[MUSIC]
So Ollie, with your workplace experience of change going through
as you've been in the workplace.
What examples have you got to share with us?
>> This example is actually the first time I ever came across
Kubler-Ross's Change Curve.
So, in a previous role, it was one of the biggest
system changes I'd ever been part of.
So, in a nutshell it was replacing an old archaic system.
With something that everyone was led to believe would completely
change the way we dealt with our customers.
I was a team leader at that time.
So everything seemed to be very much planned meticulously,
from balloons on day of launch and all of that sort of thing.
>> [LAUGH] >> But I'll just say,
the first time I came across this change curve and
its sort of pure theory was in one of the early Paul Hans courses.
because the system had gone live and it didn't work.
And it was causing all sorts of problems.
So rather than being the thing that was supposed to say.
It was very much a case of this has actually caused a lot more work and
a lot of problems for whatever reasons.
And we went through the change curve and about where our people were sitting.
And I guess the thing that came out for me is that while
the pure theory of it is sound and very interesting.
I think there was also the real world factor that, well, I don't know.
What am I going to achieve as a manager of people,
briefing people on this change curve when they're tired.
They're probably not very happy that they've been
given a system that doesn't work.
And the impact that's had on them, on sort of the customer base.
And, the fact that it made for unhappy customers which make for unhappy people.
>> Gosh. That is quite a scenario.
Because what we've seen from Ollie's situation.
Is a change that was set up as being what we call a transformational change.
So make a huge difference to the way things are done from state
one to state two.
So having the old system to the new system.
And what we can see is, from the situation that we've just heard about,
the unfreeze stage of Lewin's framework.
So getting everybody ready for
the change itself doesn't seem to have gone quite to plan.
If we look at Kotter's framework where you create a sense of urgency.
You give a compelling vision for what the future would look like.
Well, I guess you could say that there was a compelling vision given at the outset of
what the future would look like.
>> Yeah. >> It just didn't turn out like that.
>> Certainly not at the early stages, no.
>> [LAUGH] No, it didn't go quite to the compelling vision that
perhaps Kotter's framework would have hoped according to that framework.
And then of course we have got the application of Kubler-Ross's framework.
So the individuals within that particular organization.
Because they were sold a transformational change that was there to make
their workplace better, a better place to be.
From the old equipment that they were using and
the processes that they were using to underpin the work they did.
To a new world underpinned by much more modern, faster, more reliable technology.
But it didn't work on day one.
So you have the situation there if you look at Kubler-Ross.
Where you've already got the initial anger, denial, distrust.
That was almost reinforced by the fact that the unfreeze stage.
And the creating this sense of a compelling vision of what it would
look like.
It just didn't work.
So, the example that we've just heard is an example
of failure in organizational transformational change.
But we also know that there are very few
organizations that manage change effectively.
So, in the battle for longer term organizational survival,
failed change is quite frequent.
Perhaps if we pause to think about why that might be so,
there are some clear pitfalls right at the outset.
Because you're going to have this level of employee resistance and
perhaps denial and perhaps anger.