Change Management for Non Management Employees
As you may well be aware, the underlying reason for the 70% failure rate of all major change initiatives, is the failure to take full account of the impact of change on those people who are most impacted by it.
There are two levels of impact. The first is fairly obvious as it concerns the new ways of working, the cultural shifts, and the new processes, procedures and structures.
However there is a second and less obvious yet more profound level of impact is the emotional and psychological adjustments that people go through as they adjust to these new ways.
It is this emotional impact that is usually neglected. Given that people are attached to “how things are”, there is a sense of loss and emotional upheaval if that certainty, and the security it provides, is threatened.
This is important, because people cannot work effectively if they are experiencing emotional turbulence. Their ability to get work done depends on their emotions being under control. A leader has to address those often unconscious and unexpressed fears along the way, in order to help people keep them under control.
Transition management is all about seeing the situation through the eyes of the other guy – it is a perspective based on empathy, and it makes excellent business sense.
Yet this is seldom applied!
However, by becoming aware of this dimension, you can equip yourself to anticipate and handle your own emotional responses to the change that is going to be imposed on you. You may also be able to help colleagues and just possibly your line manager.
Critical Action Point
The most effective thing you can do, if you haven’t already done so, is to familiarise yourself with the fundamentals of William Bridges’ Transition Model which is built around 3 simple questions:
(1) What is changing?
(2) What will actually be different because of the change?
(3) Who is going to lose what?
Bridges has identified 3 stages that we all pass through as we make the necessary emotional and psychological adjustment to the imposed organisational change, so you will help yourself considerably if you can figure out how you are going to manage yourself through these 3 transition stages
(1) Ending, losing, letting go – dealing with your losses and preparing to move on
(2) Passing though the unsettling and destabilising “neutral zone” where you make the psychological realignments and readjustments.
(3) Entering the new beginning – typically this involves developing a new identity and a new sense of purpose.
Stalling Points
The biggest and most common stalling point is failing to grasp that we all need support during the emotional adjustments that accompany change.
Change is always an emotional business. You will be doing yourself a very great dis-service if you fail to understand and prepare for this.
