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I remember the waiting room being empty when we first arrived.  There was only my wife Christiene, and me.  Dozens of chairs, several magazine racks, a coffee pot and tea assortment near a small sink.  We had just passed our son, Jordan, into the hands of a nurse.  She was calm, caring, and moved slowly.  His small frame was stilled by the medication sipped earlier from a small paper cup.  I remember his cheeks, warm and red, and the wisps of blond hair.  His eyes were growing sleepy.  Eighteen months old, holding his favorite stuffed “Tigger”, being carried away.  The nurse’s shoes made a small squeak on the shiny hallway floor.  We watched her walk in silence through the swinging doors.  “Sterile Area: Hospital Personnel Only”.

            Somehow we found ourselves in the waiting room.  An “Interim” place and time.  How we got there – I don’t remember.  Who led us there – I don’t remember.  The route we took – I don’t remember.  But I remember the interim: every detail.  The dead fly on the black window sill as I looked over my shoulder out onto the roof top; the cold autumn sky with fluffy white clouds and the dirty window that dimmed the view – and the large, colorful replica of a hot air balloon.  I remember the pay phone, the chipped Formica counter in the phone cubicle and the torn cover of a six month old Newsweek magazine.

            Most of all I remember the clock; the white face framed in thin silver, black numbers and the minute and second hands.  The second hand floated slowly.  Not the stuttered ticking of each second but the smooth, constant movement of time.  I stared intently.  Intently enough to perceive the minute hand move, ever so slowly, with each rotation of the second hand.  Christiene sat in one seat.  I moved from seat to seat soaking in different angles, different views and different details.  I wrote in my spiral bound journal, over thirteen years ago now, these words:

“Dearest Jordan, my son.  I’m sitting in the parent’s waiting room at Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters in Norfolk Virginia.  You’re in surgery…with Dr. Magee…and with God.  For you we are so grateful.  For you we give so much thanks.  There will be times when you are afraid.  I am afraid now.  There will be times when the emotions come crashing in – when the tears are hard to control.  My tears are hard to control now.  Your mother and I try to give ourselves again to God.  We give you again to God.”

            Waiting is really hard.  Being in an interim place very challenging.  Standing in a place that is not where I was and not yet where I will be…interim.  Interim as an adjective: temporary or substituting in a role.  Interim as a noun: interval.  Synonyms include words like “caretaker”, “intervening”, “breach”, “delegated”, and “surrogate”.  I like these meanings that reflect caretaking, standing in the breach, intervening and working on behalf of another.  In my work, I’m often in an interim place (whether as an interim executive or perhaps leading a short term project).  And whether you realize it or not, so are you.  As economies, industries, companies, and teams navigate disruptive change, our relationships, place, and role are often disrupted as well.  If I were to take a poll, statistics would tell me the vast majority of you are experiencing that disruption now.  And this trend will only increase. 

              There are ways, in my opinion, to manage interim well.  There are also ways that lead to disruption and disorder.  In my first blog series (over the next several weeks) I’ll be sharing with you what I’ve come to coin as “Robert’s Rules of Dis-Order”.  A somewhat tongue-in-cheek perspective on disruptive change.  I would be interested in your thoughts and comments about this concept of “interim” and how you’ve seen change managed well – or not so well. 

            Today, thirteen years later, I watch my son Jordan at basketball practice.  He starts as a power forward; waits for the coach to direct and waits by the basket as the free throw is about to be shot.  To my right, high up on the gymnasium wall, is a clock; white face, black numbers, covered over with a large wire frame for protection.  Thirteen years ago I did not know this day.  I waited – I was in an interim place.  It was his first surgery, not his last.  In many different ways, through many challenges and opportunities of varying kinds, I have waited in interim; and often, I am in interim still.  Through it all I’ve continued to learn some truths that may offer a few bright “lanterns in the fog” to light the way through unexpected and disruptive change.  I look forward to learning from you as well – and to the conversations ahead.

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