ASSIGNMENT #

02
MGT 554

Submitted by
Adeel Ahmed Khan

Introduction
Kurt Lewin was an American social psychologist that carried out
researches that are fundamental to the study of the dynamics and the
manipulation of human behaviour. He is the originator of field theory.
Kurt Lewin was born in Mogilno, Prussia. He studied at the universities of
Freiburg and Munich and completed his doctorate at the University of
Berlin in 1914. He taught in Berlin from 1921 until the advent of Hitler to
power in 1933, when he immigrated to the United States. He was visiting
professor at Stanford and at Cornell before receiving an appointment as
professor of child psychology in the Child Welfare Research Station of the
State University of Iowa in 1935.
In 1945 he left Iowa to start the Research Centre for Group Dynamics at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also served as visiting
professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Harvard.
At Iowa, Lewin and his associates conducted no-table research on the
effect of democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire methods of leadership
upon the other members of groups. Largely on the basis of controlled
experiments with groups of children, Lewin maintained that contrary to
popular belief the democratic leader has no less power than the autocratic
leader and that the characters and personalities of those who are led are
rapidly and profoundly affected by a change in social atmosphere. In
effecting such changes on human behaviour patterns, Lewin argued, the
democratic group that has long-range planning surpasses both the
autocratic and laissez-faire groups in creative initiative and sociality. As a
general rule, he contended, the more democratic the procedures are, the
less resistance there is to change.
The central factors to be considered if one wishes to transform a
nondemocratic group into a democratic one are ideology, the character of
its members, and the locus of coercive physical power within the group.
Although coercive physical power is thus not the only factor to be
considered, Lewin warns against the naive belief in the goodness of
human nature, which overlooks the fact that ideology itself cannot be
changed by teaching and moral suasion alone. It can be done only by a
change in the distribution of coercive physical power. But he also warns
that democratic behaviour cannot be learned by autocratic methods. The
members of the group must at least feel that the procedures are
democratic.
Lewin was a Gestalt psychologist, and that approach materially influenced
him when he originated field theory. Strictly speaking, field theory is an
approach to the study of human behaviour, not a theory with content
which can be used for explanatory, predictive, or control purposes. His
work in this area has been judged as the single most influential element in
modern social psychology, leading to large amounts of research and
opening new fields of inquiry. According to Lewin, field theory (which is a
complex concept) is best characterized as a method, a method of

analyzing causal relations and building scientific constructs. It is an

approach which maintains that to represent and interpret faithfully the
complexity of concrete reality requires continual crossing of the traditional
boundaries of the social sciences, rather than a progressive narrowing of
attention to a limited number of variables. The theory, which requires an
interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of concrete reality, has
also been termed dynamic theory and topological psychology. It holds that
events are determined by forces acting on them in an immediate field
rather than by forces acting at a distance. In the last analysis, it is a
theory about theory building, or a meta-theory.
Lewin believed that a social scientist has an obligation to use his
resources to solve social problems. He helped found the Commission on
Community Interrelations of the American Jewish Congress and the
National Training Laboratories. Shortly after his death on February 12,
1947, the Research Centre for Group Dynamics was moved to the
University of Michigan, where it became one of two divisions of the
Institute for Social Research and continued to exercise an important
influence.
Group decision making:
After the Second World War, Lewin carried out research for the United
States Government, exploring ways of influencing people to change their
dietary habits towards less popular cuts of meat. He found that, if group
members were involved in and encouraged to discuss the issues
themselves, and were able to make their own decisions as a group, they
were far more likely to change their habits than if they had just attended
lectures giving appropriate information, recipes and advice.
Force field analysis:
Lewin's force field theory viewed people's activity as affected by forces in
their surrounding environment, or field.
Three main principles of force field theory are that:

behaviour is a function of the existing field

analysis starts from the complete situation and distinguishes its
component parts
a concrete person in a concrete situation can be mathematically
represented.

Force field analysis is used extensively for purposes of organisational and

human resource development, to help indicate when driving and
restraining forces are not in balance, so that change can occur.
Lewin's force field analysis technique can be used to help distinguish
whether factors within a situation or organisation are driving forces for
change or restraining forces that will work against desired changes.

