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William Bridges Transition Model

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Managing Transitions by William Bridges is a well-constructed text written on Change Management. Bridges begins by expressing the clear distinction between “change” and “transition”, with emphasis that change and transition are not interchangeable terms, but completely separate processes. The concept, according to Bridges, is simple: Change is situational, it is eventful, visible and tangible. Change is the WHAT. Transition is psychological, a continuous process that happens over a span of time, it is internalized by people. Transition is the HOW. Transition is internal, it is what happens to the person mentally as they process the change.
“Change is situational: the move to a new site, the retirement of a founder, the reorganization of the roles on the team, the revisions to the pension plan.”
“Transition is psychological: a three-phase process people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the details of the new situation that the change brings about.”
Bridges says that these phases have no sequential order of occurrence and the people will go through transition at their own pace. It is not uncommon for an organization to be in more than one phase in the transition process at a given time. This simply depends on how each team has handled the change, some people may have already started the Neutral Zone while others are still lagging behind in the Ending phase. Bridges’ Transition Model is illustrated in figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1 (photo credit:

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