How the 5 Stages of Grief Help Us to Understand Business Change

Martin Webster -

In Delivering Business Change—Where Is Your Sense of Urgency?, I used a simple model of change—denial, resistance, exploration, commitment—that is based on the conscious competence learning model. This has some similarities with the Lewis-Parker transition curve and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief model.

The 5 Stages of Grief

The following video clip, Sinking Feeling, sums up the 5 stages of grief perfectly (it also includes some adult humour.)

“Sinking Feeling”