change and the individual Flashcards
How do people generally react when a change is implemented?
Well, they feel threatened by the change, it disrupts their current working life.
Not all changes have negative effects on people’s job security but there is always, some negative reaction, at least initially.
‘Oh no not again’ that sort of thing.
Steph:
Yes, if they feel the change has negative consequences then the reaction is much stronger and lasts longer.
Paul:
In fact the reactions to change are very similar to the reactions to loss and grief.
Kubler-Ross who developed this change curve, identified a number of steps in the reactions to change.
It is important that we understand where individuals are on the curve and support them appropriately.
what is the first reaction?
The first reaction is always Shock.
The effect of something new happening, if the change has been anticipated for a while then the shock is still there but reduced.
If it is a complete surprise then the shock can be significant.
what is the second reaction?
The second reaction is Denial.
This can take two forms, firstly ‘I didn’t hear that correctly’, essentially they misheard what the change is or secondly ‘but they don’t mean us’.
In both circumstances the person impacted is convinced that there is no need to change and that the announcement will be withdrawn.
what is the third reaction?
The reaction now moves on to Anger or Blame.
This can be anger at the people introducing the change or blame on those who may have caused the need for the change.
This could be colleagues who may be perceived as doing things wrong or those who have forced the change for example legislation or regulation changes.
Having raged at the external world the fourth step is to
internalise the anger and move into Self Blame or Bargaining.
The Self Blame finds reasons why the change was caused by their own actions, the bargaining is about ‘if only…’.
Looking for things that could have been done differently to prevent the need for change.
what is the fifth step?
The fifth step is Depression and Confusion, having blamed themselves, this is the lowest point in terms of esteem, morale and productivity.
The individual is not sure what to do next and cannot see a way of coping with the change.
what is the sixth step?
The sixth step is Acceptance.
This is when the individual concerned accepts that the change is necessary, is going to happen and has to be dealt with.
This allows the individual to look forward.
This is often the point at which the individual finds a way of making the change work for them.
the final step is ?
The final step in the curve is Problem Solving.
Having accepted the change the individual is finding ways to deal with the change and often takes advantage of the change.
So if you were to announce a change what support will your people need from you when following this curve?
Karen:
I think you have to ensure the message about the change is given clearly and consistently.
What’s going to change, why and when?
And you need to make sure that no-one suggests it may not happen, or that it could be postponed, as people will cling to that hope rather than move onto acceptance.
Steph:
Perhaps you can reduce or at least manage the shock by not introducing the change as an add-on to something else.
The worst example I’ve heard of is people being told at the end of year celebration event that their offices were going to be closed.
The shock and anger from that announcement lasted all the way through that project.
Pete:
I think there needs to be lots of support available, someone to raise issues or questions with.
You’re trying to get the people past the destructive feelings to acceptance and problem solving.
A good way of looking at the needs of individuals going through change is to use
he Stages of Transition identified by William Bridges.
Essentially Change is the
structured event, what you do and Transition is the human process of dealing with this.
Bridges identified three stages in Transition:
Endings, the Neutral Zone and New Beginnings.
Endings; allows us to understand the need for change, say goodbye to the old and prepare for the change itself.
The Neutral Zone is the time of uncertainty, the period of change itself, the disconcerting bit where the old has gone, but the new is not yet in place.
New Beginnings give people purpose, a plan and a sense of where they are going.
Pete, can you tell us what tips there are for handling Endings?
Pete:
Well, people need to know what will change and what won’t so the scope of the change is clear.
They need to know why the change is needed, so that they can see the change cannot be avoided and they need an opportunity to celebrate the past and its successes, so that the achievements are not forgotten or ignored.
I guess the critical thing at this point is communicating, sharing information and welcoming feedback.
Karen, what about the Neutral Zone?
What would your tips for this stage be?
I think communication is going to be equally important here, sharing problems and solutions, giving people the picture of the new beginning so they can understand and commit to the goal.
It should be about trying different solutions and seeking opportunities for development.
Importantly it should not be a comfortable place; we need to move out of this stage into the next.
If people are comfortable they won’t move on.
Perhaps we should be considering temporary solutions and making clear that’s what they are.
Steph, your tips on New Beginnings?
This should be about moving forward, plans, purpose and so on.
Making sure people know where they’re going and how they get there.
It should be about embedding the new way of working and behaving in the organization, so recognition of the required behaviours and consistency in displaying those is required.
