Supporting Your Team Through Change
Module Overview
Purpose
To identify the difference between change and transition, and provide ways to
support your team through change efforts.
Learning Objectives
Through lecture, discussion and activities, participants will be able to:
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Identify the difference between Change and Transition and its relevance to successful
change
Explore William Bridges’ Transition Framework and selected tools designed to support
the ‘human side of change’
Practice applying Bridges’ Transition Framework and selected tools to a change effort
involving your team
Agenda
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IV.
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What Do You Know About Change?
William Bridges’ Transition Framework
Consider a Current Team Change
Supporting Your Team Through Change
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Types of Change
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Starting School
Ending School
Marriage
Divorce
New Job
Loss of loved ones
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Job Relocation
Moving
Leaving Family
Health Concerns
Care-giving Responsibilities
How do I React to Change?
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
What I (Already) Know About Change
1. Individual Reflection (5 mins): Reflect upon a major change that you’ve made in your
life. It could be a personal life change or a workplace change.
a. As you made this change, what ended? (e.g. identity, status, influence, control,
security, relationships)
b. How did you feel? (e.g. angry, scared, disappointed, lonely, excited, relieved,
curious)
c. What helped (or might have helped) to make the change easier? (e.g. more
information, more support, knowing where to get help)
2. Triads Sharing (20 mins)
a. Team up with two others to share your answers to question 1. Prepare to share
some (non-private) thoughts with the larger group.
3. Whole Group Share (5 mins)
a. What do we already know about change?
b. How does this help you think about supporting your teams through change?
Notes:
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
“Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change”
William Bridges’ helpful guide, 1st published 1991, offers a framework for understanding
why change can be hard and offers many tools designed to:
Bridges’ key overarching message involves distinguishing CHANGE from
TRANSITION
Change is and ‘Event’: it is situational and external to us.
In Contrast, Transition is a gradual psychological reorientation: it happens internally as we try
to adapt to change.
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
You Can’t Talk about Change without Transition
Bridges highlighted that…
It’s the transition, not the change that people often resist, because…
 Potential loss of identity and/or all that’s familiar
 Disorientation, uncertainty about the future
 Risk of failing in a new situation
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Endings
You have to end before you can begin!
Leader’s role during Endings…
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Help others let go of ‘the old way of doing things’
Understand the reason for the Change
Be supportive to self, team members, and other supervisors and colleagues
Provide time to celebrate the past, say goodbye
Establish an opportunity to take a piece of the past with them
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Neutral Zone
Getting through the in-between time!
Leader’s role during Endings…
• Provide support through the ‘in-between time’
• Continue empathy/support
• Use the time creatively
• Maintain frequent updates
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
New Beginnings
Embarking on New Beginnings!
Leader’s role during Endings…
• Encourage adaption to ‘the new way(s)’
• Build curiosity
• Celebrate small successes
• Reward flexibility and responsiveness
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
How Do Work Changes Come to Us?
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Often from Senior Leadership
A need for change is identified
A case for change is made
An outline and timeline is sent…
Change
• Practical event
• New situation
• Happens on schedule
• Result of decisions
Transition
• Psychological process
• New relations/ identity
• Internal ‘heart’ clock
• Result of process
Your role as a Leader when change comes to you…
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Share the Case for Change
Acknowledge Response / Challenges
Remove All Barriers and Support Your Teams
Recognize, Appreciate, Encourage Progress
Check-In Often and Follow Up Promptly
If we only focus on Change
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We tend to focus on ‘logistics’ and things we need to do
It’s practical and necessary but doesn’t support how people are experiencing change how they feel and what they’re making of it all
It doesn’t reach ‘the heart’ of the matter
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
My Team Change
Individual Reflection (5 mins):
Identify a change effort that you and your team are going through or have been through.
Consider the following questions:
1. What is/was the reason/rationale for the change?
2. How will /or has the change affected your team?
3. How will/has the organization benefit(ed) from the change?
4. Do you/did you have a plan for rolling out the change or was one shared with you?
5. What are/were the expected outcomes?
6. What kind of training and support will/did your team need?
7. Have/Did you engage(d) your team in helping with the change effort, if so how?
Table Group Discussion (20 mins):
Using this information, each share/discuss the change effort that you will focus on today.
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Where Are You & Your Team?
Transition Map
Notes:
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Listening for Words and Phrases
Instructions: What are you/ were you hearing in your work area? Review the examples below
for similarities you may recognize and check the box to the right accordingly.
Phrase
What People May be Saying
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Not Yet in
Transition
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Endings
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Neutral Zone
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New Beginnings
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Finished with
Transition
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Check if You’ve
Heard This (or
something similar)
Until they tell us what the changes are, we have no way
of telling how they might affect us.
This is no big deal. We’ve been through this before.
This is just another one of those management changes
that doesn’t affect us at our level.
This is ridiculous! Who thought this up? It makes no
sense!
This isn’t the company I signed on with.
There was nothing wrong with the way we were doing
things. Why are they changing it?
Sometimes it seems like there’s no-one driving this
train.
It feels like we’re just marking time, waiting for
somebody to do something – things are on hold.
I feel totally disconnected and no-one even cares.
It really was upsetting at first, but I feel pretty good
now.
Did you see the sales figures? We’re making out targets
again!
When you get used to the new program, it isn’t half
bad.
It really was upsetting at first, but I feel pretty good
now.
Did you see the sales figures? We’re making our
targets again!
It took me awhile to feel part of the team, but now I
really feel like I’m part of things.
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Three Keys to Successful Transition
1. Information – Communicate Often, Then Some More
2. Engagement – Transition Team and Everyone
3. Support– Empathy, Training, Coaching, Resources
Endings:
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Is the reason for the change clear?
Do team members understand how it may affect their role(s) and responsibilities?
Have you shared a team plan of next steps? Trainings? Expected outcomes?
Have you shared your communication strategy for providing regular updates?
Share/Delegate/Empower
• Transition Team
• Communication Plan
• Feedback Loops
• Team Champions
• Training Leads
Creating a Transition Team
1. Select members or seek volunteers carefully
2. Designate a Team Lead and Sub Lead
3. Include at least one ‘naysayer’/informal leader
4. Clarify roles and responsibilities
5. Clarify communication loops/flows/frequency
6. Clarify boundaries, role term, replacement
7. Implement before roll out!
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Neutral Zone:
1. Communicate the 2 Cs:
• Connection – ‘no staff member left behind’
• Concern – for losses
2. Communicate Information
• Reiterate the Case for Change
• Clarify Any New Roles/Responsibilities
• Share Updates / Adjustments to the Plan
Enhancing Creativity:
 Encourage experimentation / risk taking
 Encourage and support trust
 Encourage learning more about the change
 Encourage ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking/ideas
 Remember to laugh…and don’t forget the pizza!
New Beginnings:
• Fine tune plan and communicate changes
• Ensure early successes – ‘low hanging fruit’
• Appreciate flexibility and responsiveness
• Communicate, communicate, communicate!
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Supporting Your Team Through Change
Summary: Bridges’ 7 Principles of Transition Management
1. You have to end before you begin
2. Between the ending and the beginning, there is a hiatus
3. That hiatus – or transition can be creative
4. Transition is developmental
5. Transition is also a source of renewal
6. People go through transition at different speeds
7. Most organizations are running a “transition deficit”
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