Change Is a Form of Loss: leading people through transition.

Transcript

Through these transitions, what do we need to do as leaders, as managers? Number one, we acknowledge loss. Change, for a lot of people, is a form of loss. It's grievance: we're grieving something that's gone. And you might be thinking, what if it's changing the coffee in the staff room? Yes, still the same. People are losing what they had in the past. If you go back to that SCARF model, what did the C stand for? Certainty. It's gone.

So we acknowledge the loss. We validate people's feelings about what has ended. We communicate consistently, providing frequent updates through that uncertain neutral zone, even if we don't know the answers, because if we don't give people answers, they fill the gap with whatever nonsense they can. We provide support. We'll go into support in a bit more detail, but that means coaching, training and resources: essentially, we want people to feel supported, not abandoned, during the period of transition. And we celebrate new successes as well, new beginnings.