It should also be about celebration, but of milestones achieved in the change not of the past glories.
In order for a change to be effective, people have to be motivated to change.
Steph, what do we mean by ‘motivation’?
To motivate is to provide the desire to do something new or repeat a previous behaviour.
So motivation is the way in which we try to modify peoples’ behaviour or get them to repeat behaviours.
Why is motivation so important to us when considering change?
Well, if the subjects of change are not motivated to do so then the change effort will be wasted as there will no desire from those affected to change.
We need to create the conditions so that the stakeholders are willing to change.
So without the use of motivational techniques, change will fail.
Victor Vroom suggested that Motivation was the total of
Expectancy multiplied by Instrumentality multiplied by Valence.
Expectancy:
Do the subject group believe that increased effort will lead to the required result?
So, do they think that working harder has an effect on the output they achieve?
The third element is Valence.
Do they value what you are offering?
What do they value?
Vroom specifically talked about Intrinsic and Extrinsic rewards.
what are these?
Intrinsic rewards are those things that are derived from the work itself, such as promotion, new challenges or more responsibility.
Extrinsic rewards are those which are separate from the work such as bonuses or prizes.
On a similar vein, Frederick Herzberg identified two sets of factors to consider when motivating people.
Hygiene Factors and Motivators.
The Hygiene Factors do not motivate people, but issues with them can demotivate, Herzberg noted these were linked to the job context.
Herzberg then identified the Motivators which were linked to job content, but would only be effective if the Hygiene Factors had been resolved.
Pete, what aspects might be considered job context or Hygiene factors?
Supervision, Working Conditions, job security, salary, relationship stuff.
None of that is about what and how you do it, but if it’s wrong it is difficult to focus on the day job.
Steph, what aspects did Herzberg consider as Motivators?
These would be parts of the job that could be improved, learning new skills, being selected for new roles, increased responsibility, and sometimes just more interesting work.
Autonomy,
Autonomy can be described as, the ability to be self-directed and the freedom to decide on direction, methods and circumstances of our work
Mastery
- Mastery as, the opportunity to grow, develop and excel at their work, to be better at the things they value,
Purpose,
the sense that what they are doing adds value to their environment, their organization and perhaps to the world in general.
Hygiene factors are those elements, which are
part of the context to the work rather than being part of the work.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs very much considers the motivational needs of an individual.
Maslow suggested in his hierarchy that there is a sequence of factors that motivate us, but that we are only currently motivated by the unsatisfied level in the hierarchy.
For the hierarchy to be applied we have to have a sense of where an individual is and therefore what would be an appropriate lever.
The bottom layer in the hierarchy is the physiological needs, food, water and shelter.
Without these we die and so we are motivated to obtain these vital resources.
Above this is security, a place of safety whether this is home or job.
These two levels are often referred to as the basic needs and it is often assumed that for most people in employment these needs have been satisfied.
Steph:
What about people under threat of redundancy?
Surely they would be motivated by the security level?
Karen:
I agree, all their efforts would be about removing that threat or gaining a new job elsewhere.
Paul:
That’s very true which is why in changing organizations different people could be at quite different levels in the hierarchy and their motivational needs would be different.
the third level in maslows hierarchy of needs is the ….
love needs.
The need for an individual to feel part of and included in a group, this can also be about improved personal relationships with others.
People will work harder or perform better to be included in the group.
If you consider this in a negative way, look at cliques within organizations or schools, people will often copy the behaviour pattern of the clique so that they fit in and are seen as part of the gang.
Protective colouring you might say.
The next level is called the esteem needs.
This links to praise, recognition, status and feelings of self-worth.
This is a common area for motivation, if someone has performed well we single them out for praise or they win some competition.
This allows others to see them as a success.
Pete:
You see a lot of this in most organizations; it’s a quick pat on the back for a good job.
The problem here is the consistent performer, someone who always does well, they are often overlooked, instead the praise goes to people who are more variable in their results, if a good result follows a couple of bad ones, they tend to get a lot more praise for turning things around.
The consistent performer may be above the esteem level, they don’t necessarily need the recognition any more, they know they can do it well, they need something different.
The consistent performer may be above the esteem level, they don’t necessarily need the recognition any more, they know they can do it well, they need something different.
This is what Maslow termed as
self-actualisation.
The need to be the best that you can, the desire for improvement, advancement, the opportunity to do something creative with their talents.