Examples of driving forces might be impulses such as ambition, goals,

needs or fears that drive a person towards or away from something.
Restraining forces are viewed by Lewin as different in their nature, in that
they act to oppose driving forces, rather than comprising independent
forces in themselves.
The interplay of these forces creates the stable routine of normal, regular
activities, which are described by Lewin as quasi-stationary processes. In
day-to-day situations, the driving and restraining forces balance out and
equalise to fluctuate around a state of equilibrium for an activity.
Achieving change involves altering the forces that maintain this
equilibrium. To bring about an increase in productivity, for example,
changes in the forces currently keeping production at its existing quasistationary levels would be required, through taking one of two alternative
routes

strengthening the driving forces - for example, paying more money

for more productivity

Restraining inhibiting factors - for example, simplifying production

processes.

Strengthening the drives would seem the most obvious route to take, but
analysis would show that this could lead to the development of
countervailing forces, such as employee concern about tiredness, or worry
about new targets becoming a standard expectation. In contrast, reducing
restraining forces - for example through investment in machinery or
training to make the process easier - may be a less obvious, but more
rewarding approach, bringing about change with less resistance or
demoralisation.
Lewin identified two questions to ask when seeking to make changes
within the framework of force field analysis:
1. Why does a process continue at its current level under the
present circumstances?
2. What conditions would change these circumstances?
For Lewin, circumstances have a very broad meaning, and covers social
context and wider environment, as well as sub-groups, and
communication barriers between groups. The position of each of these
factors represents a group's structure and ecological setting. Together, the
structure and setting will determine a range of possible changes that
depend on, and can to some degree be controlled through, the pacing and
interaction of forces across the entire field - that is, the force field.
Lewins change model has shaped the worlds approach towards change.
Hendry states scratch any account of creating and managing change and
the idea that change is a three- stage process which necessarily begins
with the process of unfreezing will not be far below the surface.
Kurt Lewins Change Model

Kurt Lewin is known for his work in social psychology and his theories such
as Group Dynamics, Active Research, Field theory and his Change Model.
Burnes states Some 50 years after his death, Lewin is now mainly
remembered as the originator of the 3- Step model of change. Derived
from force field analysis in the 1940s, Lewins 3 Step Change Model looks
at resistance derived from habits or inner resistance. It is based on a three
step approach to change as seen in Figure 1. Lewin believed that in order
to adopt new behaviour or change that you must first discard the old
behaviour.

Figure 1
Step 1
Unfreezing

Unlearning stage

Step 2
Moving

Step 3
Refreezing

Recognition of
need to change

the New
established

Acceptance
change
by
majority

of
the

norm

Crisis Stage
New ways of doing
this

Ritchie (2006) describes the 3 step model;

If you have a large cube of ice, but realize that what you want is a cone of
ice, what do you do? First you must melt the ice to make it amenable to
change (unfreeze). Then you must mold the iced water into the shape you
want (change). Finally, you must solidify the new shape (refreeze).
Step 1 details that organisations need to unfreeze the equilibrium and
break the stability so that current ineffective business practices can be
unlearnt and new practices considered. The unfreezing can be a
confronting process. Lewin states To break open the shell of complacency
and self-righteousness it is sometimes necessary to bring about an

emotional stir up. Burns explains that, unfreezing is about the breaking
down of the status quo. From a practical perspective organisations need to
start by creating a desired environment in which the change can occur, so
that people can begin to open their minds to new ideas.
Step 2, indicates that businesses must then make the transition to new
ways of operating. Once team members have opened up their minds,
change can start. The change process can be a very dynamic one and, if it
is to be effective, it will probably take some time and involve a transition
period.
Step 3, refers to a refreeze period which ensures that the new process
sticks and is embedded into new best practice activities. Actions should
now match the intended changes. This step seeks to reinforce the change
and bring about stability and equilibrium. From a practical application this
might mean reinforcement strategies such as re-training.
Figure 2:
Practical methods and contemporary tools used in each of the 3 step
approaches
Step 1

Communicating,
Setting the scene,
Challenging
Creating
project
guidelines,
Scoping the project,
Demonstrating
issues,
Stakeholder
analysis,

Step 2

Step 3

Communicating,
Leadership,
Coaching,
Brainstorming,
Presenting ideas,
Training concepts of
change,
Change
readiness
assessments,
Counselling,
Implementation, new
process
training,
Stakeholder
engagement,
Empowerment

Communicating, retraining, Rewarding,

Benefit
realisation,
Evaluation,
Monitoring,
KPIs

Lewins 3 step model has been used as a foundation for many change
models during the last 50 years. Figure 2 shows how and where
contemporary tools such as change readiness assessments might fit
within the 3 step model.
The Connection between Lewins Work and Change:
Change is a common thread that runs through all businesses regardless of
size, industry and age.Our world is changing fast and, as such,
organizations must change quickly too. Organizations that handle change
well thrive, whilst those that do not may struggle to survive.

