Kubler-Ross Change Curve: The 5 Stages of Change at Work

By Brian Tr · Updated Oct 10, 2026

The Kübler-Ross change curve borrows the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) to describe how people react to major change at work. Managers use it to spot where individuals are emotionally and to respond accordingly. It's a useful lens, but it's an adaptation, and the stages don't happen in a fixed order.

This guide covers where the model came from, what each stage looks like on a team, how it compares with Lewin, Kotter, ADKAR and Bridges, and a template you can copy. It also covers what critics say, because using the curve well means knowing its limits.

Key Facts

• Source of the stages: psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her 1969 book On Death and Dying, based on her work with seriously ill patients.
• The five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
• The workplace version: the "change curve" is a later adaptation by others. Kübler-Ross didn't design a management model.
• Order: not fixed. People can move back and forth, feel several stages at once, or skip some.
• Best used for: anticipating emotional reactions to reorganizations, layoffs, new systems and new leaders, then adjusting your communication.
• Main limit: research on the grief stages offers weak support for a predictable sequence, so treat the curve as a prompt for conversation, not a forecast.
• Related models: Lewin's change model, Kotter's 8 steps, the ADKAR model.

What is the Kübler-Ross change curve?

The change curve is a picture of how morale and performance often move during a disruptive change. Confidence and output drop when the change lands, hit a low point, then recover as people adjust. The five grief stages are mapped along that line.

Here's the part that gets lost in most slide decks. The stages weren't created for organizations. The Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation says the five stages came from On Death and Dying (1969), developed through her clinical work with seriously ill patients, and were later applied to other kinds of change. The same page states that Kübler-Ross "did not design a management model," and says the curve was being drawn in boardrooms by the 1980s.

So when someone says "the Kübler-Ross change curve," they mean a workplace adaptation of her ideas. That doesn't make it useless. Plenty of managers find it a handy way to name reactions they're already seeing. It just means you shouldn't present it as settled science.

Where the five stages came from

The Foundation's page on the stages adds useful context. It says the familiar five are only part of her work: her 1969 chart showed ten overlapping responses, and she didn't present them as steps to complete and leave behind. By 1978 she drew them as overlapping circles with no numbering. In 1974 she applied the same responses to people other than the dying, including blind patients and paralyzed veterans.

The Foundation also notes that she said not everyone experiences all the stages or experiences them in a set order. That's worth remembering when a consultant hands you a smooth, downward-then-upward curve. The tidy shape is a teaching simplification.

The five stages at work

For each stage below you'll find what it often looks like on a team and what tends to help. These are patterns managers commonly report, not guarantees. And one person can sit in two stages in the same week.

1. Denial

What you see: "This won't really happen." People carry on as if nothing has changed, ask for the announcement to be repeated, or assume the plan will be quietly dropped. Some go quiet and stop asking questions.

What helps: Say it plainly and say it more than once. Put the reason for the change, the timeline and what stays the same in writing. Don't argue with disbelief. Answer the factual questions underneath it.

2. Anger

What you see: Blame, sarcasm, pushback in meetings, complaints about leadership, and sometimes resistance that looks like "process objections." Anger often signals that people care about what's being lost.

What helps: Let people say it. Hold listening sessions, ask what worries them most, and separate venting from real operational risks you need to act on. Don't take it personally and don't punish dissent. If you shut anger down, it moves to hallway conversations.

3. Bargaining

What you see: Attempts to negotiate the change. "Can we pilot it for one team first?" "Can I keep the old tool for just my reports?" People look for exceptions, delays or side deals.

What helps: Be clear about what's fixed and what's flexible. Some bargaining is useful input. If a team lead suggests a safer rollout order, that might improve the plan. Say yes where you can and explain the no where you can't.

4. Depression

What you see: Low energy, withdrawal, missed details, fading enthusiasm, a sense that nothing will be the same. In a work context this often shows up as disengagement, not sadness.

A note on the word: here it describes a low mood during change, not a clinical diagnosis. If someone seems to be struggling beyond ordinary work stress, point them to your employee assistance program or a qualified professional. This article isn't medical advice.

What helps: Check in one-on-one, lower the load where you can, and recognize the loss out loud. Give people small, achievable tasks with the new way of working so they can rebuild a sense of competence. Training and clear support matter more here than pep talks.

5. Acceptance

What you see: People start using the new system, asking practical questions about how to do things, and suggesting improvements. Acceptance doesn't mean everyone loves the change. It means they've stopped fighting it.

What helps: Reinforce the new habits, share early wins, and recognize the people who helped others adjust. Ask what you'd do differently next time, and then actually record it.

