5.8
HUMAN TRANSITIONS: HELPING PEOPLE
WORK THROUGH MAJOR CHANGE
Inspired by William Bridges, Susan Campbell, and Virginia Satir.Leaders often assume that if change is logical from a management perspective, people will
adjust. The process of change inside people, however, is more like distress and disruption than
adjustment. Before people can accept and adjust to change, they frequently go through a tran-
sition period. This period is often evidenced by low morale, increased stress, and decreased pro-
ductivity. This tool offers a practical, straightforward approach to help leaders minimize the
stress and downtime associated with human reactions and adjustments to change.
THE CRITICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHANGE AND TRANSITION
Change:
- The actual physical move, restructure, or change of location, procedures, equipment,
and so on. - This change takes place outside the person, and relatively quickly (e.g., being moved
to another city, getting a new manager).
Transition:
- The human reorientation that people go through in coming to terms with a change
(e.g., coming to feel like a new city is home or that a new manager is a trusted col-
league). - This inner transition often takes much longer than the outside or physical change. The
transition is internal and emotional (i.e., feelings-based). It requires a new way of
understanding and looking at things.
For example, your staff may have complained about their obsolete desktop computers and
software. Finally, you, their leader, have the budget and priority to have the Systems
Department make the change. The switchover—the change—is brief, often less than an hour
per desktop. But what do you, as their leader, hear after the change? Often complaints! This
time it’s about the new desktop systems: “The new keyboards don’t feel right and some keys
are in new places.” Or “The new operating system doesn’t look the same as the old one. Where
are my critical files?” And so on. Although the physical change was relatively quick, the emo-
tional transition that takes place inside of people—becoming proficient and feeling at ease
with the new equipment—may take a number of weeks. Given this situation, your initial reac-
tion, as their leader, might be to interpret staff complaints as ingratitude. But wait!
Understanding the nature of human transitions will help you accept these complaints as the
natural responses to change they are.
Downsizing and layoffs are all too common, and many people in the North American
workforce have had personal experience with this type of transition. Here is an example of how
one company managed this change and the human transition that accompanied it, with sen-
sitivity and respect for its workforce.
160 SECTION 5 TOOLS FORLEADINGCHANGE