Bridges Transition Model

What the Bridges Transition Model is

The Bridges Transition Model (نموذج بريدجز للانتقال) is a framework attributed to the consultant William Bridges. It separates change from transition. Change is an event or a new situation that happens to people, often from outside, such as a system, a structure or a workplace. Transition is the inner psychological process that people go through alongside it. The model divides transition into three stages: ending, then the neutral zone, then the new beginning. This is our own wording of what secondary summaries relay. It is not a literal definition from one of Bridges’ books, and we do not claim that a single agreed definition exists.

The model is a theoretical description of what people go through, and not a verdict on any particular employee. What follows introduces the model and its limits. It does not report that the model eases resistance to change or raises the success of a transformation, and it does not report that the model fails to do so.

The sources we checked

We verified the bibliographic data of the works below in Crossref or in the Open Library catalogue. The records cover only the existence of the works and these publication details, and not what the works contain:

• Bridges. The book “Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes”, published by Addison Wesley in 1980, according to its edition record in Open Library. Crossref records a review of it written by Levy in 1981 within PsycEXTRA. Its title points to changes in life in general, and we did not read it, so we do not attribute to it the stages usually cited.
• Bridges. The book “Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change”, published by Addison Wesley in 1991, with the ISBN 0201550733, according to its edition record in Open Library. Crossref records a review of it by Harbottle in the Journal of the Operational Research Society, volume 44, issue 4, April 1993, page 416, with the identifier 10.1057/jors.1993.72. We found no Crossref record of either book in its original edition.
• Leybourne. The article “Emotionally sustainable change: two frameworks to assist with transition” in the International Journal of Strategic Change Management, volume 7, issue 1, 2016. Crossref gives its first page as 23 without a last page, and its identifier is 10.1504/ijscm.2016.079633.
• Shuping. The article “Bridges’ Model of Transition: Lessons for Managing Changes in Schools” in the International Journal of Innovative Research and Development, published on 24 April 2025, with the identifier 10.24940/ijird/2025/v14/i2/feb25002.
• Dziak. An introductory article titled “Bridges Transition Model” in EBSCO Research Starters, dated 2021. It is a secondary source and not a peer reviewed study, and its current text carries additions newer than its listed date.

We read the abstract of the Leybourne article as it appears in OpenAlex, the abstract of the Shuping article as it appears in Crossref, and the EBSCO introductory article. We did not read the text of either book or of either article. The English stage names and their descriptions are taken from the EBSCO article, and we did not check them against the text of Bridges. We did not rely on the pages of consulting firms as a source for any effect or benefit.

What is the difference between change and transition?

According to Bridges, as the EBSCO article relays it, the difference is that change is a force that acts on people, often from outside, whether they accept it or not, while transition is an internal psychological process that sometimes runs longer than the change itself.

An establishment that moves a team to a new system on a fixed date has made a change on that date. The transition of the team members extends, on this view, for as long as each of them is dealing with what was lost and with what is not yet clear. We devised this example to make the idea easier to grasp, and it does not come from any book by Bridges.

What are the stages of transition?

The stage names and the description of each stage follow the EBSCO article, and the Arabic wording of the names on the Arabic page is our own choice:

• Ending, Losing, and Letting Go. Described as marked by resistance, fear, confusion, frustration, denial and a sense of loss. Our reading of the plain meaning of the name is that what ends is sometimes a work habit, a role, a team or a standing, and that transition begins with what is left behind and not with what is received.
• Neutral Zone. Described as marked by confusion, impatience and uncertainty. The same article adds that people may feel burdened by extra work, pressure or training, that motivation may fall, and that doubt appears in some people about whether the change will bring positive results.
• New Beginning. Described as marked by calm, positivity, higher morale, stronger attachment to the group and enthusiasm for new ideas. According to the article this is likely and not certain.

The article adds that the stages usually occur in this order and that people pass through them at different speeds, depending on whether they see the change as beneficial or as a burden. We do not know from the article whether Bridges treats the stages as a straight line, or allows them to overlap, or allows a return to an earlier stage, so we take no position on that point.

How are the stages noticed in daily work?

The questions below are ours, written to make the meaning easier to see. They are not a published measurement instrument and not a list taken from a reference, and one answer to any of them is not enough to describe an employee:

• Ending. Has it been announced clearly what will end and what will stay? Does the team talk about what it will miss of the old way?
• Neutral zone. Do questions about the new way of working keep coming back? Does the team’s performance vary from one week to the next? Is there room to try the new way without being held to account for the first mistake?
• New beginning. Do people use the new way without being reminded? Do they describe it as the way they work and not as a way that was imposed on them?

The answers are read over weeks and not in a single meeting, because the absence of questions in one week is sometimes busyness and not a sign that people have settled.

How does it differ from related concepts?

• Lewin model. A framework that describes change in an establishment as three stages, unfreeze, change and refreeze, as set out in the Lewin Change Model entry. In that entry the middle stage is called Change, while Bridges uses Transition for the inner process. We do not claim that Lewin’s stages correspond to Bridges’ stages one to one.
• Kotter model. Eight steps by which leaders arrange their effort in a major transformation. The eight steps are listed in the Kotter Eight Step Change Model entry. The focus of that model is what leaders do, and Bridges focuses on what people go through. This is a difference of viewpoint, we think, and not a report on which is more useful.
• Change management. The human side of a transformation. A project delivered on time whose team goes back to the old way of working has succeeded by the measure of delivery and failed by the measure of adoption, as the definition of change management in this glossary puts it. In our estimate this comes close to Bridges’ distinction between the event and what people live through after it, and we attribute to Bridges no judgement on measuring adoption.
• Resistance to change. The response of employees that delays, distorts or blocks the adoption of a change, in open, passive and silent forms, described in the resistance to change definition in the Arabic glossary. In our view, one reading of some apparent resistance is that the person showing it is still in the ending stage. We do not know that Bridges holds this view.

