Wisdom for Work #31 - Navigating the Neutral Zone: Embracing Change & Transition

[Music] Welcome to the reboot podcast. We are so glad you're here. [Music] In all transitions between what's ending and any new beginning, there's this space that William Bridges dubbed the neutral zone. And this came out of his study, the human and emotional impact of transitions. He notes that it isn't the changes that do you in. It's the transitions. And so whether in our own lives or the lives of our organizations, no matter where we are, transitions are inevitable. They can be expected or they can catch us completely off guard. Regardless of how transitions arrive and however uncomfortable they may be, they can offer us a profound opportunity for inner growth and development. However, this neutral zone can feel unmoored or pathless until something more firm begins to take shape. Bridges will add that change is external and transition is internal. Transition is the natural process of disorientation and reorientation that marks the turning points in the path of growth. Transitions are key times in the natural process of self-renewal. The neutral zone then is the space between what is no longer and the not yet. Whether you've transitioned out of one thing and immediately into another or you're in the in between things, the neutral zone is one way to think about that period of adjustment that we undergo. That space is not like the period that just ended. It's a fresh edge of unfolding into a new norm at the many layers of the self. The neutral zone doesn't have a timeline and in some instances it can't be rushed. There's a difference between change and transition here that I want to note. Change is what we see happen externally. It is situational. It's evidenced by things like starting a new job, a policy change, a move from one city to another, etc. It sounds like effective tomorrow we will stop doing X and we will start doing Y. That's change. Transition is what happens internally for us. It's the emotional and the psychological places where the change registers within us. And while a change might happen overnight, transition is the longer process of coming to terms with what has changed. It works on our identities, on our sense of self, and how we relate to what lies ahead. There is typically a well-defined stop and start to practice a policy or a way of doing things within a change model. And one thing ends and something begins. The neutral zone is that place between worlds when we've let go of the old but aren't quite settled into the new. This is the time when those internal shifts are underway. And this is where today's podcast conversation starts out. I sat down with my colleague Ray Foot to talk about the neutral zone. What happens in between what was and what's next. And we speak to experiences from our own lives and reflect on what we see in our work with organizations. How's your executive team working? 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How are you doing today? You know, I'm doing pretty good. It's a good day. Nice. A good day in the neutral zone. It's a good day in the neutral zone. Yeah, it is a good day in the neutral zone. We should probably back the bus up a little bit and give folks a little window in to the neutral zone. I wonder if we need to start with the framework of William Bridges. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. The context about what we're talking about today is this notion of the neutral zone, which comes from the work of William Bridges. He wrote a book a number of years ago called Transitions. When I say a number of years ago, I believe in the 70s. It's kind of weird elder wisdom at this point. He's done a number of follow-on books around this. But there's a central core concept in that book, which is that when we're moving through transition, we go through three phases. What he really starts with in this book is drawing a distinction between change and transition. Change is a thing that happens to us externally. It can be a new job. It could be a new location. I know you and I both dealt with a lot of our clients as the pandemic moved into our world and many of our clients went from everybody meeting in person at the office to within a month everybody's remote. That would be a change. That binary, I was this way and now in this way. Then he names this other idea, which is transition, which is our internal relationship to the change and how we metabolize the change actually. That happens in a different time frame. A change may happen at three o'clock on Thursday, but a transition actually has a very different kind of a time frame. You can be as a leader, you can be designing a change for three months and then launch it at three o'clock on Thursday. For you as a leader, you've been living with this for three months. As someone receiving that change, they are hit with it right then. We then we turn to transition, which is the internal relationship I have to that change. The way that he talks about that is in three phases. All transitions ironically enough begin with endings. Something is ending, something is finishing. Some things aren't finishing, but really something is ending. The second stage of transition is what he calls the neutral zone. Also refers to it as the wilderness. It is between what was and what will be. And then from this place of the wilderness or the neutral zone as we often refer to it as, we come into a place that is emerging from that zone is new beginnings. So that's essentially