Chapter One
What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent, but rather the one
most responsive to change.

Charles Darwin

Stage 1: Moving from Loss to Safety

Let’s say you arrive at work one day and are stunned by an announcement that your boss has abruptly quit for personal reasons. Data shoots from your brain’s memory banks to (supposedly) help you deal with this news. After those initial emotional, internal comments (such as Hooray! or Oh no!), you very quickly get to the business of how exactly this is going to affect you. Welcome to Stage 1, Loss (and Loss of Control).

In Stage 1, you are dealing with the knowledge that, for better or worse, to a greater or lesser degree, life at work has changed or will change. You have lost or are going to lose something: even if it is simply the way things were. And chances are, this change will involve a loss of control for some duration—or at least it will create the fear that control will be lost. Faced with this situation (whether the change is big, with bomb-like impact, or minor), most human beings react in the same way on some level. We feel concern about what might come. We start calculating the potential impact on our particular work-life (and life beyond work). And, no matter our sophistication, part of us kicks into “survival mode.” The thought of the unfamiliar is the trigger.

Obviously “change-bombs” are going to—and should—engage our survival instincts more deeply than the less dramatic stuff (the difference, say, between getting pink-slipped and learning your division is scheduled for three days of “retraining”), but people being people, word of a change always engages the part of the brain that, in the evolutionary sense, has been around the longest: the more instinctive, less analytic, part.

So know to expect some visceral reactions at the start. There will likely be more emotion than analysis in your initial response. The picture you form of what’s to come may not be what’s to come. Be patient with yourself. Don’t ask too much of yourself. You’re at an intersection. Take a breath. Look around. Just as traffic lights go from red to green, you’ll get through the change. People do.

Hello Change, Goodbye Control

If you’re reading this chapter as an employee, what we present in these pages can help you deal with the newness and the impact of your change by suggesting what to expect in your reactions and by giving you tools to self-assess, self-monitor, self-challenge, and self-teach. Management can do things to properly announce and implement a change; with self-awareness, you can increase the amount of responsibility you take for managing the change at the levels of your duties and work spirit.

If you’re reading this as a manager or leader, the overarching point is that during the introduction of a change your employees will find themselves in an emotional place (as you might yourself). And this may or may not be outwardly apparent (often it is apparent: on faces, not to mention the groan from the back of the room). At any rate, it’s unlikely the change will be received with the logic ofStar Trek’s Mr. Spock. We’re only human. And you as a manager/leader are at a critical moment, perhaps the critical moment, because what is done during the announcement of a change conditions employee attitudes and immediately gets them assessing (often with feeling) what it means for them professionally and personally. If management hypes the change as “Great!” and “Good for everyone!” while stated concerns and questions get ignored or shrugged off, employees can go negative fast and slide toward inertia. It is much better to be open and realistic about the change, acknowledging ramifications good and bad, listening to objections, and validating concerns (and there will be concerns).

How We Feel in Stage 1: Fearful

Warning—the F-word cometh. No, not that one. Fear. There is some of it in Stage 1. There is more of it in some people than others, obviously. And certain changes create more fear than others. But it is unrealistic—it is inaccurate—to believe that workplace change, at the outset, arrives in a fear-free package. Novelty and the perceived loss of control engage the survival part of the brain, the one where fear (and friend’s angst and concern) resides. Its purpose is to get our attention— to tell us a situation is fluid. Things could change for the bad; they could change for the good. But right now, we don’t know which. Right now, we’re out of our comfort zone. How do we get back there? This chapter has tips to get you started.

According to the great mid-twentieth-century psychologist Abraham Maslow, people’s greatest need after those that assure basic survival (water, food, and shelter, not to mention chocolate and ESPN) is safety—not only physical but emotional. When our sense of safety and control is threatened, we go into the “fight or flight” mode. We enter this mode quickly, unconsciously. The twenty-first-century workplace is a long way from the plains and caves of our ancient ancestors, but we share with these forebears some of the same basic needs and some of the same basic responses. It’s built-in wiring.

What does this “early-brain” thinking mean for the workplace? It means, not to put too fine a point on it, that companies and organizations need to anticipate the full range of responses that follow a change announcement, including people feeling removed from all things safe.

