Change and Transition - Part II

(In Part I, I introduced William Bridges and his Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change.)

Years ago, I heard someone else speak about this (and for the life of me I can't remember who), and they compared the change/transition process with jumping out a one-story window. You know you can probably do so pretty safely. You're just not going to do it until you have good reason to leave the space you're in. And, as you teeter on the window sill, trying to take action, the hard part, the pain of change, is the leap itself. Once you're committed and airborne, you reach the ground in a few moments. And then ... everything is all right!

Bridges calls the period of the leap -- the time between deciding to end the "old" and the beginning of the "new" -- the "neutral zone." On this, I disagree with him. It's more like the "chaos zone," during which all the rules are unclear for the time being.

All organizations -- especially community benefit organizations -- are well served to compress major changes into as brief a period as possible. Sure, think it through before doing it. Make everything as clear as possible in announcing changes. But once you've decided, go.

Nothing's worse than the memo that reads: "Effective six months from today ...." As the leader, it will not serve you to hold on to the window sill with your fingertips, desperately hanging on to the old. For one thing, it serves as a bad example for all of your followers.

Take the leap. Then, not wanting to confuse the change with the transition, take a look around you to see if anyone else joined you.

Problem is, everyone responds to change differently. Not everyone jumps out the window at the same time. You need to make sure everyone else joins you in the leap.

Faced with the uncertainty of what it will be like "after the leap," some of your people will make up stuff -- especially if things are unclear and especially if they don't feel they had any control or part in the decision. If the future is unclear, they'll invent one to justify their behavior. They'll "grieve" -- with all the associated phases of denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and (finally) acceptance. At nearly every point, there are unproductive side effects.

Bridges would define the leader's work as making four things clear:

1. What’s the purpose of this change?

2. What’s the picture of how things will be when we achieve that purpose?

3. What’s the plan for creating the picture?

4. What’s my part and your part in the plan?

How clear are you on those questions? How clear is your organization? What can you do to raise the level of clarity that will move people through crazy time and onto the new beginning?

The failure to identify and prepare for the inevitable human psychological adjustments that change produces is the largest single problem that organizations encounter when they implement major change initiatives.

Unfortunately, many managers, when confronted with predictable change-induced resistance by those charged with implementing a change, respond in punitive and inappropriate ways that only serve to undermine the change effort. Due to their lack of understanding of transition, they do not possess the skills to facilitate it effectively.

Leaders and managers often assume that when necessary changes are decided upon and well planned, they will just happen. Unless the transition process is handled successfully by management, all that careful decision making and detailed planning will matter little. Instead, the President will publish the memo, and the staff won't actually alter their behavior.

Change and Transition - Part I

The biggest challenge facing community benefit leaders today is moving their organizations toward a new reality.

"It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions."

That's the first line of Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, first published in 1995 by William Bridges (he released a second edition in 2003). [I recommend getting a copy if you want to know more.]

Bridges is an expert in managing the human side of change. In the late 1970s, he introduced the notion of "transition" in his first book, Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes. During that "I'm OK/You're OK" era, he laid out how to cope with life changes of the personal kind.

In Managing Transitions, he applied the concept of transition within the context of organizational change.

Bridges asserts that transition is not synonymous with "change."

A change occurs when something in the external environment is altered. In an organizational setting this would include changes in leadership, structure, job description, systems, or processes. The process of deciding to do something different is pretty straight-forward. And then the "change" can be announced (usually with some fanfare in a memo from the President that starts with "Effective immediately ...")

It’s the transition that can do you in, and that’s the part that requires mindful and intentional leadership.

The changes you announced in your memo trigger an internal psychological reorientation process in those who are expected to carry out or respond to the change. Transition is this internal process that people must go through in order to come to terms with a new situation. Unless transition occurs, change won't work. And that's when the organization's President wonders, "Didn't they get the memo? Didn't they read it?"

Two things conspire to make this so: The Past and The Should Be.

The Past
Sometimes, people get stuck in the organizational "way we've done things around here." Often, no one can remember WHY we do things that way. But it's the way we do them. And so it literally hurts to change, even if everyone rationally understands why it's important to change. Organizational culture is profoundly persistent, so even newcomers to the organization get co-opted incredibly quickly.

The Should Be
Sometimes, people get stuck on what they feel their present reality "should be" instead of facing what is. For example, they "should" still have the net worth they had "before October 2008." And, even though they KNOW things have changed, they want to pretend and cling to the old mindset.

It's like those cars with bumper stickers: "I'D RATHER BE ... skiing, golfing, shopping, whatever." But the thing is, you're NOT (skiiing/golfing/shopping/whatever). You're driving a car on the freeway. And the sooner you deal with the reality of that fact, the better.

Next: How to provide the clarity that will move you through the transition ASAP.