The concept of "change management" is a familiar one in most businesses

today. But, how businesses manage change (and how successful they are
at it) varies enormously depending on the nature of the business, the
change and the people involved. And a key part of this depends on how
far people within it understand the change process.
One of the cornerstone models for understanding organizational change
was developed by Kurt Lewin back in the 1950s, and still holds true today.
His model is known as Unfreeze Change Refreeze, refers to the threestage process of change he describes. Lewin, a physicist as well as social
scientist, explained organizational change using the analogy of changing
the shape of a block of ice.
Understanding Lewin's Model:
If you have a large cube of ice, but realize that what you want is a cone of
ice, what do you do? First you must melt the ice to make it amenable to
change (unfreeze). Then you must mould the iced water into the shape
you want (change). Finally, you must solidify the new shape (refreeze).

By looking at change as process with distinct stages, you can prepare

yourself for what is coming and make a plan to manage the transition
looking before you leap, so to speak. All too often, people go into change
blindly, causing much unnecessary turmoil and chaos.
To begin any successful change process, you must first start by
understanding why the change must take place. As Lewin put it,
"Motivation for change must be generated before change can occur. One
must be helped to re-examine many cherished assumptions about oneself
and one's relations to others." This is the unfreezing stage from which
change begins.
Unfreeze:
This first stage of change involves preparing the organization to accept
that change is necessary, which involves break down the existing status
quo before you can build up a new way of operating.
Key to this is developing a compelling message showing why the existing
way of doing things cannot continue. This is easiest to frame when you
can point to declining sales figures, poor financial results, worrying
customer satisfaction surveys, or suchlike: These show that things have to
change in a way that everyone can understand.

To prepare the organization successfully, you need to start at its core

you need to challenge the beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviours that
currently define it. Using the analogy of a building, you must examine and
be prepared to change the existing foundations as they might not support
add-on storeys; unless this is done, the whole building may risk collapse.
This first part of the change process is usually the most difficult and
stressful. When you start cutting down the "way things are done", you put
everyone and everything off balance. You may evoke strong reactions in
people, and that's exactly what needs to done.
By forcing the organization to re-examine its core, you effectively create a
(controlled) crisis, which in turn can build a strong motivation to seek out
a new equilibrium. Without this motivation, you won't get the buy-in and
participation necessary to effect any meaningful change.
Change:
After the uncertainty created in the unfreeze stage, the change stage is
where people begin to resolve their uncertainty and look for new ways to
do things. People start to believe and act in ways that support the new
direction.
The transition from unfreeze to change does not happen overnight: People
take time to embrace the new direction and participate proactively in the
change. A related change model, the Change Curve, focuses on the
specific issue of personal transitions in a changing environment and is
useful for understanding this specific aspect in more detail.
In order to accept the change and contribute to making the change
successful, people need to understand how the changes will benefit them.
Not everyone will fall in line just because the change is necessary and will
benefit the company. This is a common assumption and pitfall that should
be avoided.
Time and communication are the two keys to success for the changes to
occur. People need time to understand the changes and they also need to
feel highly connected to the organization throughout the transition period.
When you are managing change, this can require a great deal of time and
effort and hands-on management is usually the best approach.
Refreeze:
When the changes are taking shape and people have embraced the new
ways of working, the organization is ready to refreeze. The outward signs
of the refreeze are a stable organization chart, consistent job descriptions,
and so on. The refreeze stage also needs to help people and the
organization internalize or institutionalize the changes. This means
making sure that the changes are used all the time; and that they are
incorporated into everyday business. With a new sense of stability,
employees feel confident and comfortable with the new ways of working.

The rationale for creating a new sense of stability in our every changing
world is often questioned. Even though change is a constant in many
organizations, this refreezing stage is still important. Without it,
employees get caught in a transition trap where they aren't sure how
things should be done, so nothing ever gets done to full capacity. In the
absence of a new frozen state, it is very difficult to tackle the next change
initiative effectively. How do you go about convincing people that
something needs changing if you haven't allowed the most recent
changes to sink in? Change will be perceived as change for change's sake,
and the motivation required to implement new changes simply won't be
there.
As part of the Refreezing process, make sure that you celebrate the
success of the change this helps people to find closure, thanks them for
enduring a painful time, and helps them believe that future change will be
successful.
Practical Steps for Using the Framework:
Unfreeze
1. Determine what needs to change.

Survey the organization to understand the current state.

Understand why change has to take place.

