In this Irreverent Bold Unfiltered podcast episode, Christophe Bodin introduces the Kübler‑Ross grief model as a practical tool for managing organizational change, renaming it the "drag curve" and framing it in four quadrants: Denial, Resistance, Exploration, Commitment (D‑R‑E‑C). He explains how employee performance typically rises in denial, then drops sharply as resistance peaks, before climbing again during exploration and commitment. Bodin stresses that in large‑scale transformations, individuals move through the curve at different paces, so leaders must continuously assess where people are—using techniques like anonymous post‑it mapping. He outlines concrete leader actions for each stage: face‑to‑face information and alignment in denial; reassurance in resistance; coaching and support in exploration; celebration and reward in commitment. He also warns that change inevitably involves a dip (depression) and advises compressing the curve without forcing people into deep depression, while recognizing that multiple change initiatives can overlap, creating interacting curves. The episode concludes with a call for leaders to spend sustained time with their teams throughout the change journey.
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All right. Thanks to one of you during a coaching session asked me, hey, Christophe, is there any tool that you really use for the most part of your career? Yes. Not even half a second after, I could answer. Let me introduce you to the Kübler-Ross curve applied to business change. Kübler-Ross was a psychiatrist. And she, in the late '60s, she described how people go through grievance and the phenomenon of grief after losing somebody very close to them. And actually, people realize very, very quickly that people go through that curve, yes, during grievance. but also facing any change in their personal and professional life. I was introduced to that late '90s and I've been using it. Performance is here. Time is there. And we're going to talk about what's happening here. All right, part 2. So, what people feel as they go through the curve. So, we start here denying, we're not going to do that. We're not going to really do it, right? Then they go to anger. What a waste of time and money. How much do these stupid consultants cost? Bargaining. Hey, if they do that, I'm out of here. I'm going to resign if they keep doing— then they reach the bottom. Depression. This really is happening and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm going to stop doing stuff. Acceptance. Well, let's explore. Let's think about it. Maybe there's something in it for me. Then eventually moving on. Actually, this new setup is better than the old. And I can see how it can make a difference for me. People are going through all of that. Part 3 is you can really divide the curve in 4 squares here. D, denial. R, resistance. E, exploration. C, commitment. That's also why I call it the drag curve, not the Kobler-Ross curve only. And really, it's really, really a thing that you need to think about is that in denial, Performance starts to go up. And as people realize that the change is still coming, it goes down in performance, hitting the bottom here as they go through resistance, the highest point of resistance. And then, they start to explore. We started digging up here into commitment. People can get stuck in denial. Either they move or they have to go. People, once in commitment, don't go back. But people here in resistance and exploration can go back and forth. They can And it's really hard because basically performance is going down. Part 4, why does it matter, is that I think this is for one person. When you manage a big change where there's multiple thousands of people potentially impacted, not everybody's going at the same pace, right? But nobody's going to go from here to there straight. Everybody's going to go through the curve. So, as you think about the change, Think about everybody and where they are in the curve. I used to do an exercise where people are putting Post-its on where they think they are on the curve, of course, anonymous. And it's very, very interesting because people are all along the curve. Yes, it goes here. The boss is going to be mad at you because you did the change because you want to be here. But first, it gets worse before it gets better. It's unavoidable. You're going to be under high pressure, but it's to get there. You want to get to that better stage, right? As I said earlier, don't forget, people are going back and forth in the curve. How do we help them going through the curve? All right. So, I think we are part 5 on how we help people going through the curve. When people are in denial, it's time to inform. It's time to align. It's not time for one-to-many. If you want to move people along the curve as they're in denial, It's face-to-face, right? Once people are starting to get into resistance, it's reassure them. That's okay. I know what you— how you feel. And I'm going to help you going through it. I know you feel depressed. But it's not against the past. The past was okay. But you had to move on. And if you had people that are already in commitment, get them as champion and helping you moving people along the resistance part of the curve. Exploration, it's all about applying. Guide, coach, support, give time. It takes time. And never forget, people can go back. So, it's really, really critical time. And in commitment, celebrate, reward teamwork. Put people in, people with here, and they're going to move them along. That's how you help people getting through that change. All right. If I go back to the curve here to finish in this part, that's the last part. Think about it. If you squeeze a curve, the depression point is going down. So, Change takes time. You want to go as fast as possible from here to there, but you'll have to give people time. Try to compress without going to the full depression. Never forget, it gets better before here. So, don't assume that, hey, I need to maintain the status quo because it's working. No, it's not. It's going to drop down. People go back and forth. Yes, they do. And this is why you really, really need to spend The most time with people every year. Go here, you don't need to take care of them because they're already committed. And lastly, think about you have multiple curves. Business is all about multiple changes, so they go and interact, overlap between them. Thank you.
