Better Business Coaching

In business it is important that we understand how people experience change.  Follow the simple change cycle below and consider how individuals and groups can cope with pressures created by it.

By understanding this it will help you to provide practical support to people undergoing change.

The Change Cycle

We can identify five stages in this process of adjustment to new circumstances.  At each stage the relationship between levels of performance and self-esteem alters.  By self-esteem we mean both self-confidence and satisfaction with life and work.

Stage 1: Denial

“We have always done things this way, why change, we are making a profit aren’t we?  Don’t change a winning team.  My life isn’t so bad really, I can cope with it staying the same”.  These are some of the ways denial can find expression.  Faced with the possibility of change, people will often find value in their present circumstances, often in situations that they have complained of previously.

Stage 2: Defense

Now the situation becomes clearer.  People must begin to face up to new tasks, working for a new boss or with a different group of people, perhaps in a different department or at a new location.  Thus they become aware that they must come to terms with changes in the way they work.  People may attempt to defend their own job or their existing circumstances and often both performance and self-esteem plummet.

Stage 3: Discarding

At this stage people begin to let go of the past and look forward to the future.  People begin to identify with the changes; they talk openly and constructively about the new way.  When this point is reached self-esteem begins to flow back.

Stage 4: Adapting

Just as people must adapt to new ways, so the new ways will have to adapt to procedures, structure and machines rarely work effectively first time and new relationships need time and effort to work too.  People begin to try out the new situation for themselves.  They test new behaviours, try working to different standards and ways of coping with changes.  This way people learn new sills.

Stage 5: Normalising

Now the people involved have created a new life, system, process or organisation.  New relationships between people and processes have been tried, modified and accepted.  These now become incorporated into understandings of the new way or working and the “new” becomes part of a “normal life”.

For effective business coaching that suits your business needs, contact Carole Davidson Coaching.