As individuals we are motivated by the unsatisfied level, if we have all our physiological needs met we are motivated by the need for safety, once this is met we look for the love needs to be fulfilled and so on.
As we fulfil each level we move up, meeting higher level needs.
External events can interrupt this sending us back to a lower level.
The leader needs to understand where people are at this moment and apply the motivational levers appropriately.
Another significant motivating factor to take into account is that of anxiety, the fear of not being able to do or achieve something.
Specifically ….
Learning Anxiety and Survival Anxiety.
Learning Anxiety is
the fear of not being able to learn something new, the sense of incompetence whilst acquiring new skills or knowledge.
This is entirely natural, however a high learning anxiety will impede change as individuals are scared to learn or to try new things.
If this learning anxiety is very high then you will find individuals who are incapable of learning new things as the anxiety stops them trying.
This is not uncommon in situations of limited change where individuals have had the same role and responsibilities for many years.
Survival Anxiety, on the other hand, is
concerned with the fear of not surviving the change.
In effect, a high survival anxiety encourages individuals to learn and support the change.
Organizations where the staff have low survival anxiety often have low success rates of change as staff do not feel concerned about surviving the change and feel no need to change.
Essentially they are saying ‘it doesn’t matter what they change they need me so I don’t have to change’.
For changes to be successful
the Survival Anxiety has to be higher than the Learning Anxiety, not changing is scarier than learning, so they learn!
Survival Anxiety is increased by making people feel discomfort, the current position is not sustainable and creation of guilt, ‘if I don’t change I won’t achieve my goals or targets’.
At same time it is important to provide a sense of psychological safety, a clear plan of coaching and support that allows people to learn and be supported as they do so.
This is effect mitigates some of the learning anxiety.
As we mentioned earlier the highest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is Self-Actualisation, which is the desire to improve oneself, for personal growth.
Another researcher, Carl Rogers, identified three core conditions which must be present to support personal growth, these are:
- Congruence
- Unconditional Positive Regard
- Empathy
Congruence is
being authentic and genuine in relationships, that other people can trust that what you say is what you mean.
Essentially your words match your deeds.
Unconditional Positive Regard is about the
acceptance of an individual as they are, without judgement or conditions to make them acceptable.
They are accepted as they are, not as they might be if…
empathy is ….
the willingness to understand another person from their point of view rather than your own.
Not necessarily to walk in their shoes, but at least to understand what walking in their shoes means.
What Rogers suggested is that to provide the psychological safety,
the manager or agent of change should provide these core conditions to the people affected by the change to encourage personal growth.
An important consideration when looking at change is that
we are all individuals and therefore how change affects us will be different.
How we need to be communicated or engaged with or involved needs to be tailored to suit those individual differences.
It would be impossible to treat every person impacted by a change completely uniquely, however some variation should be made for different groups or types of people.
All the psychological profiling tools available have been created to allow us to understand the ‘wiring’ in different groups of people and adjust our communication or engagement accordingly.
In this section we will look at the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was developed to allow us to try and understand the
hard wired preferences of an individual’s brain.
It is based on Jungian Psychology and considers four choices or preferences.
None of the choices are bad, they both have strengths and weaknesses and as individuals we sometimes use our lower preference for development or other reasons.
Similarly to Learning Styles, people have different preferences in
how information is presented, how it is discussed and how decisions are made.
When communicating change it is important to consider all the preferences and be prepared to meet the needs of these preferences.
The Perceiving group would want to ………. the Judging group would prefer to……… be reversed or ratified later.
postpone the decision,
make a decision now that can
Change and the individual | S3P28: Summary | Page 28 of 28
In this session we have looked at Change and the Individual.
The three broad areas discussed were:
Models of Individual Change
* Motivation and
* Individual Differences
Within Models of Individual Change we covered the Change Curve and Bridges Transition Model.
The Change Curve identified the various steps in the individual reactions to changes and the effect on their self-esteem.
We went on to look at the has three stages of the Bridges Transition Model including Endings.
The Neutral Zone and New Beginnings and considered what is needed in each for effective individual change.
Motivation is a huge subject and we covered just a small part, namely its importance, Expectancy Theory, Herzberg, Pink, Maslow, Learning and Survival Anxiety and the condition needed for Personal Growth.
Finally we considered individual differences and looked at an overview of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and how it allows us to understand and value the differences between individuals.
