Reader Contribution: CHANGE... #F&%k it’s difficult...
Why real change hurts more than we expect - and why that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening
One of the things I want to do more of in 2026 is showcase writing from within the Bearly Politics community. This first contribution comes from La Reine des Metaphores. In December we had an exchange about transformation and change management that really intrigued me and made me really think, and La Reine generously agreed to share her thinking in full here. Please feel free to follow her on BlueSky.
If you feel like you have something to say, please feel free to email your idea to iratusursusmajor@gmail.com.
Once upon a time as my day job, I supported teams through non-negotiable organisational change, while more recently, I worked as an at-depth leadership coach giving support to people usually in the context of change.
With that context in mind, and given that the Labour government was elected on a change ticket, over the last 18 months I’ve been pondering change models I’m familiar with, and watching them play out. One that I particularly have in mind is based on the Kübler-Ross curve that was developed as a way of understanding people’s reactions to death (hey ho) and to bereavement. It’s been adjusted and tinkered with over the years by numerous change practitioners, including me.
Most people might be familiar with the denial resistance bit at the beginning of the curve, and, looking back to July 2024 it struck me that for many who voted Labour, the denial bit of the curve was not seeing just how difficult it was going to be to undo the damage of 14 years of Tory. The Prime Minister even said as much in his Rose Garden speech1.
But, given this is a process, off we go down the curve. So much anger. So much blame... because “Change! Hasn’t !Happened !Yet!”, however much people wanted it to materialise, accompanied by whiz bangs and a firework display. Unfortunately, the reality is that miracles never were on the agenda, and, understandably, people are saying “we didn’t buy into difficult, we bought into that magic wand, that unicorn and for some, that snake oil.
So that’s what the “Tarzan swing” is about; not wanting the pain of moving slowly, but securely to a solid, righteous change but jumping towards quicker, probably populist fixes, swinging towards integration without going into...
Oh crap.
The Pit.
The reality is that change processes can get stuck here for aeons. It is the most uncomfortable place to be during times of change, and if there were easy ways to avoid it, we likely would never be in it. Therapists and coaches can go round and round a pit with clients without even getting close because it isn’t bloody safe in there. But, for change to stick well there is no choice but to go through it.... there is no cavalry, which is kind of depressing. We ask ourselves: “What’s the point of all this? Were things better as they were, even though we hated them? At least we could complain!”
Of course, there are multifarious “Getting Out of The Pit” strategies, but before we can even experiment with them, we first have to accept that everyone’s pit-pain is different. For governments, the strategy can’t be one size fits all, because it really doesn’t fit all, and no amount of Tarzan swinging will make the pit go away.
So a good government has to make a best guess as to what is going to work for the majority of people and not just for the people who voted for them and the ones who are committed to agendas and missions and manifestos, but also those people who will benefit even though they may have voted elsewhere and with intent. Even though they may be wedded to whatever the MSM and dodgy social media has been feeding them.
A supervisor I worked with coined “the pit” as a concept. His take was that this is the place where we meet the dark side, and that we have to name it.
So, when a leader is accused of siding with the higher ups, rather than listening to their people (or the other way round), or when a government is accused of pandering to racists, or centrists, or woke lefties, this, in therapy terms, is shadow work; it is our shadow, whether we like it or not.
And to support people though this?
How about making a safe space to sit with it, listening, respecting, nourishing, experimenting, asking: “How might a good government do this? How might a good government have done this?”
Which brings me to another model called “The Paradox of Change” as in “things can’t change until you’re aware of what is”. This is another therapeutic approach, but what I would like to suggest is that there is a refusal to accept the mess that we inherited by those who were complicit in creating the mess in the first place. The media, who ideally might be supporting and soothing, are throwing sand into the gears, keeping people stuck in the pit, selling snake oil as balm and generally patting themselves on the back all the way to the bank.
But there are other pit strategies that may be easier to accept without them being fairy dust.
One is the skateboard analogy - if you imagine you are at the bottom of the curve and want to get out the other side, sometimes you have to go backwards at pace to generate enough momentum to escape and keep doing so until ideally, moving up and out. Or do a u-turn… or even several u-turns.
Perhaps the rhetoric is heading the up and out way. From some, maybe?
Others are dragging us back up in the other direction and the skateboard carries on doing its thing, whilst the fourth estate also persists and persists.
This puts me in mind of a time that I was talking with a whole tribe2 of change practitioners; one quoted Maya Angelou’s “people will never forget how you made them feel”.
If people are constantly encouraged to listen only to the siren voices of Tarzan-Swing-Merchants, how are they going to feel when the unicorns they demanded aren’t here yet?
The good news though is that there is a change of vibe when a change process finally escapes the dark side and moves into the acceptance phase, which includes all the old metaphors of green shoots of recovery. Conversely, this also can be a “there be dragons“ point, so be sure to expect surprises, experiments, unanticipated explosions and even (whisper it) leadership challenges.
For leaders, change theory screams at them to communicate like their lives depend on it. They are expected to be prepared and flexible, but, paradoxically, to hold their nerve, take no shit and hang on to the reason for making the change in the first place.
None of this is especially comfortable, but, staying the course might still be better than going back, and we also want to ask ourselves:
Do we really want to go back to the old place?
Like hell we don’t.
Acknowledgement to Keri Phillips RIP for his work on the Transition Curve and the Shadow.
Whether that was the best thing to say, and whether we needed to hear it at that time is debatable.
Editor Note: I can confirm that this is an acceptable collective noun for a group of change practitioners.
Thank you Bear, that is so interesting and it has given me hope!
The change will come, just as long as the government can hold their nerve. I think Mr Starmer will be able to do this.