Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change

Key Insights

• Change vs. Transition: Change is situational and external (new policy, new boss, new role), while transition is the internal psychological process people go through to come to terms with a new situation.
• Three Phases of Transition: All transitions consist of an ending, neutral zone, and new beginning.
• Endings Come First: Before a new beginning can succeed, you must first help people deal with endings and losses.
• The Neutral Zone: The critical phase between the old and new reality is uncomfortable but also the greatest opportunity for creativity and renewal.
• New Beginnings: Beginnings involve new understandings, values, attitudes, and identities, not just new circumstances.
• Transition Leadership: Leaders need different approaches for managing each phase of transition.
• Organizational Transitions: Organizations as entities go through transitions just as individuals do.
• Nonstop Change: In modern organizations, transitions are often overlapping and continuous rather than discrete events.
• Transition Plan: A formal transition plan addressing all three phases is essential for significant organizational changes.
• Individual Differences: People move through transitions at different speeds and with different reactions.

Favorite Quotes

• "It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions." (p. 3)
• "The starting point for dealing with transition is not the outcome but the endings that people have in leaving the old situation behind." (p. 23)
• "In the neutral zone, people are caught between what was and what will be—they're in the process of disintegrating the old way without the new way being fully operational." (p. 39)
• "Chaos is not a mess but rather a primal state of pure energy to which the person returns for every true new beginning." (p. 119)
• "People don't resist change. They resist being changed." (p. 65)
• "Before you can begin something new, you have to end what used to be." (p. 80)
• "A transition has a much slower pace than change. Change can happen in an instant; transition takes time." (p. 57)
• "The neutral zone is not an end state, but rather a moratorium from the conventional activity of your everyday existence." (p. 43)