Posted by Kevin Miller
March 11, 2022
Mobile users: Jump to the Quick Takeaways
Watch a video of this entire series in my Managing IT: Organizational Change Management course on Pluralsight.
This blog post was published on the Built In platform on March 11, 2022.
Welcome back to our series on how to help employees navigate change inside your organization.
We’ve established that change brings out many emotions in people — and while some will be excited, many will have anxiety about the shift. Reaction to change is likely to be emotional rather than rational, and past experiences will influence the current situation. Understanding this emotional curve will help you navigate change and assist others to do so as well.
Where Anger Comes From
As the most active of all the stages, anger elicits strong emotional responses, and it’s typically the most stressful stage for a manager because it can lead to uncomfortable confrontations and self-doubt. Without strong leadership, too much anger can lead to chaos within a team or an organization.
In the beginning, you should view anger as a positive, since it represents someone leaving the denial stage and accepting that the change is actually going to happen. Obviously, too much anger — or anger that exists for too long — can be detrimental to a team. But if properly managed, the people who express the most anger can become the change’s biggest and most vocal supporters, often helping to convert others into supporters.
When viewed as an opportunity to gain a vocal supporter, helping someone through the anger stage morphs from an exhausting exercise to one that is a challenge.
The anger stage is natural and unavoidable, but it can be short. A good leader embraces it, since it shows progress and provides you an opportunity to help.
How Leaders Deal with Doubt
Even the best leaders experience doubt. When it creeps in, seek out support from your own leadership and the change sponsors. Modeling optimism is essential, because resisters will leverage your doubt as a reason to slip back into the denial stage. Supporters will enter the anger stage when they don’t see continual commitment from leadership, and then they’ll slip back into the denial stage, thinking the change will not get implemented. Always show commitment publicly, and back up your words with actions to erase any doubt from resisters and strengthen your bond with supporters.
Common Phrases Heard in the Anger Stage
How to Support Someone in the Anger Stage
How to Help Someone Move On From Anger
Putting it into Practice
Look back on your positive and negative change notes from the previous article. For each of those changes, write down how long you think you were in the anger stage and who or what helped you exit it. Write down what was done to help you overcome your anger.
The Urge to Bargain
The bargaining stage provides an opportunity for a shortcut, but it can easily backfire if you don’t think it through. People in this phase are starting to accept that the change is going to happen, but will try to delay the impact on themselves — or avoid the change altogether. Their energy levels will slowly decrease as their anger fades away.
It is natural to want to meet someone with whom you share a personal connection with halfway, as they start negotiating to keep aspects of the current state intact. However, agreeing to a request, only to later overturn it, will pull someone back into a longer and more active anger stage. You will lose their trust and the trust of the people closest to them, which ultimately adds stress to the situation.
Too much empathy leads to hasty decisions, which tend to be reversed. Be kind but firm.
Common Phrases Heard in the Bargaining Stage
How to Support Someone in the Bargaining Stage
How to Help Someone Move On From Bargaining
The Art of the Win-Win
Find win-wins by implementing someone’s suggestion. Even if it’s just in part, you’ll reduce the depth and length of their depression stage, and you’ll have a good chance of moving someone into the testing stage, which is when they start to buy-in. But remember: Reversing your position on the suggestion later will pull someone back into the anger stage.
Putting it into Practice
Here are your prompts for this stage: What were some of the suggestions you presented while bargaining? How were they perceived by your leadership? Were any of your suggestions implemented? Were any of the implementations later reversed? How did you feel about your leadership when they agreed or disagreed with your suggestions? In hindsight, did leadership make the right decisions?
Built In Link: How to Help Angry Employees Process Change
Quote: “The anger stage is natural and unavoidable, but it can be short. A good leader embraces it, since it shows progress and provides you an opportunity to help.”
Quote: “Too much empathy leads to hasty decisions, which tend to be reversed. Be kind but firm.”
Video: Managing IT: Organizational Change Management, on Pluralsight.
Part 1: Guiding Employees Through the Many Stages of Change
Part 2: How to Help Angry Employees Process Change
Part 3: Change Management: How to Deliver Employees to the Promised Land of Acceptance
Part 4: After Change: How to Make Sure Your Transition Sticks