What are the limits of the model and what is said in criticism of it?

In our search of Crossref, OpenAlex and the web we did not find a peer reviewed article devoted to criticising the model or testing it empirically. That describes what we found and is not a judgement that no such article exists.

The abstract of the 2016 article by Leybourne gives its subject as Bridges’ 1991 framework and the grief cycle of Kubler Ross from 1969, each studied separately and each evaluated critically for its benefits or otherwise. It adds that the outcomes suggest that both frameworks are beneficial to change practitioners and can assist in supporting employees in moving from one organisational state to another. We do not know from the abstract the criteria on which the evaluation was built, or the weaknesses it found, or whether it relied on data, so we relay what it gives and do not judge whether it is correct.

The 2025 article by Shuping is about applying the model to a single private school. Its abstract reports that implementing the change from the top down increased the resistance and confusion of the teachers because their emotional and psychological needs were neglected, and that the school remained stuck in the neutral zone. One case does not test a model, and in our reading the article is an application of the model and not evidence that it is correct.

• An empirical test we did not find. We found no published instrument for measuring the stages, and we read no study that tests their order or the effect of attending to them.
• An order not checked across individuals. The EBSCO article relays that people pass through the stages at different speeds, and we do not know whether the same order holds for every employee.
• A focus on the individual. The model describes what people go through, and from the abstracts we read we do not know what it says about the design or the timing of the change itself.
• A Saudi context not examined. We know of no Saudi study that we adopt on applying the model in Saudi establishments.

A worked hypothetical example: a short survey after moving a team to a new system

Suppose a hypothetical establishment has 40 employees who moved to a new attendance system on one date. The human resources team asked each employee in week 2, then in week 6, then in week 12 which of the following statements was closest to them: “I still miss the old way”, “I do not yet know how to work the new way”, or “I work the new way as a matter of habit”. The statements are ours, not Bridges’.

In week 2, 22 employees chose the first statement, 14 the second and 4 the third, a total of 22 + 14 + 4 = 40. The shares are 22 ÷ 40 = 55%, 14 ÷ 40 = 35% and 4 ÷ 40 = 10%. In week 6 the counts were 10, 20 and 10, a total of 40, with shares of 25%, 50% and 25%. In week 12 they were 4, 12 and 24, a total of 40, with shares of 10%, 30% and 60%.

The second statement rose from 35% to 50% and then fell to 30%. The third rose from 4 employees to 24, an increase of 20 employees, and from 10% to 60%, which is 60 minus 10 = 50 percentage points. In week 12, 16 employees, that is 4 + 12, had not reached the third statement, and 16 ÷ 40 = 40%.

The figures are hypothetical and were set to show the method of calculation. They do not represent an establishment or a study, and the example does not mean that 12 weeks is a usual duration. The answers are reports by the employees themselves, and each employee is worth 2.5 percentage points because 1 ÷ 40 = 2.5%, so it takes only 4 employees changing their answers to move a share by 10 points.

The survey counts each week’s answers and does not follow the same people, so it does not show that any one employee passed through the stages in this order. To know that, the answers of each employee have to be followed individually. The shares are therefore read as an arithmetic exercise and not as a measure of the success of the move.

The role of human resources

Human resources has the option of taking the stages as questions for a conversation with managers before and after a change is announced. What will actually end? What information is still missing? What will be the first sign that the new way has become habitual? No evaluation of an employee and no decision about an employee is built on placing them in a stage. This is our view, because the questions are not a published instrument and we found no published instrument for measuring the stages.

In our estimate, the frankness of an employee in a time of ambiguity depends on a belief that asking a question or disagreeing will not be counted against them, a belief the glossary names psychological safety. We attribute this estimate to no source.

One useful question in the ending stage is what unwritten expectations an employee built their work on. Expectations that no document records, about what each side gives the other, have a term of their own, psychological contract, which is a description of what both sides expect and not an agreement to be relied on.

How the term is misused

• Taken as a timetable. An employee is expected to have finished a stage in a given week, although the EBSCO article relays that people pass through the stages at different speeds.
• Used to describe an employee. A person is called “in the neutral zone” as a judgement on the person, while the model describes a condition that people go through and not a trait.
• Credited with an effect without a source. Saying, for example, that attending to the stages raises commitment or reduces resignations, without a figure from a named source.
• Confused with the change. The transition is counted as finished once the event is over, or an employee who is behind the date is counted as obstinate.

What the evidence allows us to say

The evidence does not allow us to conclude that the Bridges Transition Model eases resistance to change or raises the success of a transformation or commitment, and it does not allow us to conclude that the model fails to do so. All we have are publication data and abstracts, we did not read the text of Bridges’ books or of either article, and we found no Saudi study that we adopt. We attribute to a source no effect or figure other than what we relayed from the abstracts of Leybourne and Shuping, attributed to them.

The better course is to treat the term as a theoretical description of stages, each of which is examined against the facts of each establishment: what has actually ended, what is still unclear, and what has become habitual. What is decided after that depends on the nature of the change and the size of the team.