the setup. I think what we're here to talk about today is or explore together is this idea of the neutral zone and how how to start thinking about that because the neutral zone is a pretty fundamentally uncomfortable place oftentimes for folks. Yep. Nune-ness uncertainty, learning new things. And it's the reorientation of what's what's coming. And so all kinds of things can be triggered in the neutral zone. Like, is this going to work? Why did we do this? Or even, when are we going to get back to the old ways of doing things? Because this new way kind of sucks. But we also kind of focus a lot. There's a very interesting thing that kind of happens in the way that I see it is in order to actually move into the neutral zone. It actually have to come to terms and accept the ending. Mm-hmm. I think that in and of itself is a process. Totally. Yeah. Can you anchor this in maybe a few contexts, like maybe a personal story for one, and then maybe a anonymized, a malgum kind of client situation, or, definitely, we often see with clients? Sure. I mean, I think that we kind of entered into this conversation, or sort of the inspiration for this conversation, came from my own experience with realizing the nature of the neutral zone in a way that I never really had when I started to apply it to my own life and my own transition. So there's many examples I could explore about client work, but maybe we just start and we'll just, you know, kind of that old Narcissism joke. You know, enough about me, how do you like my shirt? [laughter] We'll just make it about me. [laughter] That's good. So, you know, there was something that was happening to me. I was re-studying the book again recently, Transitions by William Bridges, that is. And one of the things that grabbed my attention was some of the things that he was saying about being in the neutral zone, you know, asking questions like, "Well, three years after my new job that I've taken, why do I look back and remember how good I had it in my old job?" Or, "Boy, there were some things I really loved about my old house and I really missed them, or my neighborhood or something." And then he was also talking about this time when you actually are moving into a time of new beginnings and actually who you are, is when you actually start feeling like yourself in this new way of being. And I had a experience about seven months ago, I think, when I was doing a facilitation with a group of leaders. And I was working with them and I suddenly found myself in a place where the agenda that we had designed was not working. And I suddenly found myself needing to improvise on the fly with this group of 12 people. And I had the experience that I had for myself in that time, and particularly reflecting on it is like, "Wow, that I felt like myself doing that." And so that stuck with me. And I was like, "Geez, that's really interesting. And as I've been reflecting on it since that time, it was made me realize that this neutral zone that we talk about, I had always framed as being maybe, "Well, maybe it's a couple months, maybe a year." But I've been doing this practice now for eight years since I accident my business. And it was the first time that I had this really powerful, somatic experience of feeling like myself, fully. Now, I've had tastes of it, certainly when I'm doing one-on-one coaching and things like that. But in this group setting, which tends to get me more activated, and I'm more paying attention to what's going on in the design. But I was able to actually be fully emergent in that moment and move with the group much as I would have in being in a band and playing music with someone or people. And so that got me into studying and revisiting this work a bit. And one of the really key points of the neutral zone, that is a really important piece, is that in the neutral zone, often that is actually a time to rebuild new connections with yourself and who you are in the world. And one of the things that he talks about is that we will have a tendency in the neutral zone because it is so uncomfortable to rush forward or go back to the old ways. Right? So when we are working with clients in the pandemic, there will be a refrain that I often heard. I'm not sure about you, but it's like, "Boy, I can't wait until we all get back to the office." I would just sit there and go, "There's no way we're all going back to the office." There may be pockets of people going back to the office, but the world has fundamentally changed into a distributed model for working. But I was really unaware of how long this neutral zone could last. And that seemed like a real reframe for me personally. And then as I studied it more, I saw the parallel that he draws to, "This is a time," "This is a time for putting on almost a new suit of clothes," or actually feeling like you're in a new way of being. And it got me thinking a lot about neuroplasticity. And how this is actually a time for us to have neuroplasticity in our lives in the neutral zone, and to actually let that happen to us and around us, rather than trying to say, "Oh, wait, this is a new way of being, and this is who I am." But actually it has to emerge and evolve, and it happens in sort of streams and bits over time. Yeah, it makes me think too that like anyone's any individual's capacity to like dance creatively and co-creatively with life is definitely a boon for that phase. The neutral zone is a challenging phase for folks who need to have answers, don't like discomfort. Uncertainty is