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Donald Kirkpatrick in his book, Managing Change (1), identifies these three elements as key to successful transition management: empathy, communication and participation. Regardless of the change model one employs, I believe that if you effectively employ these three elements when you begin to think about making change, you will be more successful in implementing change. Let’s take a closer look at each element.
Webster’s defines empathy as, “The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of another... (2)” Essentially, empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of others. This makes more sense when you realize that when change occurs, people lose different things. Examples of loss could include familiarity of the routine, relationships, power, security, and competence.
Are you familiar with the word misonephobia… probably not? It means an inherent fear of change. There is a little of this in all of us. When change occurs, people often have a fear of rejection, failure and/or looking foolish. A wise leader realizes that people with whom he/she works will experience a certain degree of fear when things change around them.
Realizing that change means people will experience some degree of loss and fear, and expressing appropriate empathy is an important step in the change process. It is a way of expressing concern for those whose world is being impacted, perhaps in a significant way. To some this may seem soft. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Effective change involves both seeing the change implemented, as well as the process that people go through on the journey to the change.
William Bridges, in Managing Transitions (3), calls this latter aspect “transition” and defines it as, “The psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation.”
This aspect of change is where leaders often have difficulty. This is the people part of change, which is the hard part. Change is both science and art, and dealing with people is an art.
In many organizations, especially those that are very hierarchical like law enforcement or the military, a leader may make a decision and expect his/her command to be carried out without question. This approach usually misses the empathy key.
Effective change must take into account that people will experience loss and fear. A leader can help prepare his/her people to move forward by expressing empathy. Failure to do this may contribute to some people having difficulty moving beyond the loss and fear, as well as developing resistance that can undermine the change effort.
The second key element is communication. In times of change, leaders often under-communicate. In my own experience, I have talked to groups of people regarding an upcoming change and put information out in writing, but it wasn’t enough.
The literature says that we often under-communicate by a factor of ten (4), which creates an information void. Often, people do not know why the change is occurring, how the change may impact them, or what the benefits are.
When there is an information void, people will seek to fill the void and create a sense of knowing. You have probably found that people turn to less credible or accurate sources. The result is confusion, resistance and upset people.
A few years ago I was
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