Page 258 - Managing Change in Organizations

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The coping cycle
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5
Denial Defence Discarding Adaptation Internalization

Self-esteem
Performance

Time
Figure 13.5 The coping cycle

but it did not work.’ ‘You will never make it work.’ Faced with the possibility of
changes, people will often find value in their present circumstances, often in
work situations which they would bitterly complain about at other times. That
this is paradoxical should not surprise us. Our actions are impelled by complex
and often contradictory motivations. Thus sales staff threatened with the clo-
sure of their store can defend their jobs with vigour, yet still believe fervently
that working conditions are poor. If major organizational changes come sud-
denly and dramatically then paralysis can often result. Adams et al. (1976) refer
to a kind of immobilization or a sense of being overwhelmed, of being unable
to reason, to plan, or even to understand what is going on. For the individual a
suddenly announced redundancy can have such an impact, but there is often a
longish period of gestation as ideas are discussed and the changes are planned.

If the changes are not particularly new or dramatic, and if there are obvious
opportunities for people, then this paralysis is felt less intensely. The tendency
to deny the validity of new ideas, at least initially, does seem to be a general
reaction, however. Built into this is the likelihood that self-esteem actually
increases in this first stage. The advantages of the present job are emphasized,
attachments to the job, the work group and valued skills are recognized. The
sense of being a member of a group subject to external threat can lead to
increased group cohesiveness. All this may lead to increased self-esteem. A sense
of euphoria can develop. We have shown performance to be stable, however. If
self-esteem does increase we would guess that performance would not improve,
either because the discussion of impending change can absorb energy or because
often there are systems in place which may hold back performance improvement
(payment systems, for example). If the change is dramatic, novel and traumatic
(say, involving a sudden job change or redundancy) then this stage can involve
an immediate decline in performance. Generally, however, there is a warning

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