The Process of Transition - John Fisher, 2012

(Fisher’s Personal Transition Curve)

DENIAL Change? This can work
At last What impact What Change? and be good
something’s will this have?
going to How will it affect
change me?
DISILLUSIONMENT
I can see
Can I I’m off!! myself in the
cope? ....this isn’t future
This is bigger
than I thought! for me!

MOVING
At Did I really FORWARD
others do that?
At
self Who
AN

am I?
GE

ANXIETY HAPPINESS GRADUAL COMPLACENCY

ACCEPTANCE
R

I’ll make
this work if
FEAR it kills me!!
COMPLACENCY

© J M Fisher 1999/2012.
Free for personal and organizational development use.
Not to be sold or copied for general publication. A free
resource from www.businessballs.com with permission
of John M Fisher. See the theory and explanation at
www.businessballs.com/personalchangeprocess.htm THREAT GUILT DEPRESSION HOSTILITY
john fisher's personal transition curve - 2012 - the
stages
anxiety
The awareness that events lie outside one's range of understanding or control. I believe
the problem here is that individuals are unable to adequately picture the future. They
do not have enough information to allow them to anticipate behaving in a different way
within the new organisation. They are unsure how to adequately construe acting in the
new work and social situations. There is also the possibility for what McCoy (1977)
defined as 'bewilderment' here; which she defined as an awareness of an imminent,
comprehensive change in our non-core structure. How we then deal with this dictates
how we progress through the rest of the curve and the extent of the impact on our core
sense of self.

happiness
The awareness that one’s viewpoint is recognised and shared by others. The impact of
this is twofold. At the basic level there is a feeling of relief that something is going to
change and not continue as before. Whether the past is perceived positively or
negatively, there is still a feeling of anticipation and possibly excitement at the
possibility of improvement. On another level, there is the satisfaction of knowing that
some of your thoughts about the old system were correct (generally no matter how well
we like the status quo there is something that is unsatisfactory about it) and that
something is going to be done about. In the phase we generally expect the best and
anticipate a bright future, placing our own construct system onto the change and
seeing ourselves succeeding. One of the dangers in this phase is that of the
inappropriate psychological contract. We may perceive more to the change, or believe
we will get more from the change than is actually the case. The organisation needs to
manage this phase and ensure unrealistic expectations are managed and redefined in
the organisations terms without alienating the individual.
The happiness phase is one of the more interesting phases and may be (almost) passed
through without knowing. In this phase it is the 'Thank Goodness, something is
happening at last!' feeling coupled with the knowledge that we may be able to have an
impact, or take control, of our destiny and that if we are lucky/involved/contribute
things can only get better. If we can start interventions at this stage we can minimise
the impact of the rest of the curve and virtually flatten the curve. By involving,
informing, getting 'buy in' at this time we can help people move through the process.
fear
the awareness of an imminent incidental change in one's core behavioural system.
People will need to act in a different manner and this will have an impact on both their
self-perception and on how others externally see them. However, in the main, they see
little change in their normal interactions and believe they will be operating in much the
same way, merely choosing a more appropriate, but new, action.
According to Frances (1999), Fear and Threat are the two key emotions that will cause
us to resist change.

threat
the awareness of an imminent comprehensive change in one's core behavioural
structures. Here people perceive a major change on what they believe to be their core
identity or sense of self. The realisation that change that will have a fundamental
impact on who we are, how we see ourselves and what is key in our personality to us
as individuals. This is the shock of suddenly discovering you're not who you thought
you were! It is a radical alteration to our future choices and other people's perception of
them as individuals. Their old choices are no longer ones that will work. In many ways
this is 'road to Damascus' type of life-changing experience, one that has the potential to
'shake you to the core!'. In this phase, people are unsure as to how they will be able to
act/react in what is, potentially, a totally new and alien environment - one where the
'old rules' no longer apply and there are no 'new' ones established as yet.

guilt
An awareness of a dislodgement of our self from our core self perception. We are not
who we thought we were! Once the individual begins exploring their self-perception,
how they acted/reacted in the past and looking at alternative interpretations they begin
to re-define their sense of self. This, generally, involves identifying what are their core
beliefs and how closely they have been to meeting them. Recognition of the
inappropriateness of their previous actions and the implications for them as people can
cause guilt as they realise the impact of their behaviour. Another of the emotions that
may have an impact here is that of 'Shame', in Kellyian terms this is the awareness of a
negative change in someone else's opinion of you from what you think it should be. The
recognition of this shift in our own and other peoples opinion then leads into the next
stage.

depression
The awareness that our past actions, behaviours and beliefs are incompatible with our
core construct of our identity. The belief that our past actions mean we're not a very
nice person after all! This phase is characterised by a general lack of motivation and
confusion. Individuals are uncertain as to what the future holds and how they can fit
into the future 'world'. Their representations are inappropriate and the resultant
undermining of their core sense of self leaves them adrift with no sense of identity and
no clear vision of how to operate.

gradual acceptance
Here we begin to make sense of our environment and of our place within the change.
In effect we are beginning to get some validation of our thoughts and actions and can
see that where we are going is right. We are at the start of managing our control over
the change, make sense of the 'what' and 'why' and seeing some successes in how we
interact - there is 'a light at the end of the tunnel!' This links in with an increasing level
of Self-confidence, which in Kellyian terms is defined as an awareness of the goodness
of fit of the self in one's core role structure - i.e., we feel good that we are doing the
right things in the right way.

moving forward
In this stage we are starting to exert more control, make more things happen in a
positive sense and are getting our sense of self back. We know who we are again and
are starting to feel comfortable that we are acting in line with our convictions, beliefs,
etc. and making the right choices. In this phase we are, again, experimenting within our
environment more actively and effectively.

