During a large merger of two community hospitals, the nurse-manager wa

QUESTION

During a large merger of two community hospitals, the nurse-manager was challenged with merging the two very different medical-surgical units into one unit. During the process, meetings were held assuring the nurses that staffing would be a top priority, that education about all changes would occur, and that the manager had faith in the nurses’ abilities to implement the change.

This nurse-manager was utilizing what tactic to “unfreeze” the system?
1.Producing discomfort
2. Providing psychological safety
3. Critical thinking
4. Inducing guilt and anxiety

ANSWER:

Correct Answer: 2
Rationale: Providing psychological safety involves being able to build a relationship and develop trust with the people affected by the change; the people immediately affected by the change must be given attention and support.When unfreezing a target system the change agent may meet with small groups of nurses (target system) to discuss the inadequacies of the system of concern (e.g., staffing); this is known as producing discomfort. Critical thinking may be used to determine which tactic to use to unfreeze the target system, but is not an example of tactics used to unfreeze a target system. Inducing guilt and anxiety may also unfreeze a target system; the change agent would do this by demonstrating how the system is not meeting the clients’ needs for care and explaining that the administration wants the new system.