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Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change [Paperback]

William Bridges (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 27, 2003
The business world is a place of constant change, with stories of corporate mergers, layoffs, bankruptcy, and restructuring hitting the news every day. Yet as veteran consultant William Bridges maintains, the situational changes are not as difficult for companies to make as the psychological transitions. In the best-selling Managing Transitions, Bridges provides a clear understanding of what change does to employees and what employees in transition can do to an organization. Directed at managers and employees in today's corporations, Bridges shows how to minimize the distress and disruptions caused by change. Managing Transitions addresses the fact that it is people who have to carry out the change. When the book was originally published a decade ago, Bridges was the first to provide any real sense of the emotional impact of change and what can be done to keep it from disrupting the entire organization. With new information and commentary on layoffs, corporate suspicion, and the increasing tumult in the business world, Managing Transitions remains the definitive guide to dealing with change.


Editorial Reviews

Review

Bookviews blog, October
“Filled with excellent advice for those in leadership positions who need a clear understanding of what change does to employees and what employees in transition can do to an organization.”

Alaska Journal of Commerce, 12/13/09
“If your giftee has experienced a lot of change this year (or anticipates some in 2010), wrap up Managing Transitions…This book includes thought-provoking quizzes.”
 
Toronto Globe and Mail, 8/3/10
 #7 on the “Bestselling Business Books” list.

About the Author

Formerly a professor of English, William Bridges made a shift to the field of transitional management in the mid-1970s; out of his workshops has grown a long career of consulting, lecturing, and helping others through transitions. He lives with his wife in Mill Valley, California.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: Da Capo Press; 2nd edition (May 27, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0738208248
  • ISBN-13: 978-0738208244
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Bridges is an internationally known speaker, author, and consultant who advises individuals and organizations in how to deal productively with change. His ten books include an expanded third edition of his best-seller, Managing Transitions (2009), and the updated second edition of Transitions (2004), which together have sold over one million copies. Before that he published The Way of Transition (2000), a partly autobiographical study of coming to terms with profound changes in his own life and transforming them into times of self-renewal. He published Creating You & Co., a handbook for creating a work-life that capitalizes on today's frequent and disruptive changes, and the ground-breaking Jobshift.

For three decades, he has guided thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations through the maze of the transitions that accompany change. He focuses on the Transition, or psychological reorientation, people must go through to come to terms with changes in their lives. His three-phase model of Endings, Neutral Zone and New Beginnings is widely known. The professional seminars that he launched in 1988 have now certified more than 5,000 managers, trainers and consultants worldwide to conduct Transition Management programs. His later work has focused on bringing the principles of Transition Management into the non-profit world. He has been a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and corporate meetings in the United States and abroad.

Educated originally in the humanities at Harvard, Columbia, and Brown Universities, he was (until his own career change in 1974) a professor of American Literature at Mills College, Oakland, CA. He is a past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. The Wall Street Journal listed him as one of the top ten independent executive development presenters in America.


 

Customer Reviews

38 Reviews
5 star:
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3 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

151 of 154 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Answers the question: Why most organizational change fails?, February 24, 2000
By 
J. Lipsey (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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William Bridges is one of the world's leading experts in the area of managing the human side of change. Bridges originally introduced the notion of "transition" in his first book, Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes (1980), which was a primer on coping with the tumultuous life changes we all face on a personal level. In Managing Transitions, Bridges applies the concept of transition within the context of organizational change.

Bridges asserts that transition is not synonymous with "change." A change occurs when something in the external environment is altered. In an organizational setting this would include changes in management, organizational structure, job design, systems, processes, etc. These changes trigger an internal psychological reorientation process in those who are expected to carry out or respond to the change. Transition is this internal process that people must go through in order to come to terms with a new situation. Unless transition occurs, change will not work.

Bridges believes that the failure to identify and prepare for the inevitable human psychological adjustments that change produces is the largest single problem that organizations encounter when they implement major change initiatives.

Unfortunately, many managers, when confronted with predictable change-induced resistance by those charged with implementing a change, respond in punitive and inappropriate ways that only serve to undermine the change effort. Due to their lack of understanding of transition, they do not possess the skills to facilitate it effectively.

Leaders and managers often assume that when necessary changes are decided upon and well planned, they will just happen. Unless the transition process is handled successfully by management, all that careful decision making and detailed planning will matter little.

We must face the fact that for a change to occur, people must own it. Unless people go through the inner process of transition, they will not develop the new behavior and attitudes the change requires. Change efforts that disregard the process of transition are doomed.

Bridges presents the reader with a simple three-phase transition model that eliminates much of the mystery surrounding the human side of change. He then provides would-be change agents with a series of checklists that serve as a road map for managing transitions in the real world.

Both research and experience remind us that although a change can be implemented quickly, the psychological process of transition takes time. Transitions can take a very long time if they are not well managed. Few organizations can afford to wait that long for the results.

The good news is that leaders can learn basic transition management strategies. Armed with these skills, they can lead employees through complex and difficult changes with renewed energy and purpose, and can actually accelerate the process of transition.

With as many as half of all major organizational change efforts failing, leaders must learn new strategies and skills that will increase the odds of success. Bridges has provided us with a toolkit for managing the human side of change that is well worth considering.

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47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The first step of any project should be to read this book., August 1, 1999
By A Customer
The main message of this book - "Never lose sight of the fact that is not so much that you are starting something new but it is that you are stopping something old". The something old that you are stopping is the system that people have used for years. It might be the worlds worst system but it was theirs and you are going to take it away and replace it with something they neither understand or have been a part of selecting. This book helps you deal with that issue. Read it first - then start re-engineering.
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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, tactical and easy to follow. Invaluable., March 17, 1999
This books helps one get one's arms around the "soft" - but most difficult - side of change. I cannot tell you how many brilliant implementation plans fail because consultants and organizations did not plan ahead and take into account the material covered in this book. Checklists and clear descriptions help even the most analytical types understand the human side of change and tactics needed to make change successful. I recommend this book to all my friends - from McKinsey consultants to ministers and non-profit managers.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
transition management plan, nonstop change, organizational life cycle
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Getting Organized, New York, Promised Land, Checklist Yes No Have, Transition Monitoring Teams, New Jersey, Forest Service, World War, Neutral Zone
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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