The liminal pickle of the middle

There are plenty of challenges in this hybrid world of work for middle managers. 

Often lumbered with things from above and below, middle managers deserve and need ongoing invested support and development for what I’d call the ‘liminal pickle’ they can find themselves in. 

Liminal because it is between two worlds, potentially in the transition from one to another. 

And pickle... well it’s tricky. 

There’s plenty to read in this Harvard Business Review article by Brian Elliott.

What will you do when you get to Liminality?

Liminality? Where the heck is THAT?

If you're thinking from here to eternity is a big trip, wait until you find your way to liminality!

Actually, liminality isn't that far away. You've probably been there before. If you're in the midst of a new year change or trying some new habits and rituals, you'll get to liminality sometime over the next week or so...

Liminality isn't so much a place, but a state of uncertainty, a feeling of 'where the heck are we?'

If you've been travelling a bit and then wake up during the night in a darkened and unfamiliar room wondering 'where am I? Which city? Where's the bathroom', you could well be in liminality. 

Most of all we experience liminality in a place that's a bit like a twilight zone or no man's land; we're not quite here, we're not quite there. Like a threshold of sorts. 

Though the roots of liminality come from anthropology and have a strong connection to rituals, it's a useful concept when teams and individuals are working through changes and new patterns of working or behaving. 

Think of when the school year comes to an end; students have finished their exams, but they're waiting to graduate or waiting for the results. They're not quite done being school students and they're not yet university students. 

No wonder the 'gap year' has become so popular. Is it a way to truly enjoy no man's land and uncertainty and create some new holiday rituals perhaps?

When organisations, teams and businesses set off on a path of change, they must keep a look out for liminality. From here to liminality... that point where some of the old ways are breaking down and being replaced by new ways; but those new ways are not fully embedded. There's a chance we'll revert to old ways. 

Leading a team in liminality takes patience, understanding, empathy. There can often be a lengthy period of time before an old system or process stops fully and the new one 'goes live'. There's that time in between where both might be running; or some of the team are doing a bit of this, a bit of that. A threshold to cross. 

Know that from here to liminality can involve the decision to change, the introduction of new rituals, processes and ways of working. And then from liminality onwards... that's where the real change gets created, embedded, reinforced and truly starts to take shape. 

It will be a great trip. Want to come along?