disillusionment
The awareness that your values, beliefs and goals are incompatible with those of the
organisation. The pitfalls associated with this phase are that the employee becomes
unmotivated, unfocused and increasingly dissatisfied and gradually withdraws their
labour, either mentally (by just 'going through the motions', doing the bare minimum,
actively undermining the change by criticising/complaining) or physically by resigning.
From personal experience I can say I've left a company where I found myself becoming
increasingly disillusioned with them. My values and theirs were no longer matched and I
felt the gulf too big to accommodate whilst still staying true to my construct system.

hostility
The continued effort to validate social predictions that have already proved to be a
failure. The problem here is that individual's continue to operate processes that have
repeatedly failed to achieve a successful outcome and are no longer part of the new
process or are surplus to the new way of working. The new processes are ignored at
best and actively undermined at worst.
denial
This stage is defined by a lack of acceptance of any change and denies that there will
be any impact on the individual. People keep acting as if the change has not happened,
using old practices and processes and ignoring evidence or information contrary to their
belief systems. In many ways when we are faced with a problem, or situation, we don't
want, or one that we believe is too challenging to our sense of self we 'constrict' or
narrow our range of construction. In this way we eliminate the problem from our
awareness. The 'head in the sand' syndrome - if I can't see it, or acknowledge it then it
doesn't exist!

anger
I have come to recognise over time that there seems to be some anger associated with
moving through the transition curve, especially in the earlier stages as we start to
recognise the wider implications of change. This is not always present as it seems to be
depending on the amount of control people feel they have over the overall process and
the focus of the anger changes over time. In the first instance, for those where change
is 'forced' on them, the anger appears to be directed outward at other people. They are
'blamed' for the situation and for causing stress to the individual etc. However, as time
progresses and the implications grow greater for the individual the anger moves
inwards and there is a danger that this drives us into the 'Guilt' and 'Depression' stages.
We become angry at ourselves for not knowing better and/or allowing the situation to
escalate outside our control.

complacency
It has also been suggested that there is also actually a final (initial stage?) of
Complacency (King 2007). Here people have survived the change, rationalised the
events, incorporated them into their new construct system and got used to the new
reality. This is where we feel that we have, once again, moved into our 'comfort zone'
and that we will not encounter any event that is either outside our construct system (or
world view) or that we can't incorporate into it with ease. We know the right decisions
and can predict future events with a high degree of certainty. They are subsequently
laid back, not really interested in what's going on around them and coasting through
the job almost oblivious to what is actually happening around them. They are, again,
operating well within their comfort zone and in some respects can't see what all the
fuss has been about. Even though the process may have been quite traumatic for them
at the time!
so what?.. (a brief summary of the 2012 transition
theory)
It can be seen from the transition curve that it is important for an individual to
understand the impact that the change will have on their own personal construct
systems; and for them to be able to work through the implications for their self
perception. Any change, no matter how small, has the potential to impact on an
individual and may generate conflict between existing values and beliefs and anticipated
altered ones.
To help people move through the transition effectively we need to understand their
perception of the past, present and future. What is their past experience of change and
how has it impacted on them?, how did they cope? Also what will they be losing as part
of the change and what will they be gaining?
Therefore the goal of the 'manager'/change agent is to help make the transition as
effective and painless as possible. By providing education, information, support, etc. we
can help people transition through the curve and emerge on the other side.
One of the dangers for individuals is that once we are caught up in the emotion of the
change we may miss the signs (e.g., of threat, anxiety, etc) in ourselves and others.
This could cause us to react by, or adopt a coping strategy of, complaining to anyone
who will listen, and probably anyone who won't! Or we attempt to make things as they
were (which also increase our stress levels as a result) and actively resist any attempts
to change us.
I would argue that we transit through all stages (although the old caveat of some of
these stages may be extremely quickly traversed and not consciously recognisable
applies). In the main we will progress through all the phases in a linear or sequential
way (although we may move in either direction as circumstances change throughout.
Each stage builds on the last stage and incorporates any learning (positive and
negative) from our experience.
So we can see that our perception of the situation could be escalating in 'severity' of
impact and importance to our sense of self as we go through the phases. We descend
into the trough of depression via a small impact on our sense of self (anxiety), speed up
through a greater realisation of impact and meaning (fear, threat) and then comes the
realisation that (potentially) our core sense of self has been impacted and our 'self
belief system' undermined to a large extent (guilt, depression) which contradicts who
we thought we were.
Now if someone is going through multiple transitions at the same time; these could
have a cumulative impact on them as individuals. As people could being going through
all the different transitions almost simultaneously - it then becomes a case of more and
more 'evidence' all of which is supporting previous negative a rapidly dropping self
confidence and increasingly negative self image which just compounds the problem. We
end up similar to the 'frozen rabbit in the headlights not knowing which way to turn'!.
As with any personal transformation, there are no clear boundaries to any of these
stages. It is more of a gradual realisation that things have subtly changed. On a
personal note my mother had a major stroke some years ago that has left her
incapacitated down one side; over the succeeding years I've noticed that our
benchmark of how we see her has gradually lowered over time - the 'highs' are lower
and the good days less good - but, as in many walks of life, they become the new
norm.
With your teams, it is more a case of helping people through the process as effectively
as possible. Also as each person will experience transition through the curve at slightly
different speeds (and, as I mentioned earlier, we may be at different places on different
curves - depending on just what is happening to us at the time).
Much of the speed of transition will depend on the individual's self perception, locus of
control, and other past experiences, and how these all combine to create their
anticipation of future events. The more positive you see the outcome, the more control
you have (or believe you have) over both the process and the final result the less
difficult and negative a journey you have.
John Fisher, Process of Personal Transition, 2012.