Throughout my life, I’ve always liked transitional spaces. For example, I love walking on the beach, but I am not a fan of swimming in lakes and oceans. I like the treelines at the edge of a pathway in a forest, but not being tangled up in the deep woods. Airports are great, but travelling sucks.
This same concept applies to my work life. I’ve been drawn to situations where there are points of transition — a transformation needed, the intersection of processes or viewpoints, or even short, high-pressure situations like outages and incidents. I’ve made a career of existing comfortably, even excelling, in those spaces, while keeping perspective and direction intact.
The word liminal literally means: occupying both sides of a transition or threshold, or relating to a transitory state. It implies you’re going somewhere, and it’s important to have perspective — to ensure you can learn from where you’ve been, and also have clarity on where you’re going.
There are skills needed for that, outside of just technology, that I’d like to explore.
Attention — The Draw of the In-Between
From the outside, most people run away from liminal spaces. They crave certainty, structure, and clear direction. Yet the reality of business — especially in technology — is that it’s full of thresholds: mergers, digital transformations, regulatory changes, growth pains.
My comfort in these spaces started long before I realized it had a name. As a leader, I didn’t just tolerate transitions; I began to seek them out. High-stakes incidents, strategic crossroads, moments when everyone else was frozen or unsure — those were the moments where I found clarity.
Meaning — Why Thresholds Matter
Liminal spaces can feel uncomfortable, but they’re also where the most growth happens.
- They expose weaknesses in processes and culture.
- They force clarity on what truly matters.
- They allow space for reinvention.
As a CIO, I’ve seen this first-hand. In a critical outage, you discover whether your teams trust each other. In a transformation initiative, you uncover whether your culture truly values innovation or just talks about it. In an acquisition, you see whether leaders can let go of ego for the sake of shared success.
These transitions aren’t distractions from the work. They are the work.
Purpose — My Perspective
For me, Liminal Management is about leaning into those thresholds and creating stability inside the instability. It’s recognizing that the uncertainty of the moment is an opportunity to set tone, reinforce values, and chart the next course.
I don’t consider myself someone who thrives on chaos. Instead, I thrive on clarity in chaos. My ability to pause, assess, and act with perspective has been the difference between teams that spiral into blame and teams that rally around a shared outcome.
Lessons Learned
Some lessons I’ve carried forward:
- Anchor to values, not tactics. Tactics will change in a crisis or transformation. Values are the north star.
- Communicate twice as much as you think you need to. In liminal states, silence gets filled with fear.
- Respect the past, but don’t cling to it. Honor the work that got you here, but don’t let it shackle the next step.
- Build trust before you need it. Liminal spaces test trust; they don’t create it.
Implementation — Skills for Leaders
To manage liminal spaces effectively, leaders need to cultivate:
- Perspective: the ability to zoom out when everyone else is zooming in.
- Calm presence: people mirror your tone more than your words.
- Narrative control: shaping the story of “where we are” and “where we’re going” to reduce fear and increase clarity.
- Decision bias: avoiding paralysis by making deliberate, values-aligned choices even with imperfect information.
Framework — Liminal Management in Practice
When I enter a liminal space — whether it’s a corporate outage, a strategic pivot, or a transformation — I approach it with a repeatable pattern:
- Orient: Where are we? What just shifted?
- Anchor: What are our non-negotiables (values, goals)?
- Stabilize: What’s the immediate action that reduces chaos?
- Mobilize: How do we align people to move forward together?
- Transition: What lessons should we carry as we step fully into the new state?
Inspiration — Why This Matters
I believe leaders are defined less by how they manage in times of stability and more by how they navigate thresholds. Anyone can steer the ship in calm seas. True leaders are revealed in the straits, at the narrows, when the currents shift and the shoreline is unclear.
That’s the essence of Liminal Management: leading at the thresholds, bringing perspective, and shaping outcomes not just in spite of transitions, but through them.
Closing
Liminal spaces will always exist — in life, in technology, in business. They can be places of fear, or they can be places of transformation. The choice, and the leadership, makes all the difference.