A Change Management Model That All Leaders Must Understand

A few weeks ago I wrote about dealing with organizational change in my post “The Secret Of Organizational Change Management.” This post was based on a great article in Strategy + Business magazine which outlined 10 guiding principles for change.

That post was focused on how leaders should roll out change inside their organizations but it made me think about the flip side of this. How do the employees see change from their point of view? A few years ago I attended a leadership development class that provided a model of how people react when confronted with change. This model is from Spencer, Shenk and Capers . According to the model, everyone reacts to change by moving through the following six stages;

Stage 1: Loss – Employees are shocked by the change and experience fear and trepidation. They are cautious and can be paralyzed and unproductive for a period of time. It is analogous to a period of grieving.