The curve vs other change models

The change curve describes feelings. Most other change models describe actions or capabilities. They answer different questions, which is why they work well together.

A simple way to combine them: use Kotter or Lewin to plan the change, ADKAR to find what each person lacks, and the change curve as a quick check on morale.

How to use the change curve as a manager

1. Describe the change and who it affects. A reorg touches different people differently. A sales rep, a finance analyst and a support lead won't react the same way to the same news.
2. List the losses. Every change takes something away: a role, a routine, a status, a tool people were good at. Write these down, because they predict the reactions.
3. Listen before you label. Talk to people and read their behavior. Don't announce "you're in the anger stage." Nobody enjoys being diagnosed by their boss.
4. Note likely signals per person or group. Use the template below, in pencil. Keep it private and treat it as a working guess.
5. Match your response to the signal. Repeat facts for denial, listen for anger, set boundaries for bargaining, offer support for low mood, reinforce for acceptance.
6. Re-check every couple of weeks. People move on and slide back. A new announcement, a missed target or a rumor can pull someone back a stage.
7. Close the loop. When the change settles, ask what helped and what didn't, and feed it into the next change.

Change curve template

Copy this table into a doc or spreadsheet. Fill one row per person or team, and update it as things change.

Add a column for "Notes" if you like. Remember that the table is a thinking aid. Don't turn it into a performance record.

Examples by business function

These are illustrative scenarios, not real companies.

Suppose a finance director announces a new close process on a Monday. By Wednesday two analysts are asking whether the date might slip (denial or bargaining), a senior accountant is critical in the team meeting (anger), and a new hire is quietly working the old way to be safe. That's three different stages on one team in one week. The same response won't work for all three.

Do's and don'ts

Do:

• Treat the curve as a way to ask better questions, not to assign labels.
• Communicate early and repeat yourself. People take in big news slowly.
• Give people a say in how the change is carried out, even when the change itself is fixed.
• Build trust so people can voice doubts. Our guide to psychological safety explains how.
• Plan for support at the low point: training, coaching, time.
• Expect individuals to differ. Some people are at acceptance on day one.

Don't:

• Tell someone they're "in denial" or "in the anger stage."
• Assume everyone follows the same order or pace.
• Rush people to acceptance. Pushing for quick buy-in tends to drive doubts underground.
• Use the curve to dismiss legitimate objections as just emotion. Sometimes the objection is right.
• Treat it as a clinical tool. It isn't one.

Limitations and criticism of the model

You'll see the curve presented as established fact. It isn't, and being straight about that makes you a more credible change leader.

The stages weren't built for workplaces. As covered above, they came from work with terminally ill patients. The workplace curve is a borrowed metaphor, and a change at work isn't the same as a death or a bereavement.

The grief research doesn't support a fixed sequence. In a 2021 paper in Frontiers in Psychology, Avis, Stroebe and Schut reviewed 72 websites and found 44 of them (61.1%) addressed the five-stage model. The authors conclude that the model lacks scientific evidence and is often presented to bereaved people without critical appraisal. They are researchers who study bereavement, so it's a fair point of reference for how far the popular version has drifted.

A frequently cited test is the Yale Bereavement Study analysis published in JAMA in 2007. It followed 233 bereaved people for 24 months. Its results were mixed: the five indicators (disbelief, yearning, anger, depression, acceptance) reached their peaks in the order the stage theory predicted, but disbelief wasn't the dominant early reaction. Acceptance was the most commonly endorsed item from the start, and yearning, which isn't one of the five stages, was the dominant negative indicator. That study looked at bereavement after a death, not workplace change, so it can't tell you how a reorg will feel. But it shows why a strict reading of the stages is shaky.

The Foundation itself warns against the rigid reading. Its page describes the stages as never intended as a rigid sequence or universal pattern. Critics who dismiss the model for not being linear are, in part, attacking a simplified version.

It ignores context. Culture, job security, trust in leadership and whether people chose the change all shape reactions. Two people can face the same layoff announcement and react completely differently.

It can feel passive. The curve describes what people go through, not what to change about the plan. If people are angry because the plan is poorly designed, the fix is a better plan.

Common mistakes

Treating the curve as a forecast. Predicting that "week three will be anger" sets you up to misread real signals.

Using it to manage people instead of understanding them. The point is empathy and better communication, not sorting staff into boxes.

Skipping the leaders. Managers go through their own reactions to change, often before their teams do. Leaders who haven't processed a change can't credibly help others through it.

Stopping at emotion. Feelings matter, but people also need clarity on what they're expected to do and the skills to do it. That's where a model like ADKAR fills the gap.

Over-relying on one model. The curve is a diagnostic aid. Pair it with a structure for planning the change, such as Kotter's 8 steps.