Most people are quite uncomfortable with change; the reasons why people detest any change are explicable. People resist a change or oppose it out rightly. That’s the reason why it is important to understand importance of feelings as change proceeds, and why they need to be guided through it. William Bridges’ Transition Model is a helpful framework in change management.

While most people expect changes are meant to be positive. A lot depends on individuals how they make things better, easier, and to fast-track the route to success. In organizations sometimes the hard-working employees end up being the number one obstacle to a new initiative. Bridges’ transition model helps dealing with the people-aspect of change management. It helps in turning them from obstacles to supporters. As an organizational consultant, William Bridges found that the most important responsibility was of guiding people through transition for successful change. He identified three stages of transition and his model strives to help business leaders to understand the feelings people go through a change process.

Bridges highlights the difference between transition and change. Change is speedy, and people often have no say when it happens. But transition is a slower process that happens internally. Transition is what goes on inside people’s minds as they go through a change process. Employees get affected by change when it transits from one stage to the next.  Therefore, business leaders must change their approach to people management in an empathetic development. The three stages of Bridges’ Transition Model are as follows:

Ending, losing, and letting go: When people first learn that they will have to face a change and their ‘comfort zone’ will be disturbed, they experience an emotional upsurge. If organizations fail to understand and acknowledge this fact, their employees might resist change all the way through a change initiative. When people see a change coming their way they feel afraid, they tend to rebuff, they feel angry, they feel disorientated, frustrated. And in short, they experience insecurity. Dealing with these feelings requires patience. People must be encouraged to be open about their emotional reaction to change and be understood by their superiors and peers about the way they feel. Throughout the change process discussions must be going on so that employees take initiatives on their own.

Employees must be told what their role will be, what their prospects would be the emoluments, the reporting relationship, their future growth in organization everything should be discussed with them.  Bridges believed that the emotional reaction to change is most important to be handled. Emotional health and wellbeing is something that shouldn’t be discarded.

The Neutral Zone: In this stage people are confused and puzzled; they are not sure if the change is good, bad or ugly. They feel uncertain and irritated. It all depends on how nicely managers administer the change process. Employees struggle with their new workloads and new tasks. Each person experiences the change differently depending upon his capacity. This phase is like a flyover between the old and the new. People take time to get detached from the old style, in this stage they try to adapt to the new. People experience resentment towards the change initiative. They are lost in their own world trying to cope with change. Their morale is low and therefore the productivity is also low. Employees carry anxiety about their role, status and identity.

Factually this stage can be one to initiate creativity, innovation, and renewal. This is a great time to encourage people to try new ways of thinking, practicing and working.

Employees must be guided by managers with patience. Their guidance is incredible, it is very important as people go through this neutral period. This can be an uncomfortable time, because it can seem unproductive, and in this little progress is being made. Frequent meetings and sharing feedback is a good solution. When people enter the neutral zone, they are not yet entirely comfortable with change and will still need a lot of encouragement.

The New Beginning: After a while, after few days pass things seem to start falling into place. People start seeing the real results of the change process. They might or might not see the positive result. Employees see how their efforts are starting to pay off. Suddenly, it all makes sense to them. The emotions are positive. They feel energized, they want to learn more, and they feel committed to their role. Naturally, this state of affairs should be sustained as the working atmosphere is positive. This is a time for celebration and rewards coming in pocket.

But, sometimes people can still slip back into stage 2 – the neutral zone. The results cannot be taken for granted, therefore it still necessary for managers to be vigilant.

Strength of the model: This framework focuses on transition, not change. The difference between these is subtle but important. Change is something that happens to people, even if they don’t agree with it. Transition, on the other hand, is an internal process, it happens in our minds. Change can happen very quickly, whereas transition usually is a slow process.

Changes occur in our lives at regular intervals, whether we are aware of them or not. As part of our nature as humans, we normally do not like major changes and the fear of the unknown that accompanies change. Some changes paralyze us emotionally. To handle changes in our life, we need to accept that we need to internally strengthen ourselves. And, we all need guidance and mentoring at each stage.

It seems, former Apple Inc. CEO the late Steve Jobs was a mentor to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The two developed a relationship in the early days of Facebook and often met to discuss the best business strategies and management practices for the company. When Jobs passed away in 2011, Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook page, “Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.”

