cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

Organizational changeNew beginningBeginnings should be nurtured carefully. They cannot be planned andpredicted, but they can be encouraged, supported and reinforced.Bridges suggests that people need four key elements to help them makea new beginning:• the purpose behind the change;• a picture of how this new organization will look and feel;• a step by step plan to get there;• a part to play in the outcome.The beginning is reached when people feel they can make the emotionalcommitment to doing something in a new way. Bridges makes the pointthat the neutral zone is longer and the endings are more protracted forthose further down the management hierarchy. This can lead to impatiencefrom managers who have emotionally stepped into a new beginning,while their people seem to lag behind, seemingly stuck in anending (see box).IMPATIENT FOR ENDINGS?As part of the management team, I knew about the merger very early, soby the time we announced it to the rest of the company, we were readyto fly with the task ahead.What was surprising, and annoying, was the slow speed with whicheveryone else caught up. My direct reports were asking detailed questionsabout their job specifications and exactly how it was all going towork when we had fully merged. Of course I couldn’t answer any of thesequestions. I was really irritated by this.The CEO had to have a long, intensive heart to heart with the wholeteam explaining what was going on and how much we knew about thefuture state of the organization before we could really get moving.125