ABSTRACT
Transitions, particularly those occurring in organizations, are notoriously difficult to manage: the best-made plans easily go awry, whether due to unanticipated side-effects, to the unexpected intrusion of new influences, or to lack of cooperation by the workforce. Transition is a process in which a previously established structure or set of structures that composed the system is modified or even relinquished, new forms of structure may emerge, and the mutual alignment of structures within the whole is altered. The significance of transitional phenomena in child development to help understanding of the psychosocial process of organizational and social transition was first grasped by Harold Bridger in the 1950s. Transitional learning has three key characteristics, which Bridger refers as "testing-out", "working-through", and "design". The most difficult aspect of transitional thinking arises as a consequence of adopting an open-system perspective.
