – Coping with change Time will be one hour Handouts and slides Questions/getting involved The issue is coping with change We will look at the subject from two perspectives: • Helping others • Helping ourselves That doesn’t mean the session is divided into two – a look at some key areas will make it obvious which ones are more applicable to each perspective and which to both The main areas I want to cover are: • The context of change and the changing role of management I’ve included this session to help people get a handle on their own responsibilities, which in turn will provide insights as to why many managers are uncomfortable with change at a personal level.

• The change management process Many change theorists deal more with project management than change management. Project management is about managing resources, and although those resources include people, you will recognise that many project managers are focussed on time scales and processes and rather less on people and feelings. Change management is firstly about people and feelings and is often at least as important as project management. I thought this short session would provide managers with a high level route map of the change process and help you to better understand what needs to happen rather than what we might want to happen. • Resistance to change This is a particularly important area. Even the word ‘resistance’ has connotations – recalcitrant, obstructive, negative or even subversive are all words that can be associated with it. But while resistance to change may be characterised by some of these behaviours, it is actually an entirely understandable phenomenon. Another assumption is that resistance to change is something associated with staff. The reality is that managers are not impervious to it either, so we need to look at why people resist and what to do about it, in order for you to be able to help others and to be able to help yourself.

• Change and feelings In this session I wanted to explain the emotional journey people undertake when they cope with change. As we know, some people embrace change and others fight it, even though it is the same change! So we can gain a greater appreciation of the journey people are on, why many people react differently and get some ideas about how to help people (including ourselves) make it as smoothly as possible. Along the way, I’m going to ask questions, not show slides, and get you to think about change, not tell you what to think. So get involved and feel free to have your say. • The context of change and the changing role of management I wonder, how long have each of you been in your jobs? What did the job entail ‘back in the day?’ Old – decide, control, maintain, manage You knew where you were? What about now, how many of those things are still wanted and what are the new responsibilities? New – empower, innovate, change, lead Does the term ‘shifting sands’ feel familiar?

So we can see that the world has moved on – like it or not – the role of the manager has evolved, but unlike most evolutions, this has happened quickly, and in many cases, managers have not developed, or been helped to develop, at the same pace. • The change management process It might seem strange to talk about a process, when we are talking about people and their feelings, but we can look at what happens when people learn to cope with change, and that gives us a route map or a way of understanding the key phases. Much of the pioneering work in this area was carried out by Kurt Lewin. Let’s say I gave you an ice cube – the standard little rectangle of ice. But then let’s say that you didn’t want a little rectangle – you wanted say, a star shape? How would I give you what you want? I could take a hammer and chisel to it? Or how about a hydraulic press? This is what Lewin found, and his terminology fits rather well with the ice cube scenario. He said there were three key phases: UNFREEZING CHANGING REFREEZING Unfreezing is about loosening grip on the past and/or the present. In the case of the ice cube, no transformation can occur if the ice is solid. OTOH if the ice cube can be thawed – ideally to completely liquid form, it will be far easier to change the shape. Think

about that in terms of people, how can you help them to unfreeze? This phase is about prising fingers from old computers, getting people to let go of familiar policies and procedures and also recognising that there might be some benefits in letting go/moving forward. Changing is the stage where people adapt, where they have to take on board new responsibilities, learn new skills and develop new relationships (among other things). Think about you feel when trying to come to terms with the new – it’s rarely easy, even if you want to. You may like your new TV and didn’t struggle to let go of the old one (because it was hopeless!) but mastering the new controls is still a challenge. How can you help people through that stage? During this stage, people can feel very vulnerable. They may feel that they aren’t capable. All of those feelings that we experience when learning can come to the fore – “I’ll never master this” or “I’ve never been any good at this sort of thing.” Allowing people to go backwards can be incredibly damaging. Refreezing is the stage where people have become accustomed to the changes. Just like ice, refreezing takes place gradually – it’s not water one minute and solid ice the next. Think about how long it has taken you to become fully accustomed to the changes you have encountered. What helped and hindered you? Some people argue that in a climate of constant change, refreezing may not be desirable or possible, but this really indicates a too literal interpretation of the ice analogy.

Refreezing (any freezing) takes place quite slowly and imperceptibly, so you can’t expect to wake up one morning and find everyone has taken the changes on board. It’s much more likely that this will be a gradual process, with some people moving at a different speed to others. Overall, the analogy provides us with a helpful, high level understanding of what people go through when they are dealing with change. It’s worth concluding this segment by considering the pace of change. This is often a very difficult area for all concerned – management wanting change completed quickly and staff believing that change is being rushed through. There is no easy answer, but we can use another analogy to demonstrate some of the issues around pace. Think about a garden tap and let the flow of water represent the pace of change and a full watering can completed change. If the water is added drop by drop, you won’t spill any and everything will be predictable – but how slow! OTOH, turn the tap on full and the flow will be unpredictable, with water spraying everywhere and considerable wastage. • Resistance to change This is a hot topic whenever change is under discussion, particularly among managers. It’s often a source of frustration for management and examples abound. The current Post Office disputes are a good example, where the Union side is often presented as bolshy, resistant to change and accused of defending indefensible practices. Would you agree?