hard. Don't know how to regulate when they're stressed, like all the things, because it's so, it can be so uncomfortable, because it's a different rhythm. It's a different, everything. And there's something in that space like calling you to be different, begging you to somehow become more present in your life. It reminds me a little bit of why traveling can be so beneficial for folks, right? Because you're uprooted from your normal routine and you're somewhere else for a few days, a week, a couple weeks, whatever it is. And it kind of like shakes the dross out enough to like put you back in your old spot, but different. You're slightly different. Oh, that's really, yeah, I really like that. I had a client recently. He was close to burnout. He took a break. This was a short break. This isn't pure neutral zone. Who knows what neutral zone may be upon him, but anyway, took a short break and they went up to the ocean and he said, yeah, I came back and I have tried to bring back, you know, or bottle that feeling of what it's like to be there. And to start integrating that into his current kind of situation and have an occasional thing. So different, obviously, than the neutral zone. But the neutral zone is, I mean, in some ways, the bottom drops out. When change happens, when a threshold has been crossed, you know, like John O'Donohoe has said, like, it can be a phone call. The simplest of phone call, you can phone call someone died. Your life has changed. The threshold has been crossed. And not what, right? Like you're in some way, forced into that neutral zone. And the length of that is, how do you find your ground or reorient to life as it is in its new formation or different formation? Sometimes that different formation is who you are and how you want to be shaped or live your life or be in certain ways. And you're making me think of the transition that you went through. with your herd and having your herd in a remote place and then having your herd near you. And the the difference between you know having to drive to go be with the herd and then drive and you're no longer with the herd but now it's like right outside your door and I'm curious is like did you did you notice the you know obviously there was a shift from when you were in town and then you moved out to the farm and then you have a new way of being almost not instantaneously but pretty close to it. It was pretty instant. I mean no one else was doing doing the work you know. Yeah yeah. I think luckily for me like that's a pattern that I had known growing up so and it was pattern I had been longing for right like I just feel so off-kilter if there's not a horse in my life or barn chores to do or a barn to just hold up in but the shift has been I mean you know going from a boarding facility where everybody's you know there's a staff taking care of the animals basically to kind of doing it all yourself and managing a 40 acre farm that's that's like a it's a good part-time job right there. So in many ways it was stepping into I mean I don't know like the biggest the biggest and only dream I've had for myself really and I would say five years in six years in five and a half years in I have I have it down. Did you notice anything with the herd meaning did the herd relate differently to the new home? Yeah they did so how would they consider the transition? It was a big change but it was a good change and and folks that knew us at the old location which was spectacular by the way but it's a boarding facility so there are horses coming and going there's like an undercurrent of stress I think in those environments that animals pick up on for sure and it's challenging here it's different I mean they all they settled in they have routine they know the routine it's the routine is just like this is what we do every day and it helps everybody's nervous system I mean I remember had a friend of mine years ago he used to say to me she said "Ella your life is so regimented" and she said it to like how do you have all these restrictions and rules and like but but the Dalai Lama has said like routine rhythm ritual it is it helps you settle into the day yeah the ritual piece is really a powerful you know or practice as I like to think of it it's it's a really powerful cheat code to make it through the neutral zone while still holding it softly enough so that you're not trying to rush into this new way of being right I think particularly with the work that I do with teams and and seeing teams that are driving change particularly you know if they if they um you know an executive team in particular not only do they have to metabolize the change in the team but then all to all those they serve and bringing it back in all that energy into the um you know into the executive team and one of the tendencies is to the is this idea of you know rushing forward when are we going to start seeing the metrics of the change taking right and so again this is a time I believe when teams really have an opportunity to develop this neuroplasticity and to cultivate neuroplasticity because the the whole team and I'm using that kind of as a metaphor like for the communications in the team and how everybody is relating to each other because it's actually when you're driving a big change the transition really has almost like a you know it's got a multiplied effect on everybody in all kinds of ways that are both above ground and below the ground and the below the ground stuff in my experience is usually like 80 percent it's like you can't see