4-Health - Enter your slogan here

December 2011

Managing Transitions (3^rd Edition) William Bridges 2011

This is a classic text aimed at anyone involved with organisational change. It helps readers to understand the difference between the practical elements of change and the psychological stages that people have to go through to move through the change process successfully.

His objective is to suggest how to "make the most of change" and his observations and suggestions are peppered throughout the book, carefully punctuated with some excellent change related quotations. The book's material is carefully organised within four Parts:

The Problem outlines some of the classic errors that are made when organisations are faced with introducing change and how change is seen as the whole issue when a critical success factor is how transition is managed. It explores the three phases of transition; letting go, the neutral zone and the new beginning.   It offers a useful perspective on the difficulties of achieving successful change and explores examples that include Benetton and Nordica to illustrate the points. A more detailed test case gives the reader an opportunity to consider the practicalities and see how they might respond.

The Solutions suggests a variety of ways to apply the approach in each phase with practical checklists and approaches.

Part three; Dealing with Nonstop Change in the Organisation and Your Life suggests a number of strategies by which to cope with rapid change, both organisationally and personally.

Bridges argues (convincingly) that it is impossible to achieve any desired objectives without getting to "the personal stuff"; the challenge is to get people to stop doing whatever "the old way" was and that cannot be accomplished impersonally. He goes on to suggest that transition management requires experience and abilities we already possess; e.g. when we work out a tactful response in a difficult situation. However, the strategies of transition management he suggests may require mastery of certain techniques which some people have to learn.

What struck me was the practical application of Lewin’s 3 stage change cycle. Although Bridges doesn’t specifically mention “unfreezing” and “refreezing” his description of managing transitions by “letting go” and “celebrating success” had a real resonance with the Lewin model for me.

Given the nature and extent of organisational change, I would encourage everyone engaged (voluntarily or involuntarily) in organisational changes...in particular, those at the management level.

It is not always possible to "manage change" but I agree with Bridges that it is possible to formulate and then manage an appropriate response to it. The book works as an excellent companion to Katzenbach's Real Change Leaders, and John Kotter’s Leading Change (the 8 stage process).

Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 December 2011 14:48