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi looks for mentors in all aspects of her life. She says “If I hadn’t had mentors, I wouldn’t be here today. I’m a product of great mentoring, great coaching… Coaches or mentors are very important.”  She credits the mentoring she received from people around her for helping her break glass ceilings in business world.

Every student has a teacher / guru like Arjun had Dronacharya, but Dronacharya also tutored other students, he was a teacher even to the Kauravas as he was to the Pandavas. But, the facts remains that Arjun received the best training from his teacher. In Mahabharat, we have read that Sri Krishna became Arjun’s mentor on the war ground; he guided, advised Arjun at every step facilitating him to go in the right direction and win the war. This mentoring relationship teaches us a few things:  Krishna as a mentor not only advised Arjun but also provided him guidance in each and every step. Whenever Arujn was doubtful whether he was doing the right thing or not, Krishna clarified his doubts. Krishna’s advice to Arjun is called Bhagvad Geeta.

The corporate world requires mentoring for helping employees to progress further in their chosen careers. It is a partnership between two people, the mentor and the mentee. Usually, the two people work in a similar field or share similar experiences. It is a useful relationship based upon mutual trust, respect and understanding each other.

Deloitte: The giant accounting firm has constantly practiced mentoring. Good and honest mentoring ensures that the leadership pipeline is never vacant. The name of the program, the Emerging Leaders Development Program, does exactly what it is intended to do: develop future Deloitte leaders. Much of the strength of their program lies in its focus and commitment. According to the Deloitte Website, each program participant is assigned a partner, principal, or director sponsor who commits to at least two years to help their protégées drive their own careers by helping them understand how to steer their organisation. This is one of the reasons Deloitte increases retention of employees and is committed to its employees to help achieve their goals and objectives in professional lives. Great organizations help people to reach zenith in their profession.

Intel: Intel takes a slightly different approach to many other Fortune 500 companies. Rather than focus on hierarchy (connecting junior employees with senior employees), Intel focuses on specific knowledge transfer and domain skills that are in demand in present times. This philosophy is practiced by the fact that everyone has something to learn – and everyone has something to teach. Intel’s mentoring program is less formal and more entrenched in the culture, resulting in more organic connections. The strength of Intel’s mentoring program lies in its momentum; rather than a coordinator managing and overseeing the program like a hawk; employees take much of the process into their hands and take charge of their own learning. This results in more commitment with the program, as well as a deeper sense of autonomy and mastery for the employees. This process has helped Intel in creating innovative practices.

These days, mentoring isn’t just a one-way flow of knowledge from old to young, from experienced to inexperienced. In a globalised world, connecting with people of different ages, genders, qualifications and experience with diverse points of view has become essential. The multigenerational workplaces are the norm. In fact, progressive and large companies have started to run ‘reverse mentoring’ programs which helps matching senior executives with millennial to exchange fresh perspectives and encounter new ways of thinking about work.

Reverse mentoring refers to an initiative in which older executives are paired with and mentored by younger employees on topics such as technology, social media and current trends. In many organizations it is observed that senior executives are out of touch with the times and could really benefit from Reverse Mentoring.

Usually, people who are senior positions or retirement position sitting at top positions in organizations make good mentors because they know the culture of the organization and requirements.  Sometimes reverse mentoring also is useful to bridge the generation gaps between senior and juniors. At times those gaps get reduced when each one appreciates the other for his/her technical, people, or hard skills.

One of the assumptions many people make is that mentoring should be within the organization, it’s a wrong notion that mentoring must be restricted within four walls of an organization. So long as a mentee (an employee) can benefit from the outsider perspective, outside mentoring is not a bad idea. It’s been observed that people can learn more and add more insights when people interact at very different contexts. The people skills that these relationships are based on surpass work cultures.

Another blunder people make is that they assume that female mentees would want to connect to female mentors in order to learn how best to navigate in male-dominated fields, but the fact is that women benefit from male mentors, especially in learning just how clueless men are of problems faced by females, and how females get lost in male-dominated fields. It’s sad that talented women usually don’t get the kind of individual career guidance and support. Men really have to step into shoes of a lady to understand her and train her else, soon organizations will face talent shortage.

And, finally, the old adage that a teacher learns more than the student is very true in mentoring. The mentor and mentee both learn a lot from each other. Their regular interaction can be useful, it creates an affinity between them and both learn from successes and failures of one another. And throughout the process, both grow their networks and develop professionally.