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Cycle Of AcceptanceThe
Cycle of Acceptance
is a predictable cycle that most people and organizations go throughupon receipt of very bad news. Entering it is nearly unavoidable upon receipt of very bad news.How long it takes a person or organization to complete the cycle is critical. The longer they arein it, the less likely they will ever fully complete the cycle, and the less likely they will be able todeal with the problem wisely.Study the Cycle of Acceptance Diagram closely. The key steps are easily memorized. They are:A. DenialB. AngerC. DepressionD. BargainingE. AcceptanceAsk yourself, if my environmental organization suddenly found out it had been following thewrong problem solving process for decades, would that throw the organization into the Cycle of Acceptance?It probably would, because that is exactly what has happened with the organizations I've workedwith so far, as of May 2006. All have exhibited either denial and/or anger immediately. Forexample, here is what a mid-level manager of a major environmental organization had to say tome, after reading part one of the manuscript to
 Analytical Activism
. The manager has an MBAand thus should perhaps not be so easily led astray:"I realize from your perspective that the environmental movement might look like a failure andour approaches irrational; however from my perspective it does not. It is a work in progress that Iam delighted to participate in. There have been and continue to be many successes, some smalland some major. Because you are working outside of the movement and are at home, you do notsee the progress. You see the failures because they are more widely reported."This is denial. Here's what the top executive of the same organization, which has over 300employees, wrote me, after reading the same material:
"…an
organization like the [name of organization] is unlikely
to embrace an entire newapproach at once
,
however valid 
. I think you and your colleagues will feel less frustrated, andwill make more rapid progress, if you seek to influence the ongoing dialogues on various issueswithin the [name of organization] as well as offering your own
entirely new approach
. …this is
an organization that often responds better to
a series of coordinated, incremental nudges
than to
a big, bold, new idea
."However carefully worded this may be, it is also denial. But it gets worse. The same person, afterthe majority of their members' delegates voted for "a new way of thinking" at a nationalconvention, wrote me:
 
"I guess I really couldn't tell you what the vote for a new way of thinking meant -- it came out of the blue for me and was not expected. But I do think it indicates that people are open to newapproaches -- but I did hear from several people that your proposal struck them as overlycomplex and difficult to implement in a grass-roots organization so you may want to try to createa much simpler presentation -- you may be losing people in the details."
Step A: Denial
- This is more
denial
. The executive is clearly rejecting the new way of thinkingthat his own organization wants and the new approaches I have offered as well. In both passages,he justifies his position with a rationalization. In the first passage it is that I am not followingproper channels or "ongoing dialogues." In the second passage the rationalization is that my"proposal" is "overly complex and difficult to implement." Neither is true, because as anexperienced business consultant I have seen a completely different reaction from businessmanagers to similar documents and face to face discussions of mine. Their reaction to the badnews of a poor assessment, presented with alternatives on how to improve, was to eagerly acceptthe bad news and move right into discussing how to best pursue the alternatives to improvement.
Step B: Anger
- And then there is anger. The day one mid level environmental organizationmanager read an analysis of mine that pointed out that organization was failing to achieve itsobjectives and offered a better way, that person called me up and proceeded to scold me forabout 40 minutes. In their opinion, I didn't know enough about their organization to say what Isaid, and I should not say it anyhow, because it had not been agreed upon by them, and they'vebeen having problems and are aware of them, and how do you get volunteers to do anythinganyhow, and so on. They were so angry the phone just about melted in my hand. Whenever Itried to say anything, I was quickly interrupted. I've never had a call like this before, so we havedefinitely touched a raw nerve. But this is a known phenomenon. It is the anger stage of theCycle of Acceptance. Anger directed toward the bearer of bad news is known as shooting themessenger,which is a type of  ad hominem argument.
Step D: Depression
- The depression step for organizations is similar to depression for people,who withdraw into their own world. This is similar to the way some organizations start to keepas much as possible secret, or do lots of work internally and little externally, so as to avoidconfrontation and criticism, and to create a sense of importance and self-worth. There is a lot of dysfunctional behavior associated with depression in people and organizations. It takes manyforms. Basically it seems to be avoidance of the truth, so that the truth is less painful.
Step D: Bargaining
- In the bargaining step an organization starts to question itself, such as:"Maybe this bad news has some truth to it, don't you think? What might happen if it was true? Idon't think we should be embarrassed that we failed in the past. It was a tough problem. But youknow, I would be even more embarrassed if we failed to see that maybe this bad news is in someway good news. For example, this assessment that shows why we have done such a poor job forthe last several decades seems to have a few valid points. It's not all wrong. I think that maybewe should at least take a look at some of the things in it that may be true."
Step E: Acceptance
- Bargaining leads to the acceptance step. Basically, acceptance in thebusiness world means admitting that you made a mistake or an undesirable situation is not goingto go away, or both. Extremely mature managers and organizations arrive at the acceptance step
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