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August 12 - November 20, 2022
Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
“They don’t need to know yet. We’ll tell them when the time comes. It’ll just upset them now.”
“They already know. We announced it.”
“I told the supervisors. It’s their job to tell their teams.”
“We don’t know all the details yet ourselves, so there’s no point in saying anything until everything has been decided.”
So instead of telling the truth, managers substitute a fabrication of half-truths and untruths. Not only do these later turn out to be outright lies, but managers often trip themselves up with inconsistencies and new stories to cover the old inconsistencies.
One of the biggest problems that endings cause in an organization is confusion.
One of the most important leadership roles during times of change is that of putting into words what it is time to leave behind.
People don’t dare to stop doing anything. They try to do all the old things and the new things. Soon they burn out with the overload. 2. People make their own decisions about what to discard and what to keep, and the result is inconsistency and chaos. 3. People toss out everything that was done in the past, and the baby disappears with the bathwater.
MARK THE ENDINGS
TREAT THE PAST WITH RESPECT
LET PEOPLE TAKE A PIECE OF THE OLD WAY WITH THEM
SHOW HOW ENDINGS ENSURE THE CONTINUITY OF WHAT REALLY MATTERS
Whatever must end must end.
Don’t drag it out. Plan it carefully, and once it is done, allow time for healing. But the action itself should be sufficiently large to get the job done.
there, the first task of transition management is to convince people to leave home.
What actions can you take to help people deal more successfully with the endings that are taking place in your organization? What can you do today to get started on this aspect of transition management?
It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear. . . . It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.
One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
If this phase lasted only a short time, you could just wait for it to pass. But when the change is deep and far-reaching, this time between the old identity and the new can stretch out for months, even years. And as Marilyn Ferguson so aptly put it, during this period after you’ve let go of the old trapeze, you feel as though you have nothing to hold on to while waiting for a new one to appear.
And as Marilyn Ferguson so aptly put it, during this period after you’ve let go of the old trapeze, you feel as though you have nothing to hold on to while waiting for a new one to appear.
Welcome to the middle phase of the transition process. This is a time most languages don’t even have a name for. I call it the neutral zone because it is a nowhere between two somewheres, and because while you are in it, forward motion seems to stop while you hang suspended between what was and will be.1 Neutral zones occur not only in organizations but also in individual lives and in the history of whole societies.
Neutral zones occur not only in organizations but also in individual lives and in the history of whole societies.
Neutral Zones happen throughout history!
The dangers presented by the neutral zone take several forms: 1. People’s anxiety rises and their motivation falls. They feel disoriented and self-doubting. They are resentful and self-protective. Energy is drained away from work into coping tactics. In one recent merger, managers in several key departments of the smaller company estimated that people’s effectiveness had fallen 50 percent. 2. People in the neutral zone miss more work than at other times. At best, productivity suffers, and at worst, there is a sharp rise in medical and disability claims. Absenteeism tripled at one
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In the church
1. People get territorial
2. Folks quit coming to church
3. Old conflicts get worse
In the neutral zone, people are overloaded, they frequently get mixed signals, and systems are in flux and more unreliable. It is only natural that priorities get confused, information is miscommunicated, and important tasks go undone. It is also natural that with so much uncertainty and frustration, people lose confidence in the organization’s future and turnover begins to rise. 2. Given the ambiguities of the neutral zone, it is easy for people to become polarized: some want to rush forward and others want to go back to the old ways. Under the pressure of that polarization, consensus
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The argument that there isn’t time for such efforts is based on a serious misunderstanding of the situation: neutral zone management actually saves time because you don’t have to launch the change a second time . . . after the first time didn’t work. And it’s neutral zone management that prevents the organization from coming apart as it crosses the gap between the old way and the new.
When everything is going smoothly, it’s often hard to change things. “If it ain’t broke,” they say, “it don’t need fixing.” People who are sure they have the answers stop asking questions. And people who stop asking questions never challenge the status quo. Without such challenges, an organization can drift slowly into deep trouble before it gets a clear signal that something is wrong.
The task before you is therefore twofold: first, to get your people through this phase of transition in one piece; and second, to capitalize on all the confusion by encouraging them to be innovative. The road through the neutral zone is indeed rough going, but it is passable if you’re prepared for it. Here’s what to do to help people make the journey.
The neutral zone is the time to be creative!
One of the most difficult aspects of the neutral zone is that most people don’t understand it. They expect to be able to move straight from the old to the new. But this isn’t a trip from one side of the street to the other. It’s a journey from one identity to another, and that kind of journey takes time.
the outlook, attitudes, values, self-images, and ways of thinking that were functional in the past have to “die” before people can be ready for life in the present.
The old has to die before the new can come!
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time. MARK TWAIN, AMERICAN WRITER
It is a time when reorientation and redefinition must take place, and people need to understand that. It is the winter during which the spring’s new growth is taking shape under the earth.
Defintion of neutral zone. It is the creative formulativetime of transition!
“last voyage” of the ship,
The organization needed the plant’s output, and the individuals could use the time to improve their own marketability through skills enhancement, career-strategies training, and experience-building reassignments.
Create win win scenarios😃
Transition management must be based on win-win arrangements.
The same in the church...win...win!
“we are all in this boat together”—
This is where a transition monitoring team is valuable. The TMT, as it is often called, is a small group of people chosen from as wide a cross-section of the organization as possible. It meets every week or two to take the pulse of the organization in transition.
TMT transition monitoring team formed to communicate concerns etc
