Managing Transitions: Bridges's Three Phases, and What the Research Says

What the book argues

Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change is by William Bridges. Addison-Wesley first published it in 1991 (Open Library, n.d.-a). The 25th anniversary edition, written with Susan Bridges, went on sale on January 10, 2017 (Hachette Book Group, n.d.; Open Library, n.d.-b). The publisher describes William Bridges as an internationally known speaker, consultant and author, and Susan Bridges as president of William Bridges Associates (Hachette Book Group, n.d.).

The book's central distinction is between change and transition. On the firm's own site, transition is the inner psychological process people go through as they come to terms with a change, and it has three phases: ending what currently is, the neutral zone, and the new beginning (William Bridges Associates, n.d.). The publisher's description adds the practical claim: organizational transitions affect people, and they succeed when employees have a purpose, a plan and a part to play (Hachette Book Group, n.d.). It names restructures, mergers, bankruptcies and layoffs among the situations it covers.

In my words: a manager can announce a change on Monday, but the team's transition starts with letting go of something, and it runs on its own timetable.

Who it is for

The publisher says it is aimed at managers on every rung of the ladder (Hachette Book Group, n.d.). It is most useful to a manager who has to carry out a change decided above them, because it gives words for what the team is going through in the gap between the announcement and the new way of working.

What the research says

I found no study that tests the three phases as a model. The research I use speaks instead to the book's practical advice: tell people the truth about what is changing, and expect a period of uncertainty that leaders need to manage.

Honest previews went with better outcomes after a merger. Schweiger and DeNisi (1991) compared two plants of one company after a merger was announced. One plant received a program of realistic communication about the merger; the other received limited information. According to their abstract, across four rounds of data the plant that got the realistic preview showed fewer dysfunctional outcomes of the merger, and the difference lasted through the study. With only two plants, this is one comparison, not a general law, but it supports the book's case for naming endings openly.

Uncertainty changes shape during a change. Herzig and Jimmieson (2006) interviewed 40 middle managers in ten Australian organizations. Before a change was put in place, their uncertainty was mostly about why it was happening. During it, the uncertainty shifted to how to carry it out. The managers named the design of the change, communication with senior managers and with their own staff, senior support, conflicting role demands and contact with peers as what helped or hurt. That is a retrospective interview study, so it gives themes rather than effects, but it reads like a description of the neutral zone from the manager's chair.

How leaders lead goes with how people react, though the links may look larger in surveys than they are. Peng and colleagues (2021) pooled 30 studies. According to their abstract, transformational leadership went with more commitment, openness and readiness for change, and with less resistance and cynicism. Some of those links were stronger in one-time surveys than in studies that followed people over time, which may mean the effects look larger in snapshots than they are.

Where the evidence is thin

The three phases are a framework drawn from practice. I found no controlled study that tests whether people move through them in order, or whether managing each phase in the way the book advises improves results. The supporting studies are small (two plants, forty interviews) or correlational. The book is best read as a useful map of the human side of change, not as a tested model.

How it maps to the Unfrozen Loop

This mapping is my judgment. Naming what is ending is a direct use of Surface both ways, the part of the Unfrozen Loop about getting bad news and concerns to travel up as easily as plans travel down. Purpose and plan belong to Make sense together, top included, where managers and teams work out what a change means for their own work and the people above say out loud what it costs. And the neutral zone is where The middle's own weather matters most, because the manager is often in the same transition as the team. See also the Atlas answers on how emotions affect change and how leaders should communicate a change.

What I take from it

The distinction between change and transition is the most useful idea here, and the research on honest communication backs the advice that follows from it. Before your next change announcement, write down three things your team will lose, not only what they will gain, and say them out loud in the first meeting. For a related model often confused with this one, see the change curve, and for more books, the change management reading list.