2. Ensure there is strong support from upper management.

Use Stakeholder
Analysis and Stakeholder
Management to
identify and win the support of key people within the organization.
Frame the issue as one of organization-wide importance.

3. Create the need for change.

Create a compelling message as to why change has to occur.

Use your vision and strategy as supporting evidence.
Communicate the vision in terms of the change required.
Emphasize the "why".

4. Manage and understand the doubts and concerns.

Remain open to employee concerns and address in terms

of the need to change.

Change:
1. Communicate often.

Do so throughout the planning and implementation of the

changes.
Describe the benefits.
Explain exactly the how the changes will effect everyone.
Prepare everyone for what is coming.

2. Dispel rumours.

Answer questions openly and honestly.

Deal with problems immediately.
Relate the need for change back to operational necessities.

3. Empower action.

Provide lots of opportunity for employee involvement.

Have line managers provide day-to-day direction.

4. Involve people in the process.

Generate short-term wins to reinforce the change.

Negotiate with external stakeholders as necessary (such as
employee organizations).

Refreeze:
1. Anchor the changes into the culture.

Identity what supports the change.

Identify barriers to sustaining change.

2. Develop ways to sustain the change.

Ensure leadership support.

Create a reward system.
Establish feedback systems.
Adapt the organizational structure as necessary.

3. Provide support and training.

Keep everyone informed and supported.

4. Celebrate success!
Developments in OD and Change Management After Lewin:
The rise of corporate Japan, and severe economic downturn in the West, it
was clear that many organizations needed to transform themselves
rapidly and often brutally if they were to survive. Given its group-based,
consensual, and relatively slow nature, Lewins planned approach began
to attract criticism as to its appropriateness and efficacy, especially from
the culture-excellence school, the postmodernists, and the processualists.
The culture-excellence approach to organizations, as promoted by Peters
and Waterman and Kanter, has had an unprecedented impact on the
management of organizations by equating organizational success with the
possession of a strong, appropriate organizational culture.
Peters and Waterman argued that Western organizations were losing their
competitive edge because they were too bureaucratic, inflexible, and slow
to change. Instead of the traditional top-down, command-and-control style
of management, which tended to segment organizations into small ruledriven units, proponents of culture excellence stressed the integrated
nature of organizations, both internally and within their environments. To

survive, it was argued, organizations needed to reconfigure themselves to

build internal and external synergies, and managers needed to encourage
a spirit of innovation, experimentation, and entrepreneurship through the
creation of strong, appropriate organizational cultures. For proponents of
culture-excellence, the world is essentially an ambiguous place where
detailed plans are not possible and flexibility is essential. Instead of close
supervision and strict rules, organizational objectives need to be promoted
by loose controls, based on shared values and culture, and pursued
through empowered employees using their own initiative. They argue that
change cannot be driven from the top but must emerge in an organic,
bottom-up fashion from the day-to-day actions of all in the organization.
Proponents of culture-excellence reject as antithetical the planned
approach to change, sometimes quite scathingly, as the following
quotation from Kanter et al. shows: Lewins model was a simple one, with
organizational change involving three stages; unfreezing, changing and
refreezing . . . . This quaintly linear and static conceptionthe
organization as an ice cubeis so wildly inappropriate that it is difficult to
see why it has not only survived but prospered. . . . Suffice it to say here,
first, that organizations are never frozen, much less refrozen, but are fluid
entities with many personalities. Second, to the extent that there are
stages, they overlap and interpenetrate one another in important ways.
At the same time that the culture-excellence school was criticizing
planned change, others, notably Pfeffer, were claiming that the objectives,
and outcomes, of change programs were more likely to be determined by
power struggles than by any process of consensus-building or rational
decision making. For the postmodernists, power is also a central feature of
organizational change, but it arises from the socially constructed nature of
organizational life: In a socially constructed world, responsibility for
environmental conditions lies with those who do the constructing. This
suggests at least two competing scenarios for organization change. First,
organization change can be a vehicle of domination for those who
conspire to enact the world for others. An alternative use of social
constructionist is to create a democracy of enactment in which the
process is made open and available to all such that we create
opportunities for freedom and innovation rather than simply for further
domination.
The other important perspective on organizational change which emerged
in the 1980s was the processual approach, which derives from the work of
Andrew Pettigrew. Processualists reject prescriptive, recipe-driven
approaches to change and are suspicious of single causes or simple
explanations of events. Instead, when studying change, they focus on the
interrelatedness of individuals, groups, organizations, and society. In
particular, they claim that the process of change is a complex and untidy
cocktail of rational decision processes, individual perceptions, political
struggles, and coalition-building. Pettigrew maintains that the planned
approach is too prescriptive and does not pay enough attention to the
need to analyze and conceptualize organizational change. He argues that
change needs to be studied across different levels of analysis and
different time periods, and that it cuts across functions, spans hierarchical