For employees, the first challenge is to use awareness to address what you are feeling. From here you can start the process of distinguishing between fears pointing to things that truly require your attention and those fears that are unfounded, distracting, fanciful.

As you consider the change, ask yourself, What’s the worst that could happen? Then ask, Could I live with that? In many cases of organizational change, people find they can answer yes to the second question. That puts a box around a Stage 1 fear. Go on to remind yourself that worst-case scenarios usually remain at the level of “scenario.”

How We Think in Stage 1: Cautiously

When you experience a change, your brain sends caution signals. This can be positive. Caution helps you assess before you act—it supports you in watching for decision-making traps and decoys. Cautious thoughts are questioning thoughts, and this is a time when information and answers are needed.

When caution hangs around too long, however, it hardens into suspicion (or worse, paranoia). Everyone knows someone in an office or organization with a persecution complex. According to this person, people are always out to get him or her, even the maintenance guy who seemed to take “unusually long” in coming by with his ladder and light bulbs to change the overhead light.

Needless to say, this individual is a manager’s delight during a time of change. (Not.)

So understand that in Stage 1 your thoughts will be cautious—no two ways about it—but keep your self-assessment unit running, because caution can shade into something overly fearful and suspicious during the uncertainty of company change. After a certain point, extended caution just means you are in a rut, unable to navigate the change.

How We Act in Stage 1: Paralyzed

There’s not a lot of action in Stage 1. In fact, our behavior can become more or less frozen, with all attention going to the change and with apprehension perhaps holding us in place.

A better kind of stillness would be a “pause”—a pause to assess, a reflective balance in that initial phase after a workplace change is announced. But to expect that you will react with considered poise or alternatively to “hit the ground running” right after a change is introduced is usually not realistic.

Better to be temporarily stalled, though, than to strike out rashly or to head for the hills.

To Know More, Notice More

The following behaviors and attitudes indicate someone struggling with Stage 1:

• Withdraws—avoids talking about thoughts and feelings
• Concentrates on old routines, dodging the change
• Speculates about results that have been his or her experience in the past
• Perceives a large or total loss of control over the situation
• Focuses on self, with little or no focus on the organization
• Acts powerless in the face of the change
• Fights the change, freezes, or puts up defenses

One Company, Different Perspectives

Often the difference between what is “said” when a company initiates change versus what is “heard” leaves executives, managers, and workers at an impasse. Consider the varying perspectives. Executives consider issues as they relate to the stakeholders—the customer, employees, management, vendors, stockholders, the market. Managers are responsible for taking tasks to completion and managing productivity and quality regardless of extenuating circumstances. Employees are at the far end of the information chain. They get the bottom-line information, but they are often left without specifics concerning the change, including the why, what, how, and when. This puts them into “The Change Cycle.” Presented with the change, it often doesn’t take much for employees to feel a loss of control.

Performance expectations are high and morale is low. The “old system”—a cause of much employee frustration in recent history—looks great compared to changing to something new and unproven. The tug of war between the old way and the new way has begun. The implementation plan moves forward nonetheless. Deadlines must be met.

In Stage 1, these concerns must be addressed—by both management and employees. Employees must take responsibility and realize they are employed in an evolving workplace that will continually upgrade systems, policies, and procedures. Management must be committed to providing workers with the best and most timely training and skills-enhancement possible to keep staff successful in the workplace. Stage 1 sometimes makes the change seem as if management is pitted against those they manage. It’s hard to believe that a new system will be your light at the end of the tunnel when you are sitting in the dark.

Case in Point: Creativo Plus Inc.

No one is exempt from Stage 1, not employees, managers, or the CEO. Yet the intensity and time spent there can vary greatly depending on the individual. What may seem an insignificant change to one person could have a profound effect on another. Example: Creativo Plus Inc. is adding a second shift to its production schedule. Management has announced that all employees will rotate through the new shift one week per month for six to twelve months as production needs are determined and new hiring can take place.

When the addition of the second shift was announced, employee reaction was by and large positive. The need for the company to add production time was a victory of sorts for everyone. It meant demand for its products was increasing, and the value of the company and the employees’ part in it was growing. Yet that growth came with a price that became an intrusion and, in some cases, a real problem in certain people’s personal lives. As a peacekeeping strategy, the company added an hourly bonus for these second-shift hours. Unfortunately, that has not fully addressed the situation for some employees.

