Personal Transition through Change

Organisations don't just change because of new systems, processes or structures. They change because the people within the organisation adapt and change too. Only when the people within it have made their own personal transitions can an organisation truly reap the benefits of change.

The Personal Transition through Change curve is widely used in business and change management. This tool is extensively used in all sizes of organisations across the world to understand the emotional pathway that people go through when they experience any change.

John M. Fisher is the Chartered Psychologist who researched and developed the Personal Transition through Change curve. He presented at the Tenth International Personal Construct Congress, Berlin, 1999, and subsequently developed in his work on constructivist theory in relation to service provision organisations at Leicester University, England.

See if you can relate to these steps:

Anxiety – You don’t really know what’s going to hap­pen next, and you aren’t sure what any change will really look like at this point.

Happiness – You’ve committed to the change, and you are feeling really good about it.

Anger – Some anger and frustration is directed at others, especially those who you believe are responsible for forcing the change.  At a later stage, this is directed at yourself with feelings of guilt for not having coped as well as you believe you could have.

Despair – You may feel confused and apathetic and really start to wonder who you are.

Other pathways on the curve are:

Denial - where you deny that any change is occurring at all

Disillusionment  - where you decide that the change does not fit with your value system and you decide to have nothing more to do with it.

Hostility - where you show aggression towards yourself and others and the change, in general.

John explains how he came to develop the change curve and how he uses it in his work in an exclusive Ei4Change podcast.

You can listen to the full podcast through iTunes or on the Ei4Change website.

Copies of the Personal Transition through Change curve can be downloaded free of charge, along with other free resources on the Ei4Change Resources page.

Introduction to DISC Personality Assessments

Everyone should be treated with care and respect. Whilst people are different, everyone has a value with special strengths and qualities. People very rarely set out to cause upset - they just behave differently. That’s because they are different.

Personality assessments are useful tools that can give some interesting insights into these differences around motivation, management style, communication, relationship building, etc.

The theories that underpin personality assessments are surprisingly easy to understand at a basic level. There are many different personality and motivational models and theories, and each one offers a different perspective.

One of the most widely used, well respected and highly developed models is based on the theories of Dr William Moulton Marston, from his book Emotions of Normal People (1928). His ideas have been developed by researchers at the University of Minnesota into a robust, validated assessment tool known as DISC.

The DISC model presents a series of four main descriptions (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance).

Dominance = Results driven - strategic planning and action towards identified aims - tends to be outspoken.

Influence = Influence, persuasion, affability - communication and people skills - tends to be extraverted.

Steadiness = Steadiness and process - routine, dependability, reliability, credibility, trustworthy - tends to be team-orientated.

Compliance = Compliant with rules, proven principles, detail, accuracy - tends to be introverted.

Most people have a dominant or preferred main type, plus one or two supporting types in different degrees, which are dependent upon the individual and the situation.  The main characteristics of their dominant or preferred type are displayed allowing for recognition of a broad range of generalised behaviours.

DISC testing instruments assess people's strongest or preferred type and their supporting types from the four available.   The results are represented on a series of graphs and personality descriptions based upon the mixture of the types.

Once identified and recognised, each type can be seen to react differently in a given situation, to work with tasks in their own way and to engage with people in different ways.  There is no right or wrong type, the important point is that each type has differing strengths and liabilities.

The research and development over the years means that DISC can give valuable insights into predicting behaviour in the workplace and behaviour under pressure. In recruitment, DISC can provide very valuable compliment to the interview process.

This article can only give a very quick overview of the tool. To find out more you can enrol for free in my class Behavioural Styles and Teamwork on Skillshare using this link - http://skl.sh/1OVbIF2

The best way to get a clear understanding of your own profile is to take the assessment provided by a reputable, respected company. From this you can see what the assessment shows and how it can support you as part of a recruitment process or in your personal and management development. If this is of interest to you, please get in touch at robin@ei4change.org.uk

TetraMap - a simple, yet effective, team building tool.

Within our workshops we help people to become more aware of their behaviours and how these impact upon other people.  We are accredited to use a wide variety of assessments, including Myers Briggs Type Indicator and DISC, but one is very quick to gain the insights in training workshops and is very straightforward to use.  It is called TetraMap; a tool for assessing behaviour that looks how you typically behave at work and how this is perceived by others.

TetraMap uses the metaphor of nature around four basic elements: Earth, Air, Water and Fire.  You have these four elements inside you, but one (sometimes two) is your preferred behaviour style.  Behaviour can change; you can adapt.  But do you know how you typically behave?

TetraMap is a very effective training tool.  Each person receives a booklet which contains a self-assessment exercise that helps identify which behaviours used most – and those used least.  Examples of these might be: decisiveness, generating ideas or looking for harmony.  You are asked to rank these in order, from those that represent you the most and those that represent you the least. 

Analysing your answers gives four different numbers or values that indicate your preferred elements.
This process only takes about 5 minutes.  In the workshops, people discover their own profile and those of their colleagues by everyone mapping their profiles onto one chart.  From this, it can be seen that there may be a high tendency in the group towards one element giving an indication of how the group behaves as a whole.  For example, planning and process driven ‘Air’may be high and enthusiastic, creative ‘Fire’ quite low and there may be a few ‘Earth’ dominant individuals who stand out.  The behaviour of the group may be due to do the industry / sector that they work in and the background of the participants.  This can be an eye opener for the group and we can explore the consequences that this can have on the performance of the group and the individuals involved.  Feedback from delegates is that this is really fascinating.

Next, we split the workshop into four groups according to their highest element to explore what the typical behaviours are of this element:

• What are the do’s and don’ts?
• How do you like to be communicated with?
• How do you not want to be approached?
• Which strengths do you bring to the team?
• How do you behave under pressure?

There is always a lot of fun and laughter during this exercise as people gain a better understanding of themselves and each other.

TetraMap is a good way of helping people to open up - especially for participants who may not have been enthusiastic about attending the workshop.  They see that the workshop is about them and their colleagues, and not about the trainer at the front of the room.

The main message is that behaviour is observed and that this behaviour can be changed; it is not about putting people into a box, giving them a label or a series of meaningless letters.  The beauty of TetraMap is that it is not about personality type or traits - it is focused around behaviour.  People grow within their business and in their positions and so their elements can change.

The TetraMap tool can be linked to Myers Briggs Type Indicator, DISC and to other psychometric assessments.  TetraMap is NOT a psychometric; it is a framework for exploring behaviour and communication.  We like it because it so easy use, easy to understand and easy to remember.

TetraMap can also be used on a large scale within a company, so that it becomes a common theme throughout the organisation.  We are involved in projects using TetraMap within the National Health Service involving senior managers, doctors, radiographers, learning and development managers, nursing staff, research workers, etc.  All report major benefits from its use, its application and its understanding within their daily work interactions and, also, outside of work.


Ei4Change are experts in providing TetraMap workshops so that you can easily understand your behaviour and that of your colleagues, which in turn leads to improved performance and better satisfaction.

If you want your teams to experience a really different style of workshop then talk to us.  For a case study from Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust click here