it and so figure out ways to surface it and being with it and honoring the fact that it may take a while yeah you know you brought up horses so I can't help not think about it now since it's like yeah no that's why I got it up I'm trying to think of my brain but um I did get a new horse during the pandemic because why not people were buying toilet paper I was like I just I need another one and um he got to the farm after we moved here or we had all the fence up and all the horses were here and whereas the other two I had had so there was our relationship to lean on right in in the transition through the transition into the new the new farm and this new guy while I had known him when he was younger I because of the pandemic I didn't go out to see him I just bought him because I knew the farm he was at and trust on that and um so he was really coming into a whole bunch of newness and new new hardmates new human herd mate and if that's even possible a new a new primate friend really and um you know it takes a good three years I think for any horse human relationship to settle but really for the horse to like settle in its new location or it's a new situation yeah I love this example yeah I mean three years that's a long-ass time and when I think about like what is required of most horses that are bought and sold and don't end up in my hands and they're in other you know um situations in life it's they're they're put to work right away they're put to work they're worked hard they they haven't even settled internally or found their own sense of confidence in ease in their space or with their new relationships their new primate humans right but there's a neutral zone I mean in many ways I think life is kind of a giant neutral zone right and we trick ourselves into thinking oh but it's not you know but in many ways it is well I think there there is I mean there's constant change yeah that's happening all around us and we the the genius of this book is identifying the fact that we will often focus on the change and not pay as much attention to the transition yeah and until we can sort of step back and go wow I feel completely different now and that was what my experience was and even your reflection of the new of your new buddy there going like wow we're actually our if this feels more like a herd now and the beautiful thing about using horses as as a medium to understand that is that you can't force horses no yeah it's a lot different than than forcing people right because we will often think we can force people but what we can be doing is pushing the transition that people are going through underground and then that tends to leak in other ways but even more sort of more detrimental to the process or where we can't squeeze as much value out of the process of the neutral zone is that we bypass this time of actually building meaningful new connections to not only ourselves but to those we are in community with because those things take time and because different people move through that process at different rates we can sometimes be overshooting so the example I gave earlier of the you know of the leader of the team coming in okay we're going to drive this change and they've already been living with it for two two weeks two months two years and finally they get to do it yay and then everybody else is sort of like what just happened and you got some people who who will never really recover from that. And so there's really some moves that are super important to be able to make in leadership and in life really, is to actually take some time to be present with what's actually going on. When do I feel more like myself? Or when do I really don't feel like myself? I'm with team mates, being able to meet people where they are and actually have those conversations is critically important because you can have a time where people really have a lot of loss at an ending. And for that loss can't really be made for in a meaningful way with let's say an increase in a salary or a bonus or some other weird external thing. Those can be nice, but it's not, that doesn't make up for a loss oftentimes. And so actually understanding what is being lost, naming what is ending and what isn't ending is really key to moving into this wilderness neutral zone space. But then while you're in it, actually having grace with not only that yourself, but your team mates and your community to the changes that everybody is sort of evolving through is critical to be on that journey together. And then of course, since it's all about me, noticing that it really can take a long time for this stuff to, you can still be a high performer and still be in the neutral zone. And so hold both those things and honor those is I've found to be a really huge unlock for me in just the past year as I've noticed this. - Yeah. And I think too of how many organizations don't spend enough time tending to this space at the human layer, humans not being software, they don't upgrade or change easily without a process. And each individual on your team has their own process to acceptance and reorientation to whatever the new thing is. I like I think about PE environments where private equity has taken over a company and it's kind of like driving hard and driving fast. And there's value to be squeezed out of every interaction and everything. And then it's like, where is this, who's the person monitoring the pulse in that those types of organizations, right? For the people that are there to at least keep the human component alive through a lot of those external demands. And yeah, just to add to your build on your PE example of an acquisition, for instance. So the acquisition happens on a Thursday at two and those papers go through, but the integration of the business is now going to happen over the next, who knows how long. And then setting it up to be then packaged and either cut up and sold off or repackaged and sold. So all of those things just are completely, you know, amazingly fertile soil for stories to be told inside everybody's head. And if there's any fear in the room, which of course there will be, without the story, you will tend to make up the worst story possible to remain safe. Right, right, without the narrative from leadership for a jar or something. