Managing Transitions

by William Bridges

  2.Review policies and procedures to see that they are adequate to deal with the confusing fluidity of the neutral zone. The “rules” under which you operate were set up to govern ongoing operations when things weren’t changing as much as they are now. Do you need a new policy to cover some aspect of the new situation—a policy, for instance, about job classifications, priorities, time off for training, or who can make what kind of decision? Or do you need new procedures for giving people temporary assignments, processing the work or handling overloads, identifying training needs, or scheduling meetings?

  3.Consider a related question: What new roles, reporting relationships, or configurations of the teams do you need to develop to get through this time in the wilderness? Moses, with the help of Jethro (the first organizational development consultant in history), reorganized his decision-making process in the neutral zone by regrouping people into new units under new, temporary decision makers—“judges,” in the parlance of his day. Hierarchy often breaks down in the neutral zone, and mixed groupings, such as task forces and project teams, are often very effective. People may have to be given temporary titles or made “acting” managers.

  4.You would do well to set short-range goals for people to aim toward and to establish checkpoints along the way for longer-term outcomes that you are seeking. Now is a time when people get discouraged easily. It often seems that nothing important is happening in the neutral zone. So it is crucial to give people a sense of achievement and movement. This helps to counter the feelings of being lost, of meaninglessness, and of self-doubt that might occur.

  5.Don’t set people up for failure in the neutral zone by promising that you will deliver high levels of output. Everyone loses when such ambitious targets are missed: you look bad, people’s self-confidence falls even further, and your superiors are upset. You may need to educate your superiors to get them to see that success at a lower level, which builds people up, is worth far more in the long run than failure at a higher level, which tears them down. Upper-level management hates to look bad, so help them to see the importance of setting realistic output objectives.

  6.Find out what supervisors and managers need to learn to function successfully in the neutral zone and then provide special training in those subjects. These might include workshops on problem-solving, team-building, and transition management techniques.

  STRENGTHEN INTRAGROUP CONNECTIONS

  The neutral zone is a lonely place. People feel isolated, especially if they don’t understand what is happening to them. As I have already noted, old problems are likely to resurface and old resentments are likely to come back to life. For these reasons it is especially important to try to rebuild a sense of identification with the group and of connectedness with one another.

  I trust the people who are working with me. I delegate.

  MARIO DRAGHI, ITALIAN ECONOMIST

  At a large aerospace facility that was being reorganized, connections were established through weekly meetings at which, over the course of a year, representatives from every group met with the general manager of the site for an informal meal. During the lunch the GM answered all questions and gathered suggestions for changes that would help people deal with being “in the wilderness.” Week after week people returned to the project teams and departmental units with a new level of trust in, and a greater feeling of connectedness with, their leader.

  At a food processing plant the leadership wanted a faster way to involve everyone, and so a Family Day was planned. The factory was shut down for a day, and everyone came together at a local theme park, where a large area had been rented for the gathering. Events were planned that not only mixed line workers with leaders and middle managers but blended groups that were becoming polarized under the confusions of the neutral zone. Managers worked hard to meet and reassure the families of the people who worked for them. The results were clear the very next morning—there was less anxiety and more solidarity between exempt and nonexempt workers, and within weeks productivity had improved measurably.

  Communications help to keep people feeling included in and connected to the organization. Many companies have used online newsletters and other social media outlets as a way of maintaining contact with, and showing concern for, employees in the neutral zone. Communicating in real time can give employees new information, dispel rumors, and answer questions. In one corporation that was relocating its headquarters, the “Transition News” featured on the company intranet kept everyone abreast of progress, squelched misinformation, and featured postings on schools, health care, shopping, real estate, and other aspects of the new location. A “Q and A” section answered questions.

  At the Cheboygan, Michigan, Procter & Gamble paper products plant, a newsletter was used very effectively to maintain contact with employees during long months of uncertainty while the plant was being shut down. It included an update on people who had found positions at other P&G plants, suggestions from the employee assistance program, news that highlighted peoples’ careers, and local information about their families.

  In each case a newsletter and social media tools were effectively used to keep in touch with people during a time when they tended to feel confused and disconnected. And not coincidentally, all these organizations made it through the neutral zone without the lasting damage that many other organizations might suffer from.

  In the neutral zone, be wary of any arrangement or activity that shows a preference for one group over others. During this middle phase of transition, people want to feel that “we are all in this boat together”—another good metaphor. They will put up with a lot of discomfort if everyone must do so as well. But if there are people who, because of their position or connections, are getting special treatment, there will be trouble. Perks that individuals have always enjoyed can even spark that trouble. For example, first-class air travel for senior executives, special parking spaces, and an executive dining room can all loom large as resentment-building symbols of privilege that send the unwitting message that some people have it easy during a difficult time when all the other employees are suffering.

