Quotes About Adaptation

Third Law of Organizational Development: in any significant transition, the thing that the organization needs to let go of is the very thing that got it this far. Discovering that law is painful, especially when you feel that you owe everything to the people, the culture, the style of management, or the strategy that "got you this far.

change and endings go hand in hand: change causes transition, and transition starts with an ending. If things change within an organization, at least some of the employees and managers are going to have to let go of something

This same kind of overreaction occurs when an ending is viewed as symbolic of some larger loss. The minor layoff in a company that has never had layoffs before is an example. It isn't the loss of the particular individuals—it's the loss of the safety people felt from the no-layoff policy.

Learn to look for the loss behind the loss and deal with that underlying issue. You'll get much further if you can show people that Loss A is really unrelated to the dreaded, larger Loss B than if you simply try to talk them out of their reaction to Loss A.

When endings take place, people get angry, sad, frightened, depressed, and confused. These emotional states can be mistaken for bad morale, but they aren't. They are the signs of grieving, the natural sequence of emotions people go through when they lose something that matters to them.

The neutral zone takes a heavy toll on most people's self-confidence because it is a period of lowered productivity and diminished feelings of competence. It may also, if it resonates with past difficulties in a person's life, activate serious problems of low self-esteem. For that reason people are likely to need some fairly quick successes if they are to return to their former effectiveness.

Next, the organization must Recapture the Venture Spirit; that style was natural to the young and just-launched organization, but now it is locked away in the past.

Transitions are the dynamic interludes between one of the seven stages of organizational life and the next. Their function is to close out one phase, reorient and renew people in that time we are calling the neutral zone, and carry people into the new way of doing and being that is the beginning of the next stage.

What is this new beginning going to require of us and of others in the organization? The sooner you start embodying the behaviors and attitudes that fit the new beginning, the sooner others in the organization will have the leader they need.

But remember: in your communications you need to speak to wherever people are now, not to where you want them to go, and they need your help, not in getting to the destination you want them ultimately to reach, but in taking the next step in the transition they find themselves in because of your big change.

the First Law of Organizational Development is evident: those who were most at home with the necessary activities and arrangements of one phase are the ones who are the most likely to experience the subsequent phase as a severe personal setback. They will talk about it as a "strategic mistake," as "dumb," "unnecessary," and "too expensive.

the outlook, attitudes, values, self-images, and ways of thinking that were functional in the past have to "die" before people can be ready for life in the present.

every previous level of change comes to be called "stability." Seen in this light, what people today call "nonstop change" is simply a new level of what has always existed. It isn't pure chaos—simply a new experience. When people adjust to it, they will look back upon it as "the stability that we used to enjoy.

You can try hard to protect people from further changes while they're trying to regain their balance.

People can deal with a lot of change if it is coherent and part of a larger whole. But adding unrelated and unexpected changes, even small ones, can push people to the breaking point.

Review policies and procedures to see that they are adequate to deal with the confusing fluidity of the neutral zone. The "rules" under which you operate were set up to govern ongoing operations when things weren't changing as much as they are now.

One of the biggest problems that endings cause in an organization is confusion. Things change, and obviously the organization won't do some of the things it used to do.

STRENGTHEN INTRAGROUP CONNECTIONS The neutral zone is a lonely place. People feel isolated, especially if they don't understand what is happening to them. As I have already noted, old problems are likely to resurface and old resentments are likely to come back to life. For these reasons it is especially important to try to rebuild a sense of identification with the group and of connectedness with one another.

One of the most important leadership roles during times of change is that of putting into words what it is time to leave behind. Because talking about making a break with the past can upset its defenders, some leaders shy away from articulating just what it is time to say good-bye to. But in their unwillingness to say what it is time to let go of, they are jeopardizing the very change that they believe they are leading.

In the neutral zone, be wary of any arrangement or activity that shows a preference for one group over others. During this middle phase of transition, people want to feel that "we are all in this boat together"—another good metaphor. They will put up with a lot of discomfort if everyone must do so as well.

Never denigrate the past. Many managers, in their enthusiasm for a future that is going to be better than the past, ridicule or demean the old way of doing things. In doing so they consolidate the resistance against the transition because people identify with the way things used to be and thus feel that their self-worth is at stake whenever the past is attacked.

All transitions are composed of an ending, a neutral zone and a new beginning

Endings occur more easily if people can take a bit of the past with them. You are trying to disengage people from it, not stamp it out like an infection. And in particular, you don't want to make people feel blamed for having been part of it.

Every organizational system has its own natural "immune system" whose task it is to resist unfamiliar, and so unrecognizable, signals. That is not necessarily bad.