Book review: Managing Transitions by William Bridges

Bridges book Transitions is now a classic in career development literature, and he updated and revised it in 2003. What is appealing about the book is the simplicity of the model and how applicable it is to any kind of transition. He makes a key distinction between change and transition. He says, change is situational, while transition is psychological. He clarifies that change is more about externals and things, while transition is more about people and how we get our heads around what is happening during changes.
Transition for Bridges has three psychological stages: Ending – Neutral Zone – New Beginning. We usually think of stories having a beginning, middle and end. But in this case it is more useful to punctuate the process with the ending (old job), neutral zone (unemployment, reassessment, job search), and new beginning (new job). We too often blur these stages by wanting to rush through them and we don’t learn all we could. Or we jump right into a bad career decision because of the discomfort of unemployment.
Bridges argues that it is essential to recognize the ending first before plowing ahead into all the hard work of dealing with unemployment and job search, which involve many time consuming tasks. And no one will deny that all these tasks are vitally important, but they are behaviors, and if we don’t first deal with our emotions, beliefs and attitudes, then we run the risk of making some bad decisions. This is where it really helps to have a career counselor who can guide you through this phase and keep you grounded and focused.
Our emotions are where our energy is and where we find the juice that we need to perform all the job search tasks that we need to do to move forward. If we don’t deal with our sadness or sense of loss or threat to our self esteem and change of identity, we may be drained of energy we need to spot new opportunities, and to adopt productive ways of thinking about this period.
Granted in this current economic crisis (recession, jobless recovery, whatever you call it), it takes some mental effort to see unemployment as neutral. It certainly feels scarier than neutral. But the benefit of reframing it as neutral is to calm ourselves down, and be able to concentrate on the work that needs to be done during this phase.
Risk always feels somewhat scary when we see it as a threat of losing something. But it feels exhilarating when we see it as the possibility of gaining something we value. The scary part of skydiving (I am told – I am certainly not crazy enough to jump out of a perfectly good airplane) is the waiting to jump. The exhilarating part is the sailing through the air, feeling the excitement, and seeing the world from a whole new perspective. That’s the neutral zone.
We always have a certain percentage of clients who are led to believe by their previous employers, or through magical thinking, that this is a temporary layoff, and I will be called back in a few weeks or months. This belief often has the effect of blocking them from accepting the ending, and therefore wasting a good deal of time waiting for the callback.
I remember the feeling during a layoff period when it truly felt like an emotional rollercoaster. One day I would feel like I was on the doorstep of some great opportunity, and the next day I would feel like I was facing disaster and would lose our house. My wife and I would go for walks just to discuss things and think about all the changes we were facing. Those discussions (and the exercise) kept me grounded and helped me keep perspective.
The job search process is essentially the same as it has always been. Assessing what we want; finding leads and contacts through networking and research; honing our cover letters and resumes; applying; interviewing; and eventually a new beginning. There are new tools that improve some parts of the job search, like word processing, the web, job search engines, email, and tools like LinkedIn. But we know that if we work the plan we will find a new job. We just don’t know when.
And when we find that new job it is another challenge to go from the neutral zone into the new beginning. It may raise self-doubts, worries about the new company, new co-workers, gaining acceptance, etc. It’s not easy, and it is natural to feel ambivalent.
Bridges has lots of good suggestions for launching the new beginning successfully. But the main thing is to celebrate success, make a plan for how to succeed in the new job, and take ownership of your new position, and start to perform. Good luck.
Mike Powers - July 2009