Sam has been a loyal employee for over nine years. He is well liked and easy to work with. But now the attitude of this once consistently good performer has shifted. His productivity has dropped, his demeanor soured. His manager is at a loss as to what is going on. Sam has been quiet and brooding since the second-shift announcement, and when asked what is wrong, he replies, “Nothing.” Sam’s story is typical of the ripples caused by changes at work that can affect an employee’s personal life as well:

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I coach youth sports at my church. One night it’s my daughter’s team and the other for my son. As a divorced dad, this is an important and special time with my kids. We had a long and hard custody and visitation battle. Finally it all seems to be working for us, and now I’m really concerned that the addition of the second shift will cause big problems for me with my ex-wife.

To the surprise of her manager, Jan, too, is upset with the second-shift schedule. Jan has always been willing to work a couple of hours overtime, claiming the extra money came in handy. Her boss thought she would be happy with the added financial incentives and was caught off guard when Jan pleaded to be excluded from the rotation. This single mother of three school-age children tells her story:

Having an opportunity to make extra money working overtime is always appealing, but I can only do it when I can get my mom to watch my kids after school. Working the second shift is actually going to cost me money after I pay a babysitter—if I can find someone reliable one week per month who will work nights. They’re really good kids, but evenings at home are chaotic with homework and school projects. I’m worried sick about going for a whole school week with very little or no time with my children. They need me.

Neither Sam nor Jan is behaving like a victim of the new schedule—they aren’t the types to play the victim, no matter the difficulty—but they’re stuck in Stage 1, feelings apprehensive, thoughts cautious, behavior, if not paralyzed, at least limited.

Their colleague Andrew is up against more—much more. Two weeks after the shift-change announcement, he learned he was being terminated. With production quotas rising, his work performance, the least impressive in his unit, came into even sharper relief. The news wasn’t a total surprise, as he’d been on a kind of “probation,” but still, to let him go at a time of new hiring came as a shock. With child support, a mortgage, and a load of credit-card debt, Andrew has been driving a cab along with his Creativo job to make ends meet. But the moonlighting left him exhausted during his day job—something had to give.

I should have stopped driving the cab. I didn’t love my job at Creativo, but at least it had health insurance. And a steady paycheck. The first two nights after getting the termination news, the only thing I was good for was sitting in my house, watching TV or staring into space. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t bring myself to drive the cab. I’m telling myself that now I have my reason to do the thing I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and that’s move to Alaska. I have a couple friends up there. But right now it’s hard to think about the future. It’s weird: even when you’ve been warned something like this might happen, it’s another thing to actually get the news. I need to come up with a new plan.

The Only Way Out Is Through

The magnitude of Andrew’s change is obviously far more severe than what Sam and Jan are dealing with. From a financial angle especially, his grounds for fear are substantial. He is facing a great deal of unknown. There is loss, and then there is Loss. That said, the three workers share one thing: they are all in the early stages of The Change Cycle and will need to take similar internal steps to move forward. Sam’s and Jan’s fears are family fears— a threat to the delicate weaves of parenting and domestic life. They wouldn’t want to change places with Andrew, but their fears are also real and need addressing.

Learning Curves

How you and those you work with talk about the change, including the way you “talk” to yourself (that internal conversation always running in our heads), is not just “words, words, words,” to borrow a line from Shakespeare. What you “say”—aloud or internally—impacts how you interpret the change situation and also gives clues to the way you are dealing with it, in both conscious and nonconscious ways.

Are you or those you work with making any of the following comments?

• “Why?” and “Why me?”
• “I’m afraid of what this might mean.”
• “I am going to keep doing things the way I’ve always done them.”
• ”This is just another fad.”
• “I don’t know who to believe.”
• “What have I done to deserve this?”
• “They don’t care about us.”
• “Why will this work any better than other things we have tried?”

You’ll have to change your mind before you change your tune, but paying attention to the talk (outer and inner) builds another level of awareness—always a good thing.

