Seven stages of transition have been identified which apply to management and indeed many other life and work transitions, especially when a transition has been quite sudden (Adams et al., 1976). These are set out below.

1. Immobilization: the initial ‘frozen’ feeling when you do not know what to make of your new role.
2. Minimization: you carry on as though nothing has changed, perhaps denying inside that you really have new roles as a manager.
3. Depression: when the nature and volume of the expectations upon you have sunk in and you feel you cannot cope; depression can be accompanied by feelings of panic, anger and blame.
4. Acceptance: when you begin to realize there are things you are achieving and more you could achieve, and that you have moved on from what you used to do.
5. Testing: when you begin to form your own views on what management is all about and even experimenting with what you can do.
6. Seeking meaning: you find the inclination and energy to reflect upon and learn from your own and others’ behavior.
7. Internalizing: you define yourself as a manager, not just in title but in what you think you are doing; you and your job have come to terms with each other.

The seven transition phases represent a sequence in the level of self-esteem as you experience a disruption, gradually acknowledge its reality, test yourself, understand yourself, and incorporate changes in your behavior. Changes in level of self-esteem appear to follow a predictable path. Identifying the seven phases along such a self-esteem curve can help you to understand the transition process better. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 The transition process

(Source: Adams et al., 1976)

Although this seven-stage model describes transition as a sequence, not everyone in job transition will experience every phase. Each person’s progress is unique: one may never get beyond denial or minimization; another may drop out during depression; and others will move smoothly and rapidly to the later phases.

References

Adams, J., Hayes, J. and Hopson, B. (1976) Transition: Understanding and Managing Personal Change, London, Martin Robertson.

Acknowledgements

Adapted from The Open University’s OpenLearn (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk) material entitled Managing and managing people under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence. As such, it is also made available under the same licence agreement.