  USE A TRANSITION MONITORING TEAM

  One of the persistent problems during transitions is the difficulty experienced by those making and implementing decisions in remaining clear on the precise impact of the decisions and actions they’ve taken. Leaders usually assume that all the feedback they need will come up through regular channels and be voiced at staff meetings in reply to the question, “How are things going?” Such is seldom the case. As answers to that innocent question are filtered and interpreted and sometimes blocked on their way upward, they are inevitably distorted. A former client who was CEO of a major airline used to call it the NETMA syndrome—Nobody Ever Tells Me Anything.

  This is where a transition monitoring team is valuable. The TMT, as it is often called, is a small group of people chosen from as wide a cross-section of the organization as possible. It meets every week or two to take the pulse of the organization in transition. It has no decision-making power and is not charged with suggesting courses of action. Rather, its purpose is to facilitate upward communication and to do three things:

  1.The very existence of the TMT demonstrates that the organization wants to know how things are going for people. In building confidentiality they create a sense of trust in listening to ideas and concerns, without causing fear that these conversations will be directly quoted to leadership.

  2.The TMT is an effective focus group that invites comments, as they review plans or communications before they are announced. The leader may hear, “You’d better not say that. They’ll think that you’re going to . . .”

  3.The TMT provides a point of ready access to the organization’s grapevine and so can be used to correct misinformation and counter rumors.

  There are a few things to keep in mind about using TMTs, though. First, make sure that the purpose of the group is clear. Don’t leave the impression that it is a decision-making body or that it is “mana
ging” the transition. It is simply monitoring it. Second, don’t give the function to an existing group of upper-level managers; existing groups with other responsibilities have other agendas and won’t give you the untainted reports that you need. Set up a special group, and make sure it represents different constituencies within the organization. Third, ensure that the TMT has access to the organization’s leadership by including someone in the group who has the leader’s ear. Fourth, make it clear that this is a time-limited group. Set a windup date at the start (although that can, of course, be changed), and help everyone understand that this is a task group required by the very important situation that the organization is in. Finally, don’t let the concerns voiced by the group disappear: report back to the group regularly about what is being done about the issues it has raised, and be sure that at least some of their issues lead to visible actions.

  In Appendix C we will give you more ideas about establishing and managing Transition Monitoring Teams, including a case study in which Royal Dutch Shell ran them for more than ten years.

  USING THE NEUTRAL ZONE CREATIVELY

  While it is essential to build into the neutral zone temporary systems for getting people through the wilderness intact, you need to do more. Capitalize on the break in normal routines that the neutral zone provides to do things differently and better. In the neutral zone the restraints on innovation are weakened. With everything up in the air anyway, people are more willing than usual to try new things, and should be encouraged to do so.

  If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.

  CHARLES KETTERING, AMERICAN INVENTOR

  Every organizational system has its own natural “immune system” whose task it is to resist unfamiliar, and so unrecognizable, signals. That is not necessarily bad. If the organization didn’t have such an immune system, every alien “germ” would take root, and the organization wouldn’t have enough stability to get anything done or enough continuity to give people the identity they need. But immune systems carry a price tag: even good germs get filtered out or killed off. The pre-transition immune system choked off creativity in its own manner, and no matter how loose and free the post-transition way of doing things is, its immune system will also make creativity difficult in some different way. It is during the gap between the old and the new that the organization’s immune system is weak enough to let a seedbed for novelty form.

  Innovation will take place automatically in the neutral zone if you provide people with the temporary structures discussed earlier and if you encourage them to find new ways to do things. Here are some ways in which you can actively encourage creativity.

  1.Establish by word and example that this is a time to step back and take stock, a time to question the “usual,” and a time to come up with new and creative solutions to the organization’s difficulties. Explain how business as usual chokes off creativity and explain why the present is the best possible time to generate and test new ideas. Model this new manner yourself by taking time to step back and question how your own job is done. Review those policies and procedures over which you have control. Your own example is your best leverage to change the behavior of others.

  2.Provide opportunities for others to step back and take stock, both organizationally and individually: schedule offsites, process reviews, surveys, and open conversations; offer people the chance to review their careers and refocus their efforts in areas of growing interest to them. If these activities generate new ideas for the organization, be sure to keep people informed about what is being done with those ideas. Nothing undermines an effort like this faster than the appearance of good ideas being forgotten or not taken seriously.

  3.Encourage learning in the areas of discovery and innovation. This is the time for even more creative thinking and greater focus on innovation. Too often such efforts fail to bear fruit, not because they are poorly done but because they are ill timed. They take place when the immune system is too strong. Now is the time to try them again. Some people simply don’t know how to get out of their rut. Encourage and develop your talent.

