Five Steps for Effective Change from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of Grief

First, a little backstory: OHM has been hosting a series of Lunch & Learn workshops on the topic, Reengineering Municipal Government. These workshops involve a panel of speakers from different areas of government, along with a few policy and economic experts thrown in the mix. Each workshop session has included different speakers to bring a wide range of advice and experience to attendees.

Except for one constant. Charlie Fleetham, president of Project Innovations, a management and consulting firm for government and business, has been a speaker at every Reengineering Municipal Government workshop. Why the same guy, over and over? Because Charlie's message relating the decline of manufacturing in southeast Michigan to the Five Stages of Grief makes a lot of sense to municipal leaders in the midst of an economic revolution.

In Fleetham's talk, A Region Coping with Transitions, he says that what is happening in the region (the rust belt), is a death. It's the death of a way of life, of a 100 year period of economic prosperity. A period that is not likely to return anytime soon. Fleetham advocates that leaders use psychology to help colleagues, staff members and citizens move through the grieving process. "Humans have to react to change in an orderly fashion - first feeling, then thinking and finally acting. We've been short-circuiting the feeling process."

Fleetham recommends that municipal leaders follow five steps to effective change:

1. It's psychology stupid. If you don't understand the psychology of change, your job as a leader gets even tougher, if not impossible.

2. Job 1 is naming the challenge - it's a Long Emergency or an Economic Hurricane or a Fiscal Pandemic. People need an emotional hanger for their fears. Please note: one thing it is not is a "structural change."

3. Hope is a necessary poison! Give too much hope and you feed a fantasy...give too little hope and you feed depression.

4. It's a big lifeboat, but some people are going to try to throw you off in the panic. Build your team and defend it!

5. When it comes to saving money, we are all elephant hunters now. Don't get caught squirrel hunting!

Here's a graphic that explains the stages of grief.

Reengineering Municipal Government - Five Stages to Effective Change

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