Comment: If you’ve ever faced a restructure at work, you may have had a change management consultant present you with the “change curve”. It’s a model for understanding the different emotional stages people go through when responding to organisational change—from denial to acceptance, or so the model presumes.
Its origins can be traced back to the popular “five stages of grief” model developed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the 1960s. Based on interviews with terminally ill patients, Kübler-Ross proposed individuals experience five emotional responses in processing their diagnosis: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
The Kübler-Ross Change Curve (a registered trademark of the foundation named after her) is now an influential change management model. Having taught this model for years, I can see its appeal. It’s relatable and useful for reflecting on our emotions.
But I’ve also found its use by change management practitioners problematic. With recent commerce graduate Logan Holdsworth, I investigated how a model for coming to terms with one’s death has evolved to become part of the change management toolkit.
I’ve explored the origins of many management theories, models and frameworks, such as transformational leadership, groupthink, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. One thing they have in common is that they originate in other disciplines (such as psychology, sociology, and political science) and are selectively borrowed, recombined, and repurposed into management ideas, often losing critical nuance in the process.
This type of cherry-picking is not unusual, or necessarily a bad thing. Ideas evolve as they’re shared and used. And the sheer number of variants of the change curve suggest it is a model that has use in many contexts. There are, however, four problems with its evolution.
The first is that the model has little scientific support, right from its beginning in Kübler-Ross’ original work. According to the Kübler-Ross Foundation, her interviews with dying patients were designed to open a conversation about dying, which was considered a taboo topic in American society. Characterising her work as proper scientific research is wrong, it says. But those who borrowed her model, mainly change management consultants, weren’t deterred by its lack of rigour and validity. They adapted it in ways that served their and their clients’ needs.
A second problematic aspect is the way it universalises and linearises emotional responses. Kübler-Ross stated her five stages were neither universal nor linear. Most of her patients exhibited several stages simultaneously and the order varied. These nuances have been lost, with the impression that organisational change triggers a predictable psychological journey.
Third, as with all psychological models, there is the danger of “psychologising”—attributing a psychological cause where there may be none.
With the change curve, this can result in a narrow interpretation of employees’ resistance to change. Employees might be opposed because they genuinely believe—with good reason, based on their experience and knowledge—that a proposed change is unnecessary, poorly conceived, unethical, or even illegal.
The change curve would diagnose these employees as being in the denial phase. This is patronising and can create cynicism about the change and those leading it. Employees might reframe legitimate concerns as irrational feelings, causing them to experience unnecessary emotional distress. Or they might self-censor, suppressing negative thoughts and feelings because they do not conform to the model.
Fourth, using a model about coping with death to understand coping with organisational change is problematic. We cannot avoid death, so it is comforting if we can come to accept it. Most organisational change involves choices, including sticking with the status quo. However, the change curve perpetuates the view that employees should accept the change, whatever their reservations.
Although using the change curve can do more harm than good, there is something valuable we can learn from Kübler-Ross’ original work. She highlighted how important it is for medical professionals to listen to their patients and let them know their thoughts and feelings are valued. This lesson about being sensitive to people’s needs has value for the field of change management.
It’s a lesson that has been highlighted by others. In their landmark 1948 study on resistance to change, psychologists Lester Coch and John French concluded change was more likely to succeed when those affected by it were involved in its design and implementation. Sadly, this is something either forgotten or ignored by today’s advocates of the change curve.
Yet if organisations took more seriously the notion of involving employees in decision making—rather than seeing resistance as simply an emotional response staff need to work through—then perhaps change programmes might have more success.
This article was originally published on Newsroom.
Todd Bridgman is a professor of Management Studies at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.