So you just learned that the environment you were so accustomed to and worked so hard to build around you is no longer going to be that way, whether due to budget cuts, economic changes, or just the fact that they want your office for the new manager.  What do you do?  Get mad? Throw a fit? Threaten to leave? Or just freeze up?

Change is something that no one appreciates but is inevitable in our world today.  It is important if you are a manager to understand the stages that people go through when change is necessary, and equally important if you are the victim of the change:

Stage one:  Denial

We freeze and pretend that things really will be the same, and dismiss the change as either irrelevant or imaginary. We pretend that it really doesn’t have any impact on us and we become what I like to call a “Change Zombie,” walking around in denial of the change around us.

Stage two: Realization

We suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and scream “Oh Crap! This is really happening.” This is the point at which we get really stressed and unhinged leading to the next stage…

Stage three: Anger and Resistance

This is where we fight the change, get angry at the boss, sabotage the work environment, start gossiping and become a real problem for the organization.

Stage four: Letting go

This stage is the most important in our transition toward change. This is where we give up our anger and fear, and start accepting the reality that things are not going to be the same.

Stage five: Searching

This is the most productive stage of the change cycle. We start looking for our place in the change and what opportunities lie ahead and where we fit in the new model of the work environment ahead of us.

Stage six: Understanding the Meaning of the Change

At this stage we start “getting it” and start seeing what the benefits of the change will bring and what we need to do to be a positive contributor to the process of change.

Stage seven: Internalization

At this stage, we are part of the change. We no longer see the shift as a change but the “new normal”

 

Change is hard, not only for the employee but even more so for the employer. A lot of thought and planning needs to go into preparing to make a significant change, as your employees are people, not just workers on a line, that will experience all seven stages of the process. This process is similar to the stages of grief that people go through when they lose a loved one. Change is a form of loss, and we must take care in helping others through it, and if you are one of the lucky employees of an organization to be experiencing this, recognize what stage you are in in the process and work toward being a contributor to building a positive outcome from the change as opposed to getting trampled under it.