Stage 1 Priority: Creating a Sense of Safety

To move out of Stage 1, you need to feel some degree of control over the situation and have a sense that your safety is not threatened. Until this happens, we have a tendency to take one step forward and two steps back with each new tidbit of information or new experience during the change. What do control and safety mean in your particular work situation? We all have standards—minimums for the specific arena of our work lives.

Precisely defining the change in a way that allows you to summarize what it is in a sentence and how it will affect you both now and during the next three to six months will help add to your sense of control. The clarity you’ll gain will assist you in differentiating between legitimate fears and ungrounded fears, the latter perhaps clouding your thinking as you strive to find your new work footing and direction. With every imagined fear you eliminate, you improve your perspective and make your situation feel a little less threatening.

Pinpointing the Change

Many of us tend to generalize situations. In the uncertain and uneasy state of mind that is Stage 1, this is not always a good thing. The “Pinpointing the Change” exercise that follows is designed to assist you in determining if you generalize like this, or, alternatively, if you cling to specific details of a change, potentially ignoring the real issues driving your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Pinpointing helps you gain a sense of control over a situation or issue that may be gripping you— consciously or not.

As you will see in the example, once you have clarity about the change, you might be surprised to find that by dealing with the most worrying issue, other concerns tend to diminish. When you clarify the issues as best as you can at this early point in the crisis or change, you will have a good indication of what’s what. Being able to focus on some specific aspect of the change situation will give you perspective and allow you to move more quickly through your transition. After all these years, we still use this quick and easy pinpointing exercise to gain clarity and make sure we are dealing with the real issue.

“Pinpointing the Change” Exercise

Martin is worried. He knows that if his marketing plan fails, he will have no one to blame but himself. But he can’t seem to get a grip. He feels inundated by problems at work and the financial stresses they have caused at home. Right now it feels as if he has no alternatives—he fears he’s lost in a lose-lose situation. He can’t sleep, he’s irritable, and his co-workers seem to be avoiding him. One thing he could do is sit down with a pen and paper and take a moment to pinpoint his change. His questions and answers might look like this:

• Name a significant change you are experiencing now: Potential failure of the new marketing campaign
• What specific losses does it create for you?
  • Loss of feeling competent as a marketing manager
  • Project financial bonus, which we desperately need
  • My boss’s confidence in me for big projects
• Which loss is most uncomfortable for you right now? Project financial bonus, which we desperately need
• Why? What specifically makes it uncomfortable? I counted on this project’s success to ease our financial situation at home
• Restate your change to more specifically reflect what you are thinking and feeling now.
  I am feeling like a failure, afraid that there will be no financial bonus

Notice how the example started with naming the change: Potential failure of the new marketing campaign. That’s the factual element. It ended with I am feeling like a failure, afraid that there will be no financial bonus. That is the issue. Sometimes the facts and issues have an interesting relationship with each other; other times they have no relationship or common ground at all. It is easier to name the fact, but it’s the issue that requires attention. Why? Because, as in Martin’s case, it is the issue driving thoughts and behavior in Stage 1.

Case in Point: DATAs Group Inc.

DATAs Group Inc. had announced via company intranet and a public press release that they were installing a somewhat controversial new software program for use company-wide. Rumors had been plentiful and information sketchy as to the details, expectations, and timing of the implementation.

Talk on the grapevine was that many employees in the accounting and finance departments would lose their jobs through reassignment, but not necessarily lose their employment. Morale was sinking, and productivity along with it. On the insistence of the site-management team, the executive leaders decided that to ensure employee buy-in of the new system, the president would hold a meeting for the members of the finance and accounting departments to clarify the impending changes.

At first, Sue Martin, vice-president for human resources, was thrilled that the senior leaders were showing an interest in a grassroots communication plan for the employees. That was short-lived after she attended the planning session dictating the president’s intention and communication format.

He had decided on a “town hall meeting” format, and because of lack of space on-site he rented the community theater several blocks from the company building. The plan called for the 180 employees to walk to the theater, where a jazz band would be providing entertainment and company logo-wear would be given away in the lobby. The president would then update everyone on the implementation time frames and goals, in addition to the objectives and expectations of the roll-out. His intention was to “sell” the many qualities of the new program and then answer questions from the audience.

