The 7 Steps to Accepting Change and How They Apply to Business
When I, a young Japanese woman who had never lived, studied, or worked outside of Japan, moved to America to work as a sales representative, there was one thing that surprised me. It was the way in which people gave directions.
In Japan, if you ask how to get somewhere, you will be sent a map. If you look at a website, a map will be shown. For hotels as well, if you look at their home page, there will always be a map. Some are not just from Google Earth, but a properly prepared PDF which is easy to read even when printed, with the route from the nearest station marked with arrows, so that you cannot make a mistake. Incidentally, for my own company, we even show the route to the seminar room.
However, the directions I was sent by customers in America were in plain text. "Head south for so many miles on Route so-and-so, take a left at such-and-such Street, we're on the east side". For me, someone who was thoroughly used to the Japanese method of providing maps, this was a huge shock. It wasn't like I even owned a compass!
At first I felt this was terribly unfriendly, or that perhaps my way of asking directions was wrong; that surely nobody could figure out these directions, and that the other person was mistaken in providing directions this way. I also complained to those around me. I was traveling by car, but in those days there was no satellite navigation to rely on. However, according to the locals this was normal and familiar. None of them got lost when relying on such directions. Gradually I accepted that it was indeed possible to figure out the route with these sort of directions.
Accepting change: The seven steps
At this point, I remembered something. It was Professor Gordon Lippitt's "Seven Psychological Steps to Accepting Change". According to Professor Lippitt, when a person encounters change there are no fewer than seven stages they must pass through in order to accept change innovation. These stages are:
- Shock
- Disbelief
- Guilt (the feeling it must be their own fault)
- Projection (it must be the fault of someone else)
- Rationalization
- Integration
- Acceptance
Applying the seven steps to business
The change I encountered regarding the giving of directions was a small thing, but even so I realize I passed through these stages. When attempting to persuade others to accept change innovation, and the many changes that it brings, it is important that customers, clients, and employees reach the Acceptance stage as quickly as possible.
Or should innovation or reform not proceed to plan, it is vital to recognize at which stage you are stuck, and intervene accordingly in order to reach the stage where your customers, clients or employees can accept change innovation. You may at first be tempted to persuade people to change by relying on logic, but people are not moved by logic alone and, in fact, are more prone to be motivated by emotion than they realize. In order to implement innovation, it is necessary to pay attention to the psychology of all involved.
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