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Holding on and letting go
22 November 2024
Holding on and letting go.
It’s that time of year when we start thinking about next year. But in our enthusiasm to move forward and begin afresh, we could be forgetting to pay attention to what we’re leaving behind. And this matters because at any point or period of transition, to move forward successfully and embrace the new – as individuals, as communities, as teams, as organisations - we need to reflect and celebrate what we are also letting go of.
William Bridges explains this brilliantly in his book ‘Managing transitions’, where he sets out the 3 psychological stages of any transition. The first stage is letting go: acknowledging what is coming to an end and what we are losing that may have been valuable to us. The second stage is the neutral zone where we’re in limbo between the old and new; a time of uncertainty, anxiety but also creativity. The final stage is new beginnings when the way forward becomes clear and importantly, its implications for us personally. The mistake many leaders and organsations make is to excitedly trumpet the new without properly acknowledging the endings. Equally they often underestimate what people need by way of support during the neutral zone.
If you’ve got a few decades of life under your belt like me, you can probably look back and chart the endings you’ve experienced. Maybe these related to breaking up with a partner, leaving a treasured home, losing a loved one or relinquishing your independence in some way. Some endings we choose, others are forced upon us. At work it’s the same – changing jobs, changing bosses, going through a merger or restructuring, saying goodbye to colleagues we’ve enjoyed spending time with. What are the endings that stand out for you, and why?
My husband and I have been helping our 13 year old navigate the tricky transition into senior school after 10 exceptionally happy years in a small school that had effectively been her second home. While she has established a good circle of friends at her new school and is doing well academically, we’d underestimated her sense of loss at leaving her old school life behind her. It's the first time she’s really had to deal with the ending of a significant chapter in her life, and the first time for us that we’re having to support her as parents through such a change.
Coming back to the world of work, I work with organisations that are growing fast and have ambitious goals; you might think ‘well, they’re not dealing with endings’. Wrong. The businesses are never in steady state with new structures and processes, teams expanding, the strategy evolving, and for some, regulatory requirements driving change too. No surprise then that a top priority I hear from business leaders is to help their employees adopt new ways of working, new ways of managing team members and new expectations of what ‘good’ performance looks like. Growing successfully as a business means first letting go of old ways of operating - work processes, ways of making decisions, behaviours and even language – and only then can people fully embrace the new.
So how do you help people let go?
At an organisational level:
• Find ways to bring everyone together to mark the ending of a significant chapter e.g. no longer being fewer than 100 people, the founder stepping down or the business no longer being privately owned or leaving your first workspace because you’ve outgrown it in size.
• Celebrate and remember together all the stories, the highs and the lows that people experienced during that time.
• Make it visual and interactive, and consider a physical memento. Give the closing chapter a proper send off together.
At the team level:
• You can dedicate one or more regular team meetings to talking through what’s going to be different in future and what you’ll collectively be leaving behind.
• You can use the space around you, for example inviting everyone to stand along one wall and then one by one, to share one thing they are ‘letting go’ of before crossing to the other side of the room. It’s a simple, powerful way to hear what the changes mean to each colleague.
• Or you can lead a longer ‘standback’ session to reflect on what’s made you successful as a team today and what you will stop/start/continue to help you adapt and deliver successfully in the future.
At the individual level:
• You can have 1:1s with team members to help them acknowledge what this change will mean for them personally and to work through any resistance they’re signalling – usually rooted in the fear of some loss of control, competence, connection or identity.
• Consider arranging some 1:1 coaching to individuals taking on a big leap e.g. a challenging new role, stretching new responsibilities, a change in career direction. Don’t just leave them to ‘sink or swim’.
I’d love to hear your experiences of transitions, work-related or otherwise. If you’re going through a transition now or leading others through one, then I hope you find the Bridges model and my recommendations above helpful. Let me know how you get on. If you’ve got any tips on helping young teenagers with transitions, I’m all ears! And if life is in a blissfully steady state for you right now, then take a minute or two to look back on what you’ll be letting go of as 2024 draws towards a close.
