Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes

by William Bridges

So we’ve got a change-dependent economy and a culture that celebrates creativity and innovation. There is no way that our careers won’t be punctuated by frequent changes, each of which demands a transition from an old way of doing things and an old identity to a new one. And there is no way that these transitions won’t take a significant toll on our productivity as we temporarily siphon off energy and time from performing our jobs to making the transitions. If that temporary displacement of energy happens to only a few individuals, it is their problem; but when it occurs on a large scale, as it does during big reorganizations and mergers, the individual problem of career transition1 becomes the organization’s problem, in the form of “reduced productivity,” “absenteeism,” “increased defects,” or “turnover.”