GRASS: Guilt, Resentment, Anxiety, Self-absorption, and Stress. These are the five real and measurable costs of not managing transition effectively. Remember them the next time people tell you there isn’t time to worry about the reactions of your employees to the latest plan for change. And help such people to see that not managing transition is really a shortcut that costs much more than it saves. For it leaves behind an exhausted and demoralized workforce at the very time when everyone agrees that the only way to be successful is to get more effort and more creativity out of the organization’s employees.
Way back in 1937, the humorist James Thurber stuck it to this kind of pompous, meaning-free connoisseurship in a New Yorker cartoon showing a wine taster saying of a glass, “It’s a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you’ll be amused by its presumption.”
The twelfth century marked the start of a decisive shift across Europe towards the use of stone, rather than wood, in building and construction. This brought numerous advantages, not least the ability to create fireplaces and chimneys that were much more efficient and effective than central fires and open roofs.
Years before, I’d given him the metaphor I often use with clients: “Take your seat.” “Sit like royalty in your leadership seat,” I say. “Sit as if you’ve the right to be there.”
Like any language, belonging cues can’t be reduced to an isolated moment but rather consist of a steady pulse of interactions within a social relationship. Their function is to answer the ancient, ever-present questions glowing in our brains: Are we safe here? What’s our future with these people? Are there dangers lurking?
There is always something provisional about a decision to stop doing something until you have actually replaced it with something else. A new beginning “ratifies” the ending.
As scientists have pointed out, the Allen Curve follows evolutionary logic. For the vast majority of human history, sustained proximity has been an indicator of belonging—after all, we don’t get consistently close to someone unless it’s mutually safe. Studies show that digital communications also obey the Allen Curve; we’re far more likely to text, email, and interact virtually with people who are physically close. (One study found that workers who shared a location emailed one another four times as often as workers who did not, and as a result they completed their projects 32 percent faster.)
