William Bridges Quotes

United States, Author
1933 – February, 17, 2013.

William Bridges was an American author, speaker, and organizational consultant. He emphasized the importance of understanding transitions as a key for organizations to succeed in making changes. He says transition is the psychological process of adapting to change. Transition consists of three phases: letting go of the past, the "neutral zone" where the past is gone but the new isn't fully present, and making the new beginning.

Also known as Speaker

Change comes more from managing the journey than from announcing the destination

William Bridges
Nothing so undermines organizational change as the failure to think through the losses people face.

William Bridges

Before people can begin something new, they have to end what used to be and unlearn the old way.

William Bridges
- People
- Something
- Used
Treating ourselves like appliances that can be unplugged and plugged in again at will or cars that stop and start with the twist of a key, we have forgotten the importance of fallow time and winter and rests in music. We have abandoned a whole system of dealing with the neutral zone through ritual, and we have tried to deal with personal change as though it were a matter of some kind of readjustment.

William Bridges
All transitions are composed of an ending, a neutral zone and a new beginning

William Bridges
It is when we are in transition that we are most completely alive.

William Bridges
Faith is the soul's adventure.

William Bridges
- Soul
- Adventure
It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions.

William Bridges
- Change
- Transition

Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster.

William Bridges
Change is an event but a transition is the process that you go through in response to the change.

William Bridges