Managing Transitions

by William Bridges

  He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence.

  WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, AMERICAN WRITER

  This isn’t just wordplay. As a start-up grows, develops, and ages, this kind of slowdown can actually take place as the company works to establish standardized policies and systems. As we saw in the last chapter, when it does that, many of the people who were happy with the old, chaotic status quo become unhappy with the new situation. They say things like, “The fun is gone” or “This used to be a good company to work for” or “We’ve turned into just another conventional company.” (They might, if they were following the suggestion I made earlier, entitle the chapter that was ending, “Good-bye to Camelot” and the new chapter “Welcome to the Conventional World.”)

  POSTPONE “EXTRA” CHANGES

  Even after you’ve clustered the changes under a few headings, you’ll find that you have too many of them to manage effectively. You simply have to cut out some of them. Now, you can’t keep the external world or other parts of your organization from affecting your part of the business, but you can often postpone or sometimes cancel incidental changes that are unrelated to the larger shift you have to deal with. The gains from those incidental changes are seldom large enough to compensate for their disruptive effects, and a crucial large change can be jeopardized when smaller changes are thoughtlessly piggy-backed on top of it.

  We sometimes think that because we’re changing lots of things, we might as well change everything. But that only makes sense if “everything” is an interrelated whole. All too often, extra changes get added to the pile only because some leaders or managers have become personally “hooked” on change. They like the adrenalin rush of being immersed in a crisis situation, and in an environment where crises naturally abound they become habituated to it. Sometimes an extra change stirs things up and forces them to start over again just as the going gets rough, so it saves them from having to do the hard work of following through on a change that is already under way. Change-addicted leaders are dangerous people, although they may also be charismatic and can usually make a plausible-sounding case for whatever additional change they are proposing to make.

  FORESEE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN

  Economic and social forecasting is a big business, but when tested against subsequent events, it misses as many boats as it catches. John Naisbitt’s Megatrends and the megawave of books it launched are fascinating reading, and they address the natural human desire to know what the future holds.1 The trouble is that they have not managed to forecast events with very much accuracy.

  Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds—habit and novelty.

  JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE, FRENCH WRITER

  Consider the stock pickers. Few of them even match what you could achieve yourself with random picks. Or think of all the “hot new products” that don’t go anywhere; each of those products was touted as a winner by professionals who were supposed to know. But most of the predictions were based on the forces that produced the circumstances of the present rather than the forces that would produce the future. Those who prepared for “change” in Eastern Europe in 1988 turned out to be ready for an extension of what was going on in 1980, not for the reality of the twenty-first century.

  Those who base their plans on predictions are like the French who built an “impregnable” line of tank-proof fortifications before World War I, which they named for their minister of war, André Maginot, and around which the Germans did an end-run in World War II. They are like the companies that embraced the principle of vertical integration just in time to find that conglomeration was the hot new answer. (But by the time they got around to conglomeration, of course, the marketplace favored focus and filling niches. And now that everyone is finding a niche . . . well, you get the idea.)

  Shallow men speak of the past, wise men of the present, and fools of the future.

  MARQUISE DU DEFFAND, FRENCH EPIGRAMMATIST

  There are two problems with forecasting. First, the relation between things is so immensely complex, and the outcomes of that complexity are so unpredictable that it is almost impossible to know enough to say with any confidence what is going to happen. Second, forecast-based plans create a bandwagon effect that change the conditions on which the forecasts themselves were based. Walter Macrae made the point very well in an article he wrote for The Economist more than thirty years ago:

  In modern conditions of high elasticity of both production and substitution, we will generally create temporary but large surpluses of whatever the majority of decision-influencing people five or ten years earlier believed was going to be in most desperately short supply. This is because the well-advertised views of the decision influencers tend to be believed by both the profit-seeking private producers and consensus-following governments, and these two then combine to cause excessive production of precisely the things that the decision influencers had been saying would be the most obviously needed.2

  So, because everyone is trying to benefit from the predictions, they change their behavior—on which the predictions were based—and the predictions prove wrong.

  I have seen the future, and it’s a lot like the present, but much longer.

  DAN QUISENBERRY, PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL PLAYER”

  There are two kinds of forecasting that can help you to be ready for change. Neither is so exciting as guessing the numbers that will be thrown on the political or economic dice, but both are more reliable. The first is to do life cycle forecasts on the organizational policies and structures that you are currently utilizing. Such life cycle planning is done regularly for products, for everyone knows that sooner or later technological change and competitive pressures will make today’s successful product obsolete. So organizations begin, while the product is still high on the curve of its success, to plan for its modification or replacement.

