Leading Change: Why Things Get Worse Before they Get Better
Things typically get worse before they get better. That’s not pessimism. It’s reality.
What happens when you ‘improve’ a practice or procedure at work? Productivity goes down. Frustration goes up. It takes time to learn and adapt.
Why things get worse before they get better:
Change curve:
The flat blue line represent business as it should be. The red star indicates a gap between current state and desired state. Pain and urgency are a function of the gap.
Successful change may yield greater than expected benefits.
Change means something that worked in the past goes away.
5 ways resistance responds to change:
- The longing effect. You complain and pine for the ‘good ole’ days.
- The stress effect. Before the change you knew your place. How will you fit in now?
- The clinging strategy. I’m not going to adapt. Maybe resistance will prevent change.
- The ignorance effect. You feel uncomfortable not knowing. Learning new skills requires relearning.
- The genius effect. You know better. People behind the change are idiots. Dealing with idiots is frustrating.
Discouragement and depression are bedfellows of prolonged frustration.
Navigating change:
Lessons from death:
The five stages of grief defined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross apply to our response to unwanted change.
- Denial.
- Anger.
- Bargaining.
- Depression.
- Acceptance.
There is no guarantee you’ll get to stage five. You might gather your toys and run home instead of accepting an unwanted change. Or you might stay on the team, but persistently pull sideways.
5 stages in the emotional cycle of change*:
- Uninformed optimism. It’s going to be great.
- Informed pessimism. Wow! It’s not so great.
- Hopeful realism. This is harder than it looks.
- Informed optimism. We can do this.
- Completion. Yeah! We did it.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Dan Millman
What makes leading change difficult?
What suggestions might you offer for successfully leading through change?
Bonus material:
*Kelley and Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change – from MindTools.com
Template: Change Proposal (dpac.tas.gov.au)
On Death And Dying: Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth
Ten Reasons People Resist Change (hbr.org)
For me, much of this is communication of the vision, and establishing expectations at the steps. Holding on to the known is powerful… if its known v unknown then known wins. But if its known v better — and here are the markers of progress, then you have a chance at adoption.
This is a Centerpoint of practical leadership skills.
Thanks Ken. known v better seems important. “better” is about vision. I’ll add the term “shared” to vision. I imagine you agree.
The other side of the coin is embracing the challenges and difficulties ahead. Overly optimistic leaders just seem out of touch. It’s useful to have a firm grasp on reality and agree with people who bring up legitimate concerns. Just don’t circle the black hole.
Another part too the better piece is involving those that you are leading through the change to actively participate in the definition of the change and the leadership through it. Lead people through the thought process so they funds to the same conclusion. Show them how they will need involved in the implementation of it… And show how as a team we are going to measure and prove the value of better. And be willing to adjust if better doesn’t turn out to be better.
Performance goes down before it goes up for a couple of reasons.
1. Initially you are trying t0 do your regular job while learning new skills. Your focus is divided and performance suffers.
2. Learning any new behavior takes times. It takes time to work out the bugs before performance increase.
What suggestions might you offer for successfully leading through change?
I have been involved in several major and minor organizational changes. I find it’s critical to answer these basic questions before your begin.
1. Who needs to change and why?
2. What specific changes are required?
3. Is the person or people able and motivated to change?
4. Who will help and support the person make the needed changes?
5. How will you handle the resistors?
6. What’s the plan to make it happen? What resources are needed?
What makes leading change difficult? people don’t like change, typically change is met with resistance. just the nature of people we are set in our ways and want things to stay the same to some extent.
What suggestions might you offer for successfully leading through change? First be prepared with the facts to justify the changes being proposed. This is “why” we need to do this? This is “how” we are going to do this as a team? We need to get away from saying “I said so”! However if that shoes fits use it!
This was an enjoyable post. This hits home in both professional and personal levels. Change is not easy, however, it can be achieved for this willing to change.
We are in the 2nd year of a cultural change at our organization and are starting to see the results of the hard work, frustration, pushback and performance decline. Sticking to our goal of change and improvement was not easy but it seems to be well worth the effort. Throughout the pandemic our agency is the only one in the state network that has met our production goal each month.
It lies in this; creating a blame free environment. Not blaming the person but the process and allowing processes to change and people to adapt to them.
“Things typically get worse before they get better. That’s not pessimism. It’s reality.” Isn’t this life and since work is part of life why should we not expect anything else. Maybe it’s because I’m 63 and have been in the professional work world 40 years now that I can see patterns of downturns followed by upturns over and over and over. That is why I guess I am more patient than the “young-ins” on recovery and progress forward.
That’s a great post and is so true. I love how you use Kubler-Ross! Change is like a kind of bereavement for some people – they lose their security and have to confront the pain of growth. The leadership task is to help them through that so they can process it emotionally, I guess, and to offer the hand of guidance and trust, so they follow you. Thanks.
Part of the problem is that it’s sold as “change” not improvement. All improvement is change, but sadly, not all change is improvement. It’s very easy for people up in the C-suite to say “some of you may lose out in doing this, but we’re OK with that”, but it’s a heck of a lot harder to sell that on the shop floor. I think sometimes, the people who come up with the ideas would find few takers if they had to actually sell this to an investor – the cost/benefit, the risk and the ROI would have very few takers.