Sue opposed this plan. She clearly and succinctly pointed out the flaws and landmines in his approach, and she calmly built consensus about why a different communication style needed to be utilized and what specifically needed to be done, by whom, and how.

Using The Change Cycle model, she explained that management’s position of “This change is good for the company” was coming from a Stages 5 and 6 mentality that would be neither appreciated nor supported until employees had moved out of red Stages 1 and 2. The changes were certain to upset many long-tenure employees. Sue predicted, however, that within the next several months the system changes would be embraced and praised. Until then, what is perceived as good for the company and what is perceived as good for the employees may be quite different and would take time to get in sync.

The bottom line? Employees should not be expected to show enthusiastic support at the time of the initial announcement—they need time to assess their control factors and gain an accurate picture of the impact the change will have on them as individuals and in their intact work teams.

Sue praised the idea of going to the theater: a good neutral, comfortable, and convenient place. But she opposed the jazz band, explaining that a festive atmosphere would not sit well with employees who were going to be negatively affected by the change (or perceived they would be). She also suggested dropping the idea of giving away logo-wear. The demographics of the employee group were more than 70% women, and baseball caps and t-shirts were an unlikely incentive to get them to buy into the changes. And her firmest point was that the president should not answer questions from the audience, pointing out that employees would ask him operations-driven questions he had little or no chance of answering correctly. After a lengthy and at times heated discussion, Sue prevailed on all points.

On the day of the meeting, Sue acted as moderator. She welcomed everyone and clearly and concisely explained what the meeting’s format would be. She invited them to ask questions, explaining that queries would be keyed into a computer and shown on a screen above the stage before being answered via e-mail within a week. She then introduced the president, and he made his comments. Then questions began appearing on the screen. There were a lot of them—seventy-four to be exact. The president started sweating after about the ninth question: it was a good thing he wasn’t being asked to answer them. When the questions stopped, Sue thanked the employees, and they quietly got up and walked out.

The president admitted he was relieved it was over. He thanked Sue for using her leadership and management skills to turn what could have been a disaster into a successful interaction with the employees and a valuable lesson for him. He acknowledged that her insistence to build rapport and not try to fix or oversell the change honored what the employees were experiencing—the loss of control synonymous with Stage 1. He admitted that his plan to secure employee support would have backfired no matter what he could or would have offered as incentives to support the changes.

During the following week, the employee questions that could be answered were answered, and the issues that required more attention were handled in a variety of ways, including focus groups and system-review teams. Feedback about the meeting praised the style and format as the best possible way to have received the information, and employees gave the president high marks for his attitude and willingness to be up-front and truthful with them.

Information and communication are not synonyms.
Information is giving out, while communication
is getting through.

S.J. Harris

Worlds—or at Least Stages—Apart

A central reason change announcements are such a challenge for people in leadership positions is that they may have had weeks, even months, to cycle through the change at the conceptual level and are now delivering news (of new skill requirements, a systems change, culture overhaul, supervision restructuring, a merger, layoffs) to people who very well may be hearing it, at least in fleshed-out, official form, for the first time.

Messengers might be in Stage 5. Their audience? Just now stepping onto a road whose signs say Loss, Fear, Anger, Rejection, Mistrust. Houston, we have a problem. Leadership might be ready to go-go-go. They grasp things with green-stage understanding. Employees might very well be experiencing something akin to that moment in cartoons when a character gets steamrolled down to two dimensions and then tries to pop back into shape.

It takes imagination and empathy for leadership to announce and roll out the change in a way that can bridge the stage gap. Without efforts in this direction, employee resentment can set in quickly, with red-stage protraction the result. Employees realize that sometimes unfortunate changes must be made. But if all they’re getting from leaders and management is green-stage enthusiasm and way-forward speeches, they’ll respond in some basic human ways. Going through their heads, with some frustration and perhaps even bitterness, are things like, I thought we were doing a good job—you told us so. What I have pride in doing for this organization, you are now saying can be done better elsewhere. I missed my kids’ t-ball games, recitals, and birthday parties for this company and this is the reward?

