“The end is where we start from.” – T.S. Eliot
Endings are rarely fun. But they are an inevitable part of life. So we need to know how times of change will affect our messages and presentations. Last Friday, we talked about speaking during times of crisis. If you missed that blog, check it out here. Today, we want to continue in this thread. Let’s talk about how to address an audience who is in the midst of transition.
To guide us on this path, I’ll be using the bestselling book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, by William Bridges. In it, he identifies 5 aspects of the transition process that we have to move through. In addition, he differentiates between change and transition, an important distinction you’ll want to help your audience understand.
The 5 D’s
Bridges identifies that during transition, we usually experience 5 things: disengagement, dismantling, disidentification, disenchantment, and disorientation. Let’s start by understanding what they are.
- Disengagement: What matters now? This aspect of transition begins when we begin to feel distanced from things or people or ideas that were once familiar and desirable. It often looks like mild apathy.
- Dismantling: What needs to be torn down? This happens when we intentionally begin to take apart old patterns and behaviors. Often it can be seen in the way we restructure our time.
- Disidentification: Who am I now? This part of the process comes in re-examining and discarding many of the labels and the roles with which we formally associated ourselves. It is largely an internal process.
- Disenchantment: What is true/real? This happens when we have to come to terms that what we thought was true, or would be true, might not be all we had hoped it was. It’s a reordering of goals and belief systems.
- Disorientation: Where am I now, and where do I go from here? This final aspect of the process points to the feeling of being lost or confused during transitions.
These 5 D’s can help us to understand what our audiences are experiencing when they are in transition. Imagine you are a new CEO delivering a presentation to a group of employees who loved their old boss. You could easily structure your message around the 5 questions asked above. By addressing the validity and seriousness of each question and seeking to answer them, you would be honoring the transition process your audience is in.
Change vs. Transition
One of the most important points Bridges makes in his book comes when he distinguishes between change and transition. He says change is an external behavior whereas transition is an internal process. Change comes when you switch jobs, start getting up early to go to the gym, move to a larger house, or go back to school. Transition, however, begins when you recognize that your current job, health, home, or education isn’t working for you like you had hoped. It’s the emotional and mental process of coming to terms with insufficiencies and how to address those. It can also be the process of figuring out how to move forward when unexpected change is thrust upon you.
As a speaker, it’s critical that you help your audience deal with both change and transition. If you only focus on change, you’ll be denying the important internal work that leads to growth. As Bridges says, “New growth cannot take root on ground still covered with the old habits, attitudes, and outlooks . . . [you can’t] use change to avoid transition.” The William Bridges Associates add that “change will only be successful if leaders and organizations address the transition that people experience during change.”
Really, this all falls under the category of audience analysis—figuring out who your audience is for the purpose of crafting your message to reach them more effectively. Bridges’ work helps us to understand that transitions bring up important questions for our audience members. And when we remember that change and transition require both external and internal work, we can offer a more complete, satisfying, and hopeful message for our listeners. We can’t move our audiences if we don’t first understand where they are coming from and meet them where they are.
Ethos3 can help with presentation development, design, and delivery. Get a free quote now.
