Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change Book

The news that the grant which funds the work my team and I do was ending prompted me to return to this book I first read parts of when another "sea change" was coming to the AVID world: the retirement of Mary Catherine Swanson, and the appointment of a new Executive Director. Much was changing, and Chapter 3 of this Book ("How to Get People to Let Go") helped me gain perspective on managing my own feelings of grief, as well as helping those around me figure it out. It was the end of an era for the AVID Program, and the changes in the organization have only grown more rapid in the time since then.

Now that the "final" transition is at hand (at least in terms of most of us in the CA Regions), I decided to read it from cover to cover. Bridges helps the reader understand the difference between change, which is constant, and transition, in which people's worlds are fundamentally altered. Although the author comes from a manufacturing and management focus, most of the book's advice remains relevant for me. Reading from both the perspective of someone who is "being transitioned" and from the angle of someone charged with leading my team through the resulting transitions, I gained immensely from the many acronym-themed processes, like the four P's (purpose, picture, plan, and part), and GRASS (guilt, resentment, anxiety, self-absorption, and stress). The final quote sets out the challenge:

"Our moral responsibility is not to stop the future, but to shape it . . . To channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition." Alvin Toffler. We'll be working through that process together as a team for the next year. I recommend Bridges' book "Transitions" for those going through transitions; for those who lead others who must also make the passage, this book hits the mark. >^..^<