This presents us with something of a puzzle. We are often told that people like change. There is evidence for that – people like changing hairstyles, cars, wardrobes and houses. So what’s going on when people resist change? What’s your explanation for this?

The imposition of change is definitely part of it, but we need to dig a little deeper. People don’t tend to resist change just because it is imposed on them. Would you resist an imposed pay increase, or an imposed holiday in Venice? The chances are that you would not, but if you did, it’s because of the real reason why people often resist change. This isn’t much to do with imposition, but because the change is perceived as a threat. When you consider this, it’s obvious that resistance to change is a very natural thing, probably a useful innate response. The key to understanding resistance is to identify what type of threat the change(s) represent. Fortunately, there are some very common areas to look at, which will tend to cover the majority of threat types. Examples would be threats under the following headings: •

Financial (you’ll earn less and be able to afford less!)

• • • •

Lifestyle (you’ll have less time to do things you enjoy) Status (my hard-earned reputation will be diminished) Knowledge and skills (they’ll count for nothing now) Relationships (I’ll lose friends and valued relationships)

When the threat is identified, you can see that there is more work to be done. For a start, the threat may be imagined, not real, but if it is real, then the benefits of the change will need to outweigh the perceived threat. All of this points to the need to be prepared. You need to be prepared in terms of thinking what threat your change may represent. You also need to be prepared in terms of knowing the benefits of your proposed change. There are some other things that managers can do to help themselves and others cope with resistance. One of the most useful is to recognise that one of the major causes of tension is that managers have had time to work out the benefits, but people on the receiving end are likely to be surprised. In the circumstances, it should not be surprising that the initial reaction to a trumpeted change is, at best, scepticism, and at worst, outright hostility and rejection. We can translate all this into some useful tips: Never begin with announcing a change. Begin by painting the picture of the background. By doing this,

you are more likely to get a basic acceptance that the change has some merit, and you can then go on to talk about the proposed change(s). Consider a checklist of potential objections. This should not be a list of vague issues, but rather statements people might make, whether to themselves or to others. Examples will include: • • • • • • • • • • •

It won’t work We tried it before and it didn’t work then It’s a good idea but the wrong time It hasn’t been thought through XYZ don’t do it this way It’s a waste of money It feels wrong somehow Whose idea was this anyway? Fine in theory It won’t be cost-effective Our customers won’t like it

Note that the list is a mixture of logical and emotional objections. This is normal and neither type is more important than the other. What is critical is that you have considered these reactions to your proposal and that you do have a prepared response. Any inability to answer the objections promptly is likely to be seen as evidence that the change has been poorly conceived and planned. Other things that will be helpful in overcoming resistance may include:

Give people facts. In the absence of facts the rumour mill will prosper and you will find yourself spending more time tackling rumours than managing change. Tell people that you expect some drop in performance or increase in errors. Doing this is only predicting the inevitable but if you don’t do it, errors will be seen as evidence of an ill-judged change. OTOH if you have done this, your credibility will be enhanced as what you have predicted comes true. In addition, a higher tolerance of errors will help people coming to terms with learning new skills and following new procedures. Keep deadlines short in order to maintain momentum. Long deadlines make it easy for people to put off actions and therefore implement change. In addition, even initially enthusiastic people will lose that enthusiasm if nothing happens.

• Change and feelings The final thing that can be helpful in coping with change is an understanding of the coping process. In some ways, this is like the ice-cube model, but whereas that theory is concerned with behaviours, the coping model is more concerned with feelings. Neither is better than the other – it is more useful to say that they complement each other.

The coping model (sometimes referred to as the coping cycle) is attributed to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book, ‘On dying.’ Kubler-Ross was interested in helping people through bereavement – clearly the greatest change that we all face. However, various industrial psychologists and change management specialists rightly recognised that it had implications for many other changes, particularly those in the workplace. Whilst recognising that bereavement is the greatest loss most people will have to deal with, it is also possible to see that there are other losses which will be very hard to deal with, and they all represent change. Examples include divorce, redundancy, bankruptcy and moving house. Then there are losses such as that of your familiar systems or your old PC and the software it ran. Even though the loss of your old IBM PC cannot be compared to the death of a loved one, the coping theory can be applied to both. The five usual stages are as follows: DENIAL RESISTANCE THE PIT EXPERIMENTATION ACCEPTANCE