I ran into a blog item on change the other day, at a blog site called Rule of Thumb.
The posting entitled "The Change Curve", depicts a project management adaption of the change model proposed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book "On Death and Dying" when she described the "Five Stages of Grief"
Rule of Thumb proposes this adaptation for project management of the Five Stages into these six ideas:
•Satisfaction: Example – “I'm happy as I am.”
•Denial: Example – “This isn’t relevant to my work.”
•Resistance: Example – “I’m not having this.”
•Exploration: Example – “Could this work for me?”
•Hope: Example – “I can see how I make this work for me.”
•Commitment: Example – “This works for me and my colleagues.”
And, this figure accompanies the posting. It illustrates the familar "dip" that occurs after change before the positive affects of change go into effect. However, it's annotated with the model ideas [given above].
Of course there are many other models of both change and change resistance. One useful model of change (not change resistance) is by Kurt Lewin; I like it because it's similar to Deming's PDCA (plan, do, check, act). Lewin's model is three steps:
- Unfreeze previous ideas, attitudes, or legacy
- Act to make the change
- Freeze the new way in order to institutionalize the change.
But the one I like is that people fear the hidden agenda behind the reformers ideas! Amen to that one.
Even if you don't find a lot new here, sometimes rearranging the deck chairs provides new insight.
