TRANSITION EXERCISES

What is a transition exercise?

The purpose of a transition exercise is to speed the adjustment time when a new key person joins an organization. The exact timeline and structure of the exercise is negotiated between the client and the consultant. The exercise may be a one-time off-site meeting or may be an intervention that lasts from three months to a year as the organization evolves to reflect the new member's style and expectations.

Why is a transition exercise helpful?

• Whenever a new individual joins a team, dynamics change. This happens even when the new individual is highly competent, well-selected, and the arrival is anticipated with positive reactions. Without a focused transition effort, the "dance" among members takes longer and decreases productivity.

• Individuals act from unspoken assumptions. In the absence of well-articulated assumptions from all parties, both new and old members of the organization act in ways that are often based on differing assumptions. This may cause confusion and conflict.

• Power relationships change. Everyone must renegotiate and re-establish individual power based on the new member's position. Both business and interpersonal relationships dictate who is in, who is out, who is close, and who is far from the power base. This shift trickles down throughout the organization to cause confusion and decreased productivity.

• Even the most positive of changes will cause stress for individuals and the system. New norms and changed expectations create tension within the system. While functional expectations may remain the same, the new individual will have different ways of expressing norms and expectations that create individual and organizational stress.

What might a transition exercise look like?

The primary client and the consultant would design the exercise to fit the individual and organizational needs. The design would depend on what position the new key person holds and what the history of the organization might suggest. Transition exercises might include (but are not limited to) any of the following activities:

• A facilitated off-site meeting of the key players to openly discuss organizational norms, expectations, challenges, roles, and goals.
• A team-building exercise based either on a planned experiential activity or an organizational case study that would allow individuals to openly discuss how they might handle certain situations together.
• A leader development exercise based on leadership styles and preferences (e.g. Myers Briggs Type Indicator or another inventory).
• An organizational scan through focus groups, interviews or surveys that concentrates on what is working well in the organization and what is not working so well in the organization. The data is presented to the key players for their discussion and problem-solving together in a facilitated environment, after which the facilitator provides feedback to the new team on how it can work more effectively together.
• Contracting and negotiations between key players whose roles will change with the arrival of the new person. The third party facilitator would serve as the impartial mediator in sorting out new roles that can be published to the organization to decrease confusion.
• Regularly scheduled meetings and discussions of transition issues that arise during the adjustment period that were not anticipated.

Benefits of a transition exercise:

• From the beginning, the new person demonstrates an openness to learning about the system before making major changes. This adds stability to organizational tension.
• Power relationships are openly negotiated and contracted among the new person and other key players in the organization. This decreases productivity loss and confusion.
• Expectations from old and new key players are negotiated with the help of an impartial third party. This gives all players an equal chance to put issues on the table and define positive relationships.
• The new member has access to an impartial executive coach who serves as a sounding board and helps the new member sort out organizational dynamics and impacts.
• Adjustment time is condensed as the organization moves forward together in an open manner, discussing transition problems as they arise along the way.