Episode 127: Lead Your Messy Middle

Every change has a middle nobody wants to talk about. The old way is gone, the new way does not work yet, and everyone is pretending otherwise. Drawing on William Bridges’ transitions — Endings, the Neutral Zone, and New Beginnings — Maya and Marcus show why the dip is not failure but the zone itself, where creativity lives and fake adoption is born. Different from the ADKAR diagnostic for one person, this is about holding the whole room. Four steps close it out: name the zone, name what is not changing, give the zone one experiment, and show the beginning taking shape. This show is written and produced by Joe Dutkiewicz of Crayon Leadership. Joe equips mid-senior leaders to think and act two levels up, so they’re recognizable to top leaders and ready for the promotion before it opens. Find Joe on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook, and at the Crayon Leadership website. Maya and Marcus are AI voices, created with text-to-speech.