Managing Transitions, By William Bridges, PhD With Susan Bridges
I'm halfway through "Managing Transitions" by William Bridges, PhD with Susan Bridges . Here's my biggest takeaway so far: Transition Management is distinct from Change management and is a critical part that dictates success or failure. While Change is situational, Transition is psychological (and personal). Bridges write, "It's a three-phase process that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the details of the new situation that the change brings about... When a change happens without people going through the transition, it is just a rearrangement of chairs." Marking Endings Matter It's helpful to use this framework to distinguish the impact of marking endings in a change journey (i.e. the decommissioning of a process or policy in favor of a new one), and to give people space to mourn that ending before diving into the new one. Depending on the change, this doesn't need to take long. But it needs to be intentional. Maybe it's a day to honor the old CRM call recording process, allow team members to tell horror stories or jokes about the mayhem it caused (or didn't) before shifting to the new way of working the following day. This ability to grieve the loss of what is comfortable before taking on something new can make a vast difference in the post-change productivity of those impacted. More to come!
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