The Change Curve – It is important to understand how your employees can be affected by change. The change curve demonstrates the typical phases people go through when experience change, whether this is a major change, such as losing a job, or a small change, such as moving offices. The stages are as follows:
Stage 1: Shock and Denial
The initial shock comes with a temporary loss of productivity, shortly after this denial kicks in. Here people tend to focus on the past with the feeling that everything will go back to how it was before.
Stage 2: Anger and low mood
In the stage of anger people tend to focus the blame on someone or something, the lowest point of the curve is when people start to realise that the change is imminent, here anxiety levels are high and performance is at its lowest. In the extreme it may lead to depression.
Stage 3: Acceptance and integration
After hitting the lowest point people begin to develop a more optimistic view, they are likely to start working with the changes rather than against them and productivity should slowly start to recover.