  4.Encourage experimentation. People always have ideas that they have been wishing they had the chance to try, and they naturally generate solutions to problems they’ve been living with. What they seldom do, without encouragement and support, is try their ideas. Too often experimentation seems to people a risky undertaking that requires someone else’s blessing. Give it yours. You’ll be surprised how many improvements are just waiting for the chance to happen.

  5.Embrace losses, setbacks, or disadvantages as entry points into new solutions. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built their first Apple PC because they lacked the money to buy the computer-building kits that were “the right way” to build a computer in those days. Yamaha turned the sagging market for grand pianos into a challenge to come up with an electronic instrument that would mimic the sound and touch of the big piano perfectly. Brother took the deteriorating sewing machine market as a challenge to move into typewriters and other electronic instruments. Louisiana Pacific Corporation, which lacks the big timber stands of its major competitors, turned that lack to its advantage by shifting to the manufacture of boards and sheets made of gypsum and recycled paper.

  To exist is to change, to change is to mature; to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

  HENRI BERGSON, FRENCH PHILOSOPHER

  6.Look for opportunities to brainstorm new answers to old problems. You have lived with them for so long that you may have unwittingly given up any hope of solving them. Break through this block, not by finding the single right answer but by finding 10 or 20 new answers—the crazier, the better.

  7.Finally, restrain the natural impulse in times of ambiguity and disorganization to push prematurely for certainty and closure. It is tempting to rally around, to have “everyone pulling together,” in the neutral zone, but be careful that you don’t unwittingly squeeze out dissent or other ways of thinking. You may even need to appoint a devil’s advocate or an official critic of apparent consensus to see that people don’t choke off new ideas in their desire to keep the team in one piece.

  When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.

  MAE WEST, AMERICAN ACTRESS

  Whatever the details of the situation you face, the questions to ask yourself are these: How can I make this interim between the old and the new not only a bearable time but also a time during which the organization and everyone’s place in it are enhanced? How can we come out of this waiting time better than we were before the transition started? Here are some examples of doing that.

  When you shift from one technology to another, use the interim to redesign the workflow so that you aren’t simply improving the technology.

  When another company acquires yours, clarify your team’s purpose and improve its functioning to maximize the chances that when the dust clears, it will be viewed as essential to the success of the acquiring company.

  When you restructure your department, involve everyone in a no-holds-barred session of creative problem-solving in which roles are redefined and procedures are redesigned.

  The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.

  LINUS PAULING, AMERICAN CHEMIST

  The generic advice is to turn every setback into an opportunity to improve things. The motto might be, “When orders fall, set people to work painting the factory.” And don’t bog down in getting everyone’s blessing for your interim project. Such things are validated by their good results, and those results are so much better than those of inaction that blessings almost always follow.

  Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.

  WALTER LIPPMANN, AMERICAN JOURNALIST

  The key to succeeding in these efforts is to look at the neutral zone as a chance to do something new and interesting—and to pursue that goal with energy and courage.

  To equip your people to take advantage of the opportunity for innova
tion that exists in the neutral zone, you need to foster a spirit of entrepreneurship among them. An entrepreneurial outlook is the surest antidote to becoming uneasy with change. It is entrepreneurial opportunism that spells the difference between success and failure in using the neutral zone creatively, and this depends on a willingness to take risks. That willingness, in turn, is not likely to develop without a tolerance for intelligently conceived ventures that fail. In an organization that punishes failure, regardless of the value of the effort that failed, you aren’t going to get this kind of effort. Be particularly careful that valuable concepts like “excellence” or “zero defects” don’t get used as excuses to penalize intelligent failures.

  It is easier to get forgiveness than it is to secure permission.

  JESUIT SAYING

  There is hardly a work project or procedure in an organization that couldn’t be improved. In some sectors of the economy, continuous improvement is the norm. Yet most efforts at getting increased productivity amount to little more than staff reductions and telling the rest of the team to work harder. A better answer is to use the time in the neutral zone creatively as an opportunity to redesign how you do what you do. If you do that, you will emerge from the wilderness both stronger and better adapted to your new environment. Neutral zone creativity is the key to turning transition from a time of breakdown into a time of breakthrough.

  Entrepreneurs see change as the norm and as healthy. Usually they do not bring about the change themselves. But—and this defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship—the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as opportunity.

  PETER DRUCKER, AMERICAN MANAGEMENT EXPERT

  A FINAL NOTE ON THE NEUTRAL ZONE

  Behind all this advice is an idea that can be validated with dozens of examples from both organizations and individual lives. During this apparently uneventful journey through the wilderness, a significant shift takes place within people—or if it doesn’t, the change isn’t likely to produce the results it is intended to. That shift comes from an inner repatterning and sorting process in which old and no longer appropriate habits are discarded and newly appropriate patterns of thought and action are developed.