  In the same way, life cycle planning should be done for levels of employment, for areas of technical expertise, and for cultural emphases. All have as clearly limited a life expectancy as does a product. Today’s retirement package, for example, may be on its last legs, as may the supervisors’ training program and the way the organization does its succession planning. Only a life cycle–based approach to these issues will give you the lead time to avoid the predictable crisis of having to manage a big transition triggered by a change that no one foresaw. You may not be able to convince people that things that aren’t “broke” yet still need fixing, but you can certainly be ready with alternatives when the first cracks are discovered.

  DO WORST-CASE SCENARIOS

  A second way to be ready for the future is to build into every plan a “what if?” clause. What if the automation project takes twice as long as everyone says it will? What if 50 percent more people than you predicted take you up on the early retirement offer? (And what if they’re the wrong people—the ones you want to keep?) What if a government regulation or a legal decision forces you to stop using a certain chemical? What if a 7.2 earthquake hits the manufacturing site or distribution center? In other words, what if things don’t turn out the way you hope and plan that they will?

  The only way to prepare for the unexpected is to build into all of your plans a contingency clause that suggests what you would do if the unexpected happened. In that way you will have alternative routes ready to take in case the main route is closed unexpectedly, as well as established procedures for changing your plans with a minimum of chaos if they are undermined by unforeseen events. There is a further advantage to worst-case scenarios: if everyone else, as the Macrae quotation suggests, is going the way you were planning to, the worst-case scenario becomes a forecast that may be accurate simply because it is based on something other than commonly accepted assumptions. “Contrarian” investment strategies are based on precisely this approach.

  MAKE THE TRANSITION TO “CHANGE AS THE NORM”

  Getting people to deal effectively with nonstop change demands that they develop a new mindset. And in most organizations, doi
ng that requires a very significant transition: old assumptions and expectations have to be relinquished, and a long, difficult journey made through the neutral zone, before any viable new beginning is even in sight. It isn’t enough to preach about the Promised Land by describing the benefits of “continuous improvement” or “thriving on chaos.” It isn’t even enough to inspire people with vignettes of companies that are said to be doing these things. You have to manage the big transition from the old assumptions and expectations of isolated and piece-meal change to the new ones of continuous change.

  Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion.

  MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE, FRENCH PHILOSOPHER

  That task is no different from managing any other big transition, and the preceding chapters should provide the tactics you need. My point is that nonstop change is simply a lot of different changes that overlap each other—as changes have always done—as well as an increase in the rate of overlapping change. Every new level of change is termed “nonstop” by people who are having trouble with transition.

  At the same time, every previous level of change comes to be called “stability.” Seen in this light, what people today call “nonstop change” is simply a new level of what has always existed. It isn’t pure chaos—simply a new experience. When people adjust to it, they will look back upon it as “the stability that we used to enjoy.”

  This is more than a simple argument about the meanings of words. In companies that have successfully institutionalized the practice of “continuous improvement,” procedures are constantly being changed to increase productivity, maximize efficiency, and reduce costs. Little transitions are going on all the time. Without some larger, overarching continuity, everyone’s world would feel like chaos. But what does not change in even the most constantly evolving environment is the expectation that every status quo is just a temporary expedient until a better way to do things has been discovered. Every one of those little improvements, though it may cause transitions, reaffirms the unchanging values and procedures that underlie “continuous improvement.”

  Not all changes are improvements, of course. Some are simply small readjustments to maintain the present balance. Some are larger moves to cut losses or to repair damage done by market changes and regulatory actions. The point, however, remains the same: only if continuous change is normalized as the new status quo can it be assimilated. People have to understand that the point of change is to preserve that which does not change. The continuation of anything depends on its changing, just as staying upright and traveling straight ahead on a bicycle depends on making constant steering adjustments. Refusing to make those little changes would not produce “stability” but, on the contrary, would rapidly lead to the loss of balance and motion.

  CLARIFY YOUR PURPOSE

  Stability through change demands clarity about who you are and what you are trying to do. That is the starting point, because there must be something to adjust before there can be an adjustment. Times of continuous change, like our world today, put a premium on knowing clearly what you are trying to accomplish. Whether it be a small team of engineers, an educational non-profit, or a multinational corporation, what is the purpose of the unit that you manage?

  The answer to this question does not lie in high-sounding words like those company philosophies you see over people’s desks. The answer lies in whether people have a clear sense of how their activities contribute to the larger whole. An organization’s purpose is seldom tricky: Toyota’s purpose is to build cars and related vehicles; Harvard University’s purpose is to educate people and push back the boundaries of knowledge; your community hospital’s purpose is to provide medical care and treatment that cannot be given at home or in a doctor’s office. Every component part of any large organization has its own purpose that in some way makes the overall purpose possible. (If it doesn’t, that part has come unplugged from the whole, and its existence is no longer justified.)

  Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, GERMAN PHILOSOPHER

  Far too many organizational purpose statements are really descriptions of the organization’s objectives: to increase shareholder value, to give customers their money’s worth, to be a good place to work. These are very important goals to work toward, but they aren’t the strategic threads that everyday changes are meant to preserve. It is the purpose, not the objectives, that is the heartbeat of the organization.

  The confusion of purposes and objectives has serious repercussions in a time when change is the norm. Sometimes an organization has to make changes in its objectives to preserve its purpose:

  The company whose purpose is to produce the best possible containers switches from manufacturing glass bottles to plastic ones (or back again).

  The company whose purpose is to create high-quality preserved food shifts from canning to freezing.

  The company whose purpose is to provide people with a way to transport packages quickly sells its railcars and buys a fleet of airplanes.

  Any of these changes would put a corporation into transition, but all of them were undertaken to ensure a continuity of purpose. The same is true on every organizational level, down to the team level, where people share a much more specific collective purpose. New machinery is introduced to carry out that purpose more effectively. So is the new organizational design or the new policy or the new emphasis on quality or customer service.

  The trouble is that people come to identify with the objectives rather than the purpose. They do so because it is easier to relate their own efforts and their own self-image to the objective, which is more tangible and closer at hand, than to the purpose. Thus, you must work constantly to get people to identify with the organization’s purpose. That takes explanation, modeling, and reward.

  REBUILD TRUST

  If you have ever watched people learning to swim, you’ll remember that critical moment when they pushed off from the edge of the pool and set forth on their own. You may have heard the swim instructor say, “I won’t let you sink.” Without trust in the teacher, that step toward independence and the mastery of a new skill would have been less likely to happen. At that moment, with fear balanced against hope, it is trust that makes the difference. Not yet trusting their own ability to swim, they fall back on trusting the teacher.

  It’s much the same with transition management. When people trust their manager, they’re willing to undertake a change, even if it scares them. When they don’t feel that trust, transition is much less likely to occur. The good news is that you can build such trust; the bad news is that it takes time to build trust—so you are urged to get started right away.

  Management by objectives works if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.

  PETER DRUCKER, AMERICAN MANAGEMENT EXPERT

  There are two sides to trust: the first is outward-looking and grows from a person’s past experiences with that particular person or group; the second is inward-looking and comes from the person’s own history, particularly from childhood experiences. The level of trust that anyone feels is fed by both of these sources. You have control over the outward-facing source, so start there. The technique is simple—simple to explain anyway: start being trustworthy.

  Trustworthiness is encouraged by a number of actions that are within your power to take:

  1.Do what you say you will do. Don’t make promises you can’t or won’t keep. Most people’s mistrust has come from the untrustworthy actions of others in the past.

  2.If for any reason you cannot follow through on a promise, warn the person as soon as the situation becomes clear to you, and explain the circumstances that led to your failure to do what you promised.

  3.Listen to people carefully and tell them what you think they are saying. If you have it wrong, accept the correction and revise what you say. People trust most the people whom they believe understand them.

  4.Understand what matte
rs to people and work hard to protect anything that is related to what matters to them. People trust those who are looking out for their best interests.

  5.Share yourself honestly.3 A lot of mistrust begins when people are unable to read you. And remember: while hiding your shortcomings may polish your image, it ultimately undermines people’s trust in you. Admitting an untrustworthy action is itself a trustworthy action.

  6.Ask for feedback and acknowledge unasked-for feedback on the subject of your own trustworthiness whenever it is given. Regard it as valuable information and reflect on it. Feedback may be biased, and you don’t have to swallow it whole. But check it for important half-truths.

  7.Don’t try to push others to trust you further than you trust them. You will communicate subtly whatever mistrust you are feeling, and it will be returned to you in kind. Trust is mutual, or else it is very shallow.

  8.Try extending your trust of others a little further than you normally would. Being trusted makes a person more trustworthy, and trustworthy people are more trusting.

  9.Don’t confuse being trustworthy with “being a buddy.” Being a buddy for any purpose besides friendship is an untrustworthy act. Besides, trust doesn’t automatically come with friendship.

  10.Don’t be surprised if your trust-building project is viewed suspiciously. Asking people to let go of their old mistrust of managers (and of you in particular) puts them into a significant (and dangerous-feeling) transition. Their mistrust—justified or not—was a form of self-protection, and no one gives up self-protection easily.

  11.If all of this is too complicated to remember, and you want a single key to the building of trust, just remind yourself, “Tell the truth.”

  As to what you can do with the inner face of mistrust—which goes back to people’s childhoods—the same advice holds true. The difference is that if a person’s history has reinforced their mistrust of others, you will make even slower headway than you will in combating the mistrust you’ve earned by your own actions. But you can make headway with even the most mistrustful person, so get started. Every hour that mistrust continues makes transition more difficult to manage than it has to be.