The Kübler-Ross change curve maps the 5 emotional stages people move through during change. Learn each stage and how to guide teams through it at work.
The Kübler-Ross change curve is a model that maps the emotional stages people move through when they face a major change: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Adapted from the five stages of grief described by psychiatrist Élisabeth Kübler-Ross, it is now widely used in change management to understand how employees react to transformation at work, and how to support them through it. It is one of several change management models that help managers guide their teams through change instead of against it.
Also called the change curve or grief curve, the model comes from the work of Swiss-American psychiatrist Élisabeth Kübler-Ross, who introduced the five stages in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. According to the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation, the stages were never meant to be a rigid, linear sequence: people move back and forth, skip stages, and experience them with different intensity.
When the model is applied to organizations, the curve plots morale and performance over time. It usually starts with a downward phase, where people focus on refusal and the past, and this is where resistance to change shows up. It then turns into an upward phase, where people adopt a productive attitude oriented toward the future.
The five stages are the result of more than 500 interviews carried out with terminally ill patients, conducted to understand how people perceive their own death. The model is therefore rooted in mourning for oneself, rather than the loss of a loved one. Élisabeth Kübler-Ross, ranked in 1999 among the 100 most important thinkers of the 20th century, noticed recurring emotional patterns (denial, anger, and so on) across these patients. Decades later, organizations adopted the same pattern to prepare employees for the changes that affect their work.
The change curve includes five core stages. They are not strictly linear, and people often revisit earlier ones. For each stage, what matters at work is knowing what the person feels and what actually helps them move forward.
What it is: the first reaction, where the person downplays or refuses the reality of the change. What people feel: shock, disbelief, and a sense that things will go back to normal. What helps: clear, frequent communication about what is changing and why.
What it is: as reality sets in, resistance and frustration emerge. What people feel: frustration, fear, and blame directed at leadership or circumstances. What helps: active listening and empathy, letting people voice concerns constructively.
"At first there was some distrust on their part. They were veterans, 57 or 58 years old, and they were afraid of losing their jobs. They would say: once our know-how is transferred into a new tool, anyone can do our job in our place."
Julien Martin, CIO of Flowbird, on the CIO Pioneers podcast, recalling the resistance his team faced during an ERP migration.
What it is: the person tries to negotiate or delay the change to soften its impact. What people feel: uncertainty, and a search for compromises or exceptions. What helps: clarifying expectations and giving people the skills they need to adapt.
What it is: the reality and permanence of the change fully sink in, often the lowest point of morale. What people feel: discouragement, low motivation, and feeling overwhelmed. What helps: one-on-one support, reassurance, and celebrating small wins to rebuild confidence.
What it is: the upward slope, where the person starts to embrace the new reality and experiment with it. What people feel: renewed confidence and the building of new routines. What helps: hands-on training, room to experiment, and visible proof of the long-term benefits.
Kübler-Ross originally described five stages. In change management, some practitioners extend the curve to seven by adding shock at the very start and a testing phase before acceptance. The underlying idea is the same: morale dips before it recovers, and the goal is to shorten the dip.
| 5-stage model (original) | 7-stage model (extended) |
|---|---|
| - | 1. Shock |
| 1. Denial | 2. Denial |
| 2. Anger | 3. Anger |
| 3. Bargaining | 4. Bargaining |
| 4. Depression | 5. Depression |
| - | 6. Testing |
| 5. Acceptance | 7. Acceptance |
Change triggers a wide range of emotions, and when they stay negative they slow down the individual and the whole team. Personality, history, and past experience all shape how someone reacts. Effective change leadership depends on meeting people where they are on the curve, then adapting communication, support, and training stage by stage. The faster a manager helps someone move from denial toward acceptance, the smaller the productivity dip.
Mapping a transformation onto the change curve gives managers a practical lens, not just a theory:
The model pairs well with structured frameworks such as ADKAR, which adds the concrete steps (awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement) that the change curve, on its own, does not prescribe.
Knowing the stages is not enough. The real challenge is shortening the downward phase and helping people reach acceptance faster. A few principles help:
Few changes test the curve like a new ERP, CRM, or HRIS. The pattern is familiar: at go-live, teams deny the old tool is really gone (denial), then push back as tasks take longer than before (anger and bargaining), and usage and data quality dip as frustration peaks (depression). Acceptance only arrives once people can complete their real work in the new system without friction.
This is where a digital adoption approach shortens the dip. Instead of relying on a one-off training session that fades, Lemon Learning guides employees directly inside the application, step by step, at the exact moment they hesitate. The new way stops feeling imposed and starts feeling supported, which is often what turns the downward phase into lasting adoption.
Criticisms of the Kübler-Ross model center on the lack of empirical evidence and the fact that it emerged from a particular culture and time, which makes it hard to generalize. The gerontologist Robert J. Kastenbaum (1932-2013) raised several points:
A 2003 study by Maciejewski and colleagues at Yale University reached mixed results: some findings fit a five-stage sequence, others did not. Today the model is best treated as a framework for empathy and communication, not a strict clinical law.
The change curve is based on the five-stage model published by psychiatrist Élisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969. It was later adapted from grief and bereavement to organizational change management.
In order, the stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. People do not always move through them linearly and can revisit earlier stages.
They share the same five stages. The five stages of grief describe bereavement, while the change curve applies that same emotional pattern to how people respond to change at work.
Managers use it to identify where each employee sits emotionally during a transformation, then adapt communication, training, and support to move them toward acceptance and reduce resistance to change.
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