Eat, Pray, Love

An Idea for Change Management Approach in Everyday Life

I was in the middle of the movie ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, starring the beautiful Julia Roberts as Liz Gilbert, a woman going through major changes in her life, when a line in the movie strike me – pain is a way of transformation – then it hit me that the movie is actually can be consider as an approach to change management in a person daily life. 

It seems somehow make sense to me,  that a person and an organization, can have its own approach on change management, and it might be interesting to take a deeper look at the movie from a rather different angle and to reflect to a change management approach that is widely known.

In the movie, Liz Gilbert, having been through several major events in her life, a rough divorce followed by a break up with her boyfriend, found out to her self that she need to spend time to rediscover herself, she then plan a series of activities until end of  the year to help her somehow to be able to do just that.

The series of activities were, eat – this is where she travel to Italy, meet the different people and try the different Italian culinary delight, pray – where she travel to an ashram in India and found that she can forgive herself and then start up again, and love ­­– where she traveled to the Island of God, Bali, and start finding herself loving the people she met in Bali, Ketut the guru and wise-man, Wayan and Tutti, the medicine lady and her child, and Felipe, the new romance in her life.

The Change Curve

The journey in Liz life, somehow to me can be reflected to the journey that any organization and/or project team might encounter in the course of time.  That due to sudden changes that occur, an organization or project team might need to rediscover it self again, aim for its new goal and then if required transform a certain aspect in the organization to be able to adjust, and work to achieve the new goal.

The widely known Change Management approach, The Change Curve, consists of 4 stages/phases that most people and/organization will react to when they are going through changes.

The Change Curve is a popular and powerful model used to understand the stages of personal transition and organizational change. It helps you understand how people will react to change, so that you can help them make their own personal transitions, and make sure that they have the help and support they need.

When a change is first introduced, people's initial reaction may be shock or denial. This is stage 1 of the Change Curve.

Once the reality of the change starts to hit, people tend to react negatively and move to stage 2 of the Change Curve. Some will wrongly fear the negative consequences of change. Others will correctly identify real threats to their position.

As a result, the organization experiences disruption which, if not carefully managed, can quickly spiral into chaos. This is  the critical moment in the change event.

For as long as people resist the change and remain at stage 2 of the Change Curve, the change will be unsuccessful, at least for the people who react in this way. This is a stressful and unpleasant stage. For everyone, it is much healthier to move to stage 3 of the Change Curve, where pessimism and resistance give way to some optimism and acceptance. 

Stage 4 is when people are committed to the change and start rebuilding towards the goal and purpose of the change.

Eat, Pray, Love and The Change Curve

Going back to Liz Gilbert eat-pray-love approach, I can reflect that to the Change Curve in the following. 

Eat – This phase of Liz journey might be equal to the stage 1 (Status quo) and a bit of stage 2 (Disruption) of the Change Curve, when Liz is not really facing and confronting the change, and instead keep her self occupied with all the activities in Italy, although in the end of the Italy journey, it become more apparent to Liz that she needs to start accepting the change.

Pray –The second phase of Liz journey correlate very much to the stage 2 (Disruption) and stage 3 (Exploration) of the Change Curve.  The Ashram journey in India for Liz was started with fear and confusion that ended up with Liz being able to forgive her self and accept all the events and changes that are occurring in her life.

Love – The journey that Liz conducted to Bali relate a lot with the stage 4 (Rebuilding) of the Change Curve.  This is the time where Liz is starting to explore the different possibilities that she have in her life, building a new relationship and also working with her fear to be able to start a new commitment in her life.

Ketut, the Bali guru and wise-man also said to Liz an advice to help her move forward.  The advice was “sometimes to loose balance for love, is a part of living a balanced life”.

I was translating Ketut’s word as – sometimes every organization may need to go through a difficult change process to be able to grow and achieve new visions and goals, and this is a part of being a successful organization.

Ketut indeed, is a wise man.

@January 11, 2011, http://meja-tulis.blogspot.com

Reference:

- Elizabeth Gilbert Official Site: http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/eatpraylove.htm

- Eat. Pray, Love - Official Movie Site: http://www.eatpraylove-movie.net/

- MindTools.com – Using the Change Curve: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_96.htm