William Bridges explains this brilliantly in his book ‘Managing transitions’, where he sets out the 3 psychological stages of any transition. The first stage is letting go: acknowledging what is coming to an end and what we are losing that may have been valuable to us. The second stage is the neutral zone where we’re in limbo between the old and new; a time of uncertainty, anxiety but also creativity. The final stage is new beginnings when the way forward becomes clear and importantly, its implications for us personally. The mistake many leaders and organsations make is to excitedly trumpet the new without properly acknowledging the endings. Equally they often underestimate what people need by way of support during the neutral zone.
If you’ve got a few decades of life under your belt like me, you can probably look back and chart the endings you’ve experienced. Maybe these related to breaking up with a partner, leaving a treasured home, losing a loved one or relinquishing your independence in some way. Some endings we choose, others are forced upon us. At work it’s the same – changing jobs, changing bosses, going through a merger or restructuring, saying goodbye to colleagues we’ve enjoyed spending time with. What are the endings that stand out for you, and why?
My husband and I have been helping our 13 year old navigate the tricky transition into senior school after 10 exceptionally happy years in a small school that had effectively been her second home. While she has established a good circle of friends at her new school and is doing well academically, we’d underestimated her sense of loss at leaving her old school life behind her. It's the first time she’s really had to deal with the ending of a significant chapter in her life, and the first time for us that we’re having to support her as parents through such a change.
Coming back to the world of work, I work with organisations that are growing fast and have ambitious goals; you might think ‘well, they’re not dealing with endings’. Wrong. The businesses are never in steady state with new structures and processes, teams expanding, the strategy evolving, and for some, regulatory requirements driving change too. No surprise then that a top priority I hear from business leaders is to help their employees adopt new ways of working, new ways of managing team members and new expectations of what ‘good’ performance looks like. Growing successfully as a business means first letting go of old ways of operating - work processes, ways of making decisions, behaviours and even language – and only then can people fully embrace the new.
So how do you help people let go?
At an organisational level:
• Find ways to bring everyone together to mark the ending of a significant chapter e.g. no longer being fewer than 100 people, the founder stepping down or the business no longer being privately owned or leaving your first workspace because you’ve outgrown it in size.
• Celebrate and remember together all the stories, the highs and the lows that people experienced during that time.
• Make it visual and interactive, and consider a physical memento. Give the closing chapter a proper send off together.
At the team level:
• You can dedicate one or more regular team meetings to talking through what’s going to be different in future and what you’ll collectively be leaving behind.
• You can use the space around you, for example inviting everyone to stand along one wall and then one by one, to share one thing they are ‘letting go’ of before crossing to the other side of the room. It’s a simple, powerful way to hear what the changes mean to each colleague.
• Or you can lead a longer ‘standback’ session to reflect on what’s made you successful as a team today and what you will stop/start/continue to help you adapt and deliver successfully in the future.
At the individual level:
• You can have 1:1s with team members to help them acknowledge what this change will mean for them personally and to work through any resistance they’re signalling – usually rooted in the fear of some loss of control, competence, connection or identity.
• Consider arranging some 1:1 coaching to individuals taking on a big leap e.g. a challenging new role, stretching new responsibilities, a change in career direction. Don’t just leave them to ‘sink or swim’.
I’d love to hear your experiences of transitions, work-related or otherwise. If you’re going through a transition now or leading others through one, then I hope you find the Bridges model and my recommendations above helpful. Let me know how you get on. If you’ve got any tips on helping young teenagers with transitions, I’m all ears! And if life is in a blissfully steady state for you right now, then take a minute or two to look back on what you’ll be letting go of as 2024 draws towards a close.
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Cup of tea and large slice of cake in hand. 5. Saying yes to coffees and phone calls with friends even when work and life feel too busy and I’m tempted to say ‘not this week’. I never regret making the time. Why not ask the same question to colleagues in your team? Your close friends or family? It might spark a new kind of conversation. And you might well discover that your future has already arrived.