Change is omnipresent in our daily lives.  Every year companies initiate thousands of changes. Statistics show that between 50% – 75% of those changes do not produce the expected results. Research points to several reasons for this. The top reasons are:

• Lack of Executive Leadership or buy-in surrounding the change
• Lack of proper planning or funds
• Employee Resistance.

Often, people resist change based on their perceptions of four factors
identified by William Bridges as C.U.S.P. factors:

Control:  How much control do people feel they have over the current situation?

Understanding:  Do the people involved understand specifically what is happening and why, in language and terms that are meaningful to them?

Support:  Do people feel they have the emotional and practical support necessary to help them get through what they are experiencing?

Purpose:  Do people feel they have a purpose in the current change that gives meaning to what they are doing and feeling?

William Bridges, in Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, discusses the idea that successful changes are accomplished by managing the transitions that people must go through. He draws a distinction between “change” and “transition” as illustrated below:

Transition is the process people go through when adjusting to a change in their lives. There are three phases of transition that must be managed to be able to positively function within the new environment.

Ending

Whenever a change takes place, people lose something. They may lose power, relationships, familiar surroundings, a process they were comfortable with, anything that they had an emotional attachment to. To effectively manage the transition, it is necessary to identify who is “losing” what and acknowledge the loss.

The Neutral Zone

 Between the place where the old ways are over but the new ways haven’t quite settled in is the Neutral Zone. People in the Neutral Zone don’t really know what to do. Processes, both new and old, might get dropped. Customer service might go down due to confusion over procedures. To effectively manage the transition, it is necessary to communicate, over and over and over, what part people should be playing, how the change is progressing, and what is over.

However, the Neutral Zone isn’t all “life in limbo.” The Neutral Zone is where the most creative energy lies. During this phase, people are better able to come up with new ways of doing things. Given proper encouragement and authority to innovate, people in the Neutral Zone can really add value to the company.

The New Beginning

When the change finally kicks in and people have accepted the “new order” they have reached the New Beginning. In this phase, the new processes and procedures start to “feel right.”

Change is going to happen whether we like it or not, so why not be a little more thoughtful about the process.  I highly recommend reading William Bridges’ work and trying some of the strategies he suggests.  Change is inevitable but how we react to the transition is up to each of us.