The period around a power transition is when the most institutional change becomes possible and when the most institutional risk is present.
Why Transitions Are Different
Power transitions — the moments when authority over an institution moves from one set of actors to another — are structurally different from normal institutional operation. In stable periods, the distribution of authority is settled, the informal hierarchies are established, and the operating norms are enforced by the actors who benefit from them. Change is possible but costly, because it requires overcoming the resistance of actors invested in the current configuration.
In transitions, the distribution of authority is temporarily unsettled. The actors who enforced existing norms are losing their ability to do so. The actors who will enforce new norms have not yet established the relationships and precedents that give their enforcement force. This gap is the transition window — the period in which actions that would have been blocked in stable times can be taken, because the blocking capacity is temporarily diminished.
The window is real and consequential. Things that were impossible before the transition become possible during it. Things that were possible before may become impossible after, if the new authority configuration closes off paths that the old one permitted. The operator who understands that transitions create windows — and who prepares to use them before they close — can accomplish more in a short transition period than in years of normal institutional operation.
The Risks That Accompany the Opportunity
The same unsettlement that creates the transition window creates the transition risk. In stable periods, the norms governing acceptable behavior are established and enforced. In transitions, the norms are temporarily contested. Actions that would have been clearly within bounds in the prior configuration may be interpreted as overreach by the incoming configuration. Actions that were borderline under the prior configuration may face harsher assessment from the new authority structure that has every incentive to distinguish its norms from its predecessor's.
The actor who uses the transition window aggressively — who takes advantage of the temporary diminishment of blocking capacity to push through changes that the incoming authority will then have to undo or accommodate — faces the risk of being defined by the incoming configuration as an actor who used the transition irresponsibly. This definition can follow them through the entire tenure of the incoming configuration.
Positioning for Multiple Outcomes
The most sophisticated approach to power transitions is to position for multiple outcomes rather than betting entirely on a single predicted configuration. This requires identifying which of your current activities and relationships will remain valuable under various incoming configurations, which will become more valuable, and which will become liabilities. Accelerating the first two and reducing exposure to the third is the conservative positioning strategy. It trades upside from aggressive transition use for protection against the risk of misreading which transition outcome will actually materialize.
A power transition is simultaneously the greatest opportunity and the greatest risk in institutional life. The window opens when the old blocking capacity fades and closes when the new one establishes itself. What you do between those two moments defines your position for years.
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