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's, yeah, this really hits that culture pretty hard in terms of creating a framework for these transitions to happen with more ease. They're not going to be without thrash or without difficulty or challenge. That's right. But more ease is possible. Yeah. And, and from leaders with grace being being able to bring grace to it, as, and that's not to say we can't move fast because we have to. But there's this again, this double sided thing that we need to hold of, um, of, of both, you know, grace and standards or grace and high standards, you know, strong back, open heart. Yeah. But I'm also thinking, uh, you know, you gave the PE example and I'm thinking, and what's so alive right now with just about really every one of my clients is the integration of AI into their work and into their environments. And this is a remarkably, you know, new technology, even though it's been around for a couple of years now in the mainstream, there isn't one client that I'm dealing with, working with that isn't asking this question, how do we integrate this technology? And there's some really interesting data coming out around how, you know, everybody is using or many, many people are using these tools and we're not seeing the benefits coming to the bottom line in the companies, right? In the enterprise level, they're not, they don't flow through. So there's a mismatch right now. And so how do we, um, how do leaders create a context in which there is this change? And we know there's a change because our board is telling us, what's your AI strategy? And so one of the pieces that is a constant topic and theme is, how do I understand how we're using this? How do I help people use this in a way that they can feel like they're not going to get fired or they're not going to look stupid? Which tend to be the two biggest fears that are in the organizations, many of the organizations that I'm working with right now. And so it's like trying to hold a space in which people can work through this time of profound transformation that we're having everywhere you look and not have it be the only bright, shiny thing that we're looking at because we actually have to live our lives and be as human as we can while still being productive and, and, and figuring out how to work together and create an environment in which we can move through transition together because the change is going to happen. And the tempo is doing nothing but picking up. So I think that's one of the biggest challenges and it's very, very exciting times that I'm seeing and sitting in my chair in working with folks as we talk through this and, and how to hold the space and hold the container in which that transition is as causes as least harm as possible. Where are you in the neutral zone? Perhaps you've just gotten a promotion or considering leaving your job or perhaps you're retiring. Maybe you're in a succession plan. Maybe something has just happened to you like being laid off or fired at your home, your youngest might be heading off to college or perhaps you've moved an aging parent from your childhood home into assisted living. If any of these situations apply, you can be pretty sure you're either in or headed towards transition. And so what's stirring for you internally? You may feel ungrounded or out of sorts. And at other times, perhaps you feel exhilarated or excited as new parts of your identity are forming. That's totally normal. A desire for clarity and stability or getting to a new normal might have attempted to race forward or to expect others in transition to hit the ground running. It's not uncommon for grief to show up in these spaces, along with the wish to cling to how things were. But in this interim time, it's best to appreciate and experience it for the opportunity that it is by slowing down and allowing your heart to catch up with what your mind knows and approaching this time with curiosity. The roots of a new identity will begin to take hold. If you recognize yourself or perhaps your team as being in the neutral zone moment, it's In what ways can you make room for the discomfort and uncertainty of this time? What values and tools can you rely on to write out this transition? And what conversations might you need to have and with whom? If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, go to reboot.io/podcast to listen to all past and present seasons of our show. And leave us a review at Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That's the best way for other people to find and enjoy the show just as you have done. And don't forget to join our mailing list at reboot.io/signup so you never miss an episode. Thank you again for listening. 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