The Change Curve is a popular concept right now as everyone around the world finds both their work and personal lives changed and we collectively try to deal with the unknowns of Covid-19. For those that prefer a quick overview, the change curve (or five stages of grief) are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Depression
- Bargaining
- Acceptance
In the group that I work with, I think 50% of people are still in stage 1, 20% in stage 2, 20% in stage 3, and the rest split between 4 and 5. The vast majority of people still do not seem to believe that there is something different happening that will prevent them from returning to their normal life for a while.
I’m finding the hardest of these stages to work through for most is the shift from denial to anger. In what would normally be a casual conversation, some get irrationally angry at the concept that they cannot return to their office with everything back to normal next week. Anger is an acceptable emotion sometimes. It’s good to be angry when politicians act without justification or governments act unilaterally without proper authority. It’s not healthy to react angrily because you are asked to wear a mask to protect public health.
It can be a struggle to remember that Covid-19 is not just something affecting the world, it is also a very personal situation for all of us. We do not know what home situations someone finds themselves in. We cannot know the extended impact that someone is experiencing. There are many, many situations that bleed over from one aspect of life into the others that can make it hard to track why a person is responding unexpectedly to something seemingly unrelated.
We all need to realize that patience is a virtue that we should adopt whenever and wherever we can. We are all in this situation together for better or worse, regardless of political or social or professional affiliations. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to forgive and forget as we help our friends and colleagues through their personal change curve.
Stay safe everyone.