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Paradox 3


Leaders must facilitate a culture of change, yet change exacerbates internal anxiety, confusion, and conflict.

During the change process a leader needs teams that work well together, are united, focused, and productive, and who consistently produce high quality work. Yet by introducing and facilitating change, leaders actually insure an increase in the frequency and level of internal conflict, uncertainty, confusion, and anxiety. At the very moment people are most likely to search for certainty about the future, honest leaders must not only acknowledge they don't have a blueprint, they must invite people to join them in what William Bridges calls the “neutral zone” and what we have renamed “the Gap.” It is the space between “the real” – where you are now, and “the ideal” – the future you hope to realize through change.

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"Little can be as satisfying to a teacher as to have a former student start with what she has been taught and go on from there.

Irma Tyler-Wood has been able to go far beyond whatever she learned from me and put her unique ideas to work with dozens of organizations and companies of all shapes and sizes. For such work, Irma may be the best you could find."

- Roger Fisher
Co-Author of Getting to Yes