3 Simple Questions to Lead People Through a Change Transition - by William Bridges

William Bridges focuses on the transitions and the psychological changes that lie behind significant organisational change. Bridges draws the important and frequently overlooked distinction between change and transition. Bridges sees change as situational and transition as psychological.

In my experience and in my view - it is the people related issues that lie behind the staggering and consistent 70% failure rate of all significant organisational change initiatives.

"A change can work only if the people affected by it can get through the transition it causes successfully."

So many times I have asked the question of directors considering some form of change initiative: "Why are you doing it and how will it benefit you and how will you know it's benefited you?" - and got a vague or general answer along the lines of "we'll be... bigger... better... closer to our customers... reduce our costs... etc"

In a recent article, Bridges said; "It still surprises me how often organizations undertake changes that no one can describe very clearly." He poses these 3 simple questions:

(1) What is changing?

So often senior executive convey a very unclear picture of the change and describe it in terms of generalities. Bridges believes that change leaders need to able to express the change in a clear simple statement that can be expressed in under one minute. This way people will obtain a core understanding of what is changing.

Bridges offers the following guidance - the statement must:

- Clearly express the change leader's understanding and intention

- Link the change to the drivers that make it necessary

- "Sell the problem before you try to sell the solution."

- Not use jargon

- Be under 60 seconds in duration

(2) What will actually be different because of the change?

Bridges says: "I go into organizations where a change initiative is well underway, and I ask what will be different when the change is done-and no one can answer the question."

He believes that in many cases, change initiatives are conceived at such a high level in the management structure that the planners are unaware and out of touch with the impacts the change will have - on departments, jobs and individuals: "A change may seem very important and very real to the leader, but to the people who have to make it work it seems quite abstract and vague until actual differences that it will make begin to become clear... the drive to get those differences clear should be an important priority on the planners' list of things to do."

In my view this is all about clear communication and good expectation management. This is what a programme based approach to change management addresses directly.

(3) Who's going to lose what?

Bridges maintains that the situational changes are not as difficult for companies to make as the psychological transitions of the people impacted by the change.

He suggests that the transition starts with a loss - a letting go of the old ways of how things were before the change: "...we often say... that you don't cross the line separating change management from transition management until you have asked 'Who will lose [or has lost] what?'"

Transition management is all about seeing the situation through the eyes of the other guy. It is a perspective based on empathy. It is management and communication process that recognises and affirms people's realities and works with them to bring them through the transition. Failure to do this, on the part of change leaders, and a denial of the losses and "lettings go" that people are faced with, sows the seeds of mistrust.

In my view, William Bridges' 3 simple questions are an excellent starting place for addressing the foundational causes of the catastrophic 70% failure rate in change management, and it resonates with and is totally consistent with the holistic and wide view perspective of a programme based approach to change management.

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