Managing Transitions

Managing transitions means dealing with the mental and emotional process that people go through when coming to terms with major change. It is about helping people deal with uncertainty about their jobs and future. Not effectively dealing with the stress associated with change can cause unproductive or dysfunctional behavior in people.

Transitions always start with an "ending" and finish with a "new beginning." In between is a "middle ground" or the unknown and uncertain "wilderness". Examining these three phases of transitions gives us strategies with which to manage them effectively.

Managing Endings

"Endings" always have associated with them a loss of the way things have been (e.g., a corporate downsizing or merger stimulates a loss of security and certainty). In any transition it is crucial to examine what has been lost, and to identify whom is most affected by the loss. Only when people have truly let go of the past can there be a clearer opening for future possibilities (i.e., the new beginning). Too often, organizations make the unfortunate mistake of getting employees to focus prematurely on the benefits of a new and bright future without honoring the losses of the past. A useful analogy is the process of mourning a death. Mourning helps people get over loss more quickly so that they can move on with their lives.

Not too long ago, a mid-sized high tech company, after much business deliberation by its executive group, abruptly announce to its employees that it was curtailing all future efforts in their company’s flagship product and shifting its focus to a new technology. Almost immediately, the company’s executive group received fear-driven questions from employees about the security of their jobs and the future viability of the company. Employees started to leave because of the perceived future uncertainty of the enterprise. Clearly, this company did not deal effectively with the "ending" process.

Organizations that do not effectively manage transitions lose quality and productivity as people focus inward on their fears, rather than outward on the work to be done. A good example is Digital Equipment Corporation during its anticipated downsizing around the time of Chairman Ken Olsen’s departure. The productivity of a number of Digital’s divisions suffered badly.

Managing the Middle Ground

The next phase of transitions, the "middle ground," is where employees may be struggling to learn and adjust to new thinking, attitudes and behavior. This potentially chaotic place between "endings" and "new beginnings" can be confusing to people if it is not properly acknowledged and made legitimate by organizational leadership. Ineffectively dealing with both "endings" and the "middle ground" is a reason why many corporate mergers and acquisitions (a major organizational transition) often fail to create the results that organization leadership anticipates.

To better manage endings, leaders can help people to dislodge from the past. Leaders can clarify the "ending" - its causes/reasons and what is changing and what isn’t. They can communicate again and again, to help people feel informed and included in what’s going on. They can also help people let go of the past by acknowledging losses, and accepting personal fear and uncertainty.

To help people get through the middle ground, leaders must give people time to finish with the past and adjust/reorient themselves to the future. Leaders can support, protect, involve and reassure people, to the extent possible, about where they are, and where the organization is trying to head. They can also re-stimulate creativity by getting people working on the challenges to successfully make it to "the new beginning"

Managing New Beginnings

To encourage new beginnings, leaders need to create and integrate new ways of working and acting. Leaders can define these "new ways" by describing, modeling and supporting the attitudes and behavior that will generate success. They can reinforce new habits and goals through appropriate re-training, performance management, rewards and recognition. They also can acknowledge the sacrifices and prices paid to make it through to a brighter future. If organizational leaders insist on performing change too quickly, it will take longer anyway and neither time nor effort would be saved.

The mid-sized high tech company referred to above would have done better by including employees in the major change, and acknowledging the major transition that the company needed to go through in order to survive and thrive in its industry. They could have convened a series of employee meetings, communiqués and training that would have better prepared employees for the change and help them get through the ensuing chaotic time.

Remember that Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt (the ending) into the desert wilderness (the middle ground) towards the Promised Land (the new beginning). Yet it was the job of the wilderness to take the old ways of Egypt out of the Israelites, and only then could they discover and fully appreciate the Promised Land. In the wilderness, people need to learn to "worship new gods" (i.e., align with a new purpose & vision), otherwise they will continue to hold onto the old ways, leave to other tribes, or stay lost in the desert.


Harvy Simkovits, CMC, President of Business Wisdom, works with owner managed companies to help them grow, prosper and continue on by offering innovative approaches to business development, company management, organization leadership and learning, and management education. He can be reached at 781-862-3983 or .