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Punchy, actionable insights and tips to make the life of the team leader a breeze.
[00:00:00] Pia: William Bridges is a famed behavioral psychologist, and he once noted that organizations change, but people transition. Knowing this powerful difference is really key in guiding and supporting your team and those around you through a variety of emotions and behaviors that can arise in change. Expecting instant enthusiastic adoption of change may only lead to bitter disappointment. I'm Pia.
[00:00:28] Dan: And I'm Dan, and this is Squadify Connects. In 1969, a psychiatrist called Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote a very important book with a particularly un cheerful title on death and dying. It focused on the five stages that terminally ill patients explore and gave an a an illustration of the process involved in grief of letting go and eventually moving forward.
[00:00:52] As vuca, which we explored in the last session, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity became more prevalent and change more consistent in managing, changing demands. The need to understand how humans felt and often behave and losing their roles, their products or business lines became really valuable.
[00:01:10] Pia: So the five stages that her research highlighted were. First denial, not the longest, river in Africa, which is my standing joke, but actually the stage of shock when we feel so overwhelmed to deal with the information, we sometimes even pretend that it's not happening or shut ourselves down to feeling anything. Things you could hear people saying are, oh, it can't be true. It's just another thing. It won't affect us.
[00:01:42] Dan: Yes, but it will. Um, but the next stage as the shock wears off is anger. The anger and frustration can start to mount at this point. This can involve people feeling that the process or rationale or even individuals, somehow is unfair or wrong. You may perceive that people are not collaborating or are easily distracted. It's a tough stage when the feelings bubble to the surface.
[00:02:05] Pia: And then the third stage is bargaining. So as we struggle to take in what may be difficult news, we can find ourselves or others bargaining to find a way out of the situation. So they're sort of saying, well, if I do this, or perhaps if this happens, then the situation may change, and your brain tries to find strategies to help process the situation. Again, often this is futile because nothing changes the process of change.
[00:02:35] Dan: Hmm. So we keep moving on through and we enter the joyous stage of depression. This is often the low point when energy and motivation are very hard to find. You may find that individuals are actually hard to communicate with at this time, and it's really important though to check in. How are you? Is a great question to ask at this stage, to unlock feelings and help people to feel safe to express them.
[00:02:57] Pia: And really important that you listen carefully to the answers for that one. So the final stage, how do you get through all that? Quite tumultuous feelings to the final stage, which is acceptance, and that's really gained when you process the changes. And then we can start to feel our energy restore and the willingness to engage in exploring options.
[00:03:19] Sometimes we do oscillate, if you see it as a U bend, oscillate back and forth between emotions, but with each time we transition further through to accepting the new change. So supporting and encouraging at this stage is key to give the motivation and real positive feedback to help people embrace. The new situation.
[00:03:41] Dan: So this week using the Kubler Ross model in the show notes, you may want to either explore where you are personally or use it as a framework to guide your team and how they're feeling. Most importantly, this normalizes feelings and keeps the connection tighter at a time when people can feel isolated and and can often move apart.
[00:04:01] Pia: So as we've said, change can and is hard and it can be hard to navigate it, but understanding ourselves and others in transition helps us to be a better guide and support to ourselves and to others. So next week we'll dive further into the neuroscience and understand what goes on in our brain as the next level of understanding of how humans respond in change. See you then.