Almost everyone is trying to change someone else. I bet that at this very moment, someone wishes you would change. Becuase change and adaptation are indispensable cognitive and strategic capabilities if we are to grow in self-leadership, my goal for you and I is to gain skills to increase our ‘ChangeAbility’ or Adaptive Intelligence. Adaptive Intelligence combines the concept of intelligence – the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills – with the specific focus on adaptation:
INTELLIGENCE (i.e. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills) x ADAPTATION = ChangeAbility
In this series we are exploring my ChangeAbility Progression Spectrum or CAPS, a continuum showing people’s 10 ten resistance levels to change. So far we’ve seen:
- Antagonism and
- Aversion
- Avoidance and
- Apathy.
Today we will address the next two levels, Apprehension and Acknowledgement.
5. Apprehension: During this stage, you have a clear shift away from outright resistance. You clearly understand that change is necessary but experience intense emotions of unease or anxiety about what needs to happen, the process of change, and maybe even the results thereof. William Bridges, in his work, Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change explains that there is a recognition of the impending change, but also a fear of its implications, potential difficulties, or personal impact. At this stage you must prepare to field questions and concerns. The person may say things like, “I didn’t say I’m going, but tell me more about who will be there,” indicating interest mingled with indecision. Two things needed to support people at this level are:
- reassurance and
- clarity
Honesty on your part at this stage is paramount as you are setting the stage for trust in the future. If you breed mistrust at this level for the sake of coercion, you jeopardize your chances of future success. It is wiser to be honest with phrases like, “I don’t have that information,” than to make things up.
6. Acknowledgment: This is a crucial turning point where the reality and necessity of change are formally recognized and comprehended. The person or group may not be gang ho about the change and apprehension may still exist Nonetheless there’s an intellectual understanding that the current state is unsustainable or suboptimal, and that some form of change is inevitable, according to Kurt Lewin, in Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Social Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change. At this stage encourage:
- data analysis
- discussions, and
- a shared understanding of the problem.
Most people and groups are happy to stop at this level of buy-in. While this is sufficient for most situations, we will see in the next two posts that the needle has a few more pertinent steps to go yet that will bring about dynamic and progressive change.
CTA:
- Share what changes have brought you apprehension.
- Share what changes you tried to bring and how they brought apprehension in someone else or in a group.
- Share an experience you had of being in the acknowledgement stage.
- Share an experience you had with people being at the acknowledgement stage of a change you were trying to bring about.