Carl Rogers is one of the founders of the humanistic movement. He has written extensively on the stages through which people travel on their journey towards ‘becoming a person’. Rogers’ work was predominately based on his observations in the field of psychotherapy. However he was increasingly interested in how people learn, how they exercise power and how they behave within organizations.
Rogers is an important researcher and writer for consultants, as his ‘client-centred approach’ to growth and development provides clues and cues as to how we as change agents might bring about growth and development with individuals within organizations. Rogers (1967) highlighted three crucial conditions for this to occur:
- Genuineness and congruence: to be aware of your own feelings, to be real, to be authentic. Rogers’ research showed that the more genuine and congruent the change agent is in the relationship, the greater the probability of change in the personality of the client.
- Unconditional positive regard: a genuine willingness to allow the client’s process to continue, and an acceptance of whatever feelings are going on inside the client. Whatever feeling the client is experiencing, be it anger, fear, hatred, then that is all right. It is saying that underneath all this the person is all right.
- Empathic understanding: in Rogers’ words, ‘ it is only as I understand the feelings and thoughts which seem so horrible to you, or so weak, or so sentimental, or so bizarre – it is only as I see them as you see them, and accept them and you, that you feel really free to explore all the hidden roots and frightening crannies of your inner and often buried experience.’
Rogers continues, ‘in trying to grasp and conceptualize the process of change … I gradually developed this concept of a process, discriminating seven stages in it’. The following are the consistently recurring qualities at each stage as described by Rogers (1967):
One:
- an unwillingness to communicate about self, only externals;
- no desire for change;
- feelings neither recognized nor owned;
- problems neither recognized nor perceived.
Two:
- expressions begin to flow;
- feelings may be shown but not owned;
- problems perceived but seen as external;
- no sense of personal responsibility;
- experience more in terms of the past not the present.
Three:
- a little talk about the self, but only as an object;
- expression of feelings, but in the past;
- non-acceptance of feelings; seen as bad, shameful, abnormal;
- recognition of contradictions;
- personal choice seen as ineffective.
Four:
- more intense past feelings;
- occasional expression of current feelings;
- distrust and fear of direct expression of feelings;
- a little acceptance of feelings;
- possible current experiencing;
- some discovery of personal constructs;
- some feelings of self-responsibility in problems;
- close relationships seen as dangerous;
- some small risk-taking.
Five:
- feelings freely expressed in the present;
- surprise and fright at emerging feelings;
- increasing ownership of feelings;
- increasing self-responsibility;
- clear facing up to contradictions and incongruence.
Six:
- previously stuck feelings experienced in the here and now;
- the self seen as less of an object, more of a feeling;
- some physiological loosening;
- some psychological loosening – that is, new ways of seeing the world and the self;
- incongruence between experience and awareness reduced.
Seven:
- new feelings experienced and accepted in the present;
- basic trust in the process;
- self becomes confidently felt in the process;
- personal constructs reformulated but much less rigid;
- strong feelings of choice and self-responsibility.
There are a number of key concepts that emerge from Rogers’ work which are important when managing change within organizations at an individual level:
- The creation of a facilitating environment, through authenticity, positive regard and empathic understanding, enabling growth and development to occur.
- Given this facilitating environment and the correct stance of the change agent, clients will be able to surface and work through any negative feelings they may have about the change.
- Given this facilitating environment and the correct stance of the change agent, there will be a movement from rigidity to more fluidity in the client’s approach to thinking and feeling. This allows more creativity and risk-taking to occur.
- Given this facilitating environment and the correct stance of the change agent, clients will move towards accepting a greater degree of self-responsibility for their situation, enabling them to have more options from which to choose.