Executives frame change as innovation, market opportunity, expansion, streamlining—keys to success—whereas employees often talk of IOC (“inevitable organizational change”) and think, Here we go again. They hear change and think disruption, trouble, threat. They may feel inadequate, undervalued, disposable, “used.”

Picture the most chaotic intersection you can imagine. Seven roads intersecting, clusters of traffics lights all over, concrete islands, people driving at all speeds, some cars stalled, pedestrians darting into traffic, and one lone traffic cop. This intersection is a company change going awry, the cop the change leaders. Officer, please give us a sign! A bad announcement of change is not the sole cause of company chaos during implementation. But it sure doesn’t help. Often the extra costs, lost productivity, and sinking morale during a troubled change (sometimes tempting leaders to call the whole thing off) are not measures of the change’s innate worth but indictments of the way the change was revealed to the company and handled at the very start of the process.

A well-done change announcement does the following:

• Explains business issues that have made the change necessary
• Highlights how the change addresses these issues
• Acknowledges the change’s upside and downside
• Answers why, what, when, and how questions
• Acknowledges past difficulties and disappointments
• Gives as much overall, big-picture information as possible
• Addresses short-, medium-, and long-term ramifications
• Offers milestones when possible, instead of hard deadlines
• Avoids cheerleading and overselling the benefits
• Shows an interest in employee questions, concerns, comments, and the like
• Has a follow-up plan for the announcement

None of these elements will work all of the time, but all of them will work some of the time. In a changing environment, people can always deal better with what they know rather than with what they feel compelled to speculate about or invent because of an info vacuum.

Allies, Obstacles

In every stage in The Change Cycle, there are things to welcome, things to avoid, and keys to moving on. Below are entries for Stage 1, drawn from our experiences working with companies and organizations ranging from Honeywell, Nestle, and American Express to the NCAA and the CIA (don’t ask). Of course it would be nice if the whole stage could be avoided—loss, fear, shock, bitterness, and all the rest of it. That would be welcome, but unfortunately change doesn’t work that way. It works, but not that way.

Things to Avoid in Stage 1

• Trying to “fix the change”
  In Stage 1, there is really nothing to fix. You need a little time and stillness while sorting out what is happening. Be patient—with yourself and others.
• Sending a message that the old way was better
  Ask yourself, When the “old way” you are now lamenting the loss of was the “new way,” how did you feel about it then? Chances are, you hated it. In time, when the change gets more familiar, it will come to seem normal and lose its emotional impact.
• Hyping the change
  Whether you are a worker, manager, or leader, selling the change in a big way can backfire. While processing the reality of “things aren’t the way they used to be” and experiencing a loss of control, people can only take so much enthusiasm about the change’s “extraordinary benefits.” Hype causes others to suspect your motives and wonder if you are trying to take advantage of them instead of dealing with the impact of the change. Everything has positives and negatives— they’ll wonder why you’re only willing to look at the former.

To Be More Resourceful in Stage 1

• Manage fear
  Let fear work for you, not against. Fear can get your attention, sharpen your senses, and heighten your alertness to current needs. Let it direct your focus to defining your predicament—and a way out. It’s the unwarranted fears that cause trouble. Identify one of these, put it in the mental wastebasket, and hit “delete.” Eliminating a groundless fear improves your perspective and moves you a step closer to safety.
• Have empathy toward others
  Change has a unique impact on everyone. What may seem like a minor deal to you may be a major deal to a co-worker because he or she cares for an ailing parent, goes to night school, or has childcare responsibilities that you don’t know about.
• Listen
  It pays to listen, no matter where you are in the organization. Changes made from a big-picture perspective can sometimes be blind to the impact on operational details. When employees voice concerns, important operational steps can be addressed early on, and resources of time, money, and quality can be saved. And most times it’s a positive when employees listen to each other and to voices from higher up the organizational chart. Even if management’s communication style might need some work, that doesn’t mean what they’re trying to convey down the ranks lacks value.

Keys to Moving On

• Acknowledge your losses and concerns.
• Channel fear into appropriate action.
• Ask, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

There might be one more key. It’s something to avoid. Avoid believing Stage 1 lasts forever. It doesn’t. People find solutions. People find ways to move on.

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Note to Self:

Get safe. Be safe. Stay safe.

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