William Bridges, Susan Bridges

Don’t argue with what you hear. In the first place, it will stop the conversation, and you won’t learn any more. In the second place, loss is a subjective experience, and your “objective” view (which is really just another subjective view) is irrelevant. Finally, you’ll just make your task more difficult by convincing people that you don’t understand them—or, worse yet, that you don’t care what they feel and think.

William Bridges, Susan Bridges in Managing Transitions

If, on the other hand, the change is already under way, you can find out about losses much more quickly. Simply ask people. “What’s different, now that we have a new X?” “When we did X, what did you have to give up?” “What do you miss since we changed X?”

William Bridges, Susan Bridges in Managing Transitions

keep reminding yourself that it isn’t enough to change the situation. You also have to help people make the psychological reorientation that they must make if the change is to work.

William Bridges, Susan Bridges in Managing Transitions

This one is tempting because small changes are easier to assimilate than big ones. But one change after another is trouble. It’s better to introduce change in one coherent package.

William Bridges, Susan Bridges in Managing Transitions

Once you understand that transition begins with letting go of something, you have taken the first step in the task of transition management. The second step is understanding what comes after the letting go: the neutral zone. This is the psychological no-man’s-land between the old reality and the new one. It is the limbo between the old sense of identity and the new. It is the time when the old way of doing things is gone, but the new way doesn’t feel comfortable yet.

William Bridges, Susan Bridges in Managing Transitions