divisions, and has no neat starting or finishing point; instead it is a

complex analytical, political, and cultural process of challenging and
changing the core beliefs, structure and strategy of the firm. Looking at
planned change versus a processual approach, Dawson comments that
although Lewins theory has proved useful in understanding planned
change under relatively stable conditions, with the continuing and
dynamic nature of change in todays business world, it no longer makes
sense to implement a planned process for freezing changed behaviours.
The processual framework adopts the view that change is a complex and
dynamic process which should not be solidified or treated as a series of
linear events central to the development of a processual approach is the
need to incorporate an analysis of the politics of managing change. Also
taking a processualist perspective, Buchanan and Storeys main criticism
of those who advocate planned change is their attempt to impose an
order and a linear sequence to processes that are in reality messy and
untidy, and which unfold in an iterative fashion with much backtracking
and omission. Though there are distinct differences between these newer
approaches to change, not least the prescriptive focus of the cultureexcellence approach versus the analytical orientation of the
processualists, there are also some striking similarities which they claim
strongly challenge the validity of the planned approach to change. The
newer approaches tend to take a holistic/contextual view of organizations
and their environments; they challenge the notion of change as an
ordered, rational, and linear process; and there is an emphasis on change
as a continuous process which is heavily influenced by culture, power, and
politics. Accompanying and offering support to these new approaches to
change were new perspectives on the nature of change in organizations.
Up to the late 1970s, the incremental model of change dominated.
Advocates of this view see change as being a process whereby individual
parts of an organization deal incrementally and separately with one
problem and one goal at a time. By managers responding to pressures in
their local internal and external environments in this way, over time, their
organizations become transformed. In the 1980s, two new perspectives on
change emerged: the punctuated equilibrium model and the continuous
transformation model. The former approach to change depicts
organizations as evolving through relatively long periods of stability
(equilibrium periods) in their basic patterns of activity that are punctuated
by relatively short bursts of fundamental change (revolutionary periods).
Revolutionary periods substantively disrupt established activity patterns
and install the basis for new equilibrium periods. The inspiration for this
model arises from two sources: first, from the challenge to Darwins
gradualist model of evolution in the natural sciences second, from
research showing that whilst organizations do appear to fit the
incrementalist model of change for a period of time, there does come a
point when they go through a period of rapid and fundamental change.
Proponents of the continuous transformation model reject both the
incrementalist and punctuated equilibrium models. They argue that, in
order to survive, organizations must develop the ability to change
themselves continuously in a fundamental manner. This is particularly the

case in fast-moving sectors such as retail. Brown and Eisenhardt draw on

the work of complexity theorists to support their claim for continuous
change: Like organizations, complex systems have large numbers of
independent yet interacting actors. Rather than ever reaching a stable
equilibrium, the most adaptive of these complex systems (e.g., intertidal
zones) keep changing continuously by remaining at the poetically termed
edge of chaos that exists between order and disorder. By staying in this
intermediate zone, these systems never quite settle into a stable
equilibrium but never quite fall apart. Rather, these systems, which stay
constantly poised between order and disorder, exhibit the most prolific,
complex and continuous change. Complexity theories are increasingly
being used by organization theorists and practitioners as a way of
understanding and changing organizations. Complexity theories come
from the natural sciences, where they have shown that disequilibrium is a
necessary condition for the growth of dynamic systems. Under this view,
organizations, like complex systems in nature, are seen as dynamic
nonlinear systems. The outcome of their actions is unpredictable but, like
turbulence in gases and liquids, it is governed by a set of simple ordergenerating rules. For organizations, as for natural systems, the key to
survival is to develop rules which are capable of keeping an organization
operating on the edge of chaos. If organizations are too stable, nothing
changes and the system dies; if too chaotic, the system will be
overwhelmed by change. In both situations, radical change is necessary in
order to create a new set of order-generating rules which allow the
organization to prosper and survive. As can be seen, the newer
approaches to change and the newer perspectives on the nature of
change have much in common. One of the problems with all three
perspectives on changeincrementalism, punctuated equilibrium, and
continuous changeis that all three are present in organizational life and
none appears dominant. Indeed, Burnes even questions whether these are
separate and competing theories, or merely different ways of looking at
the same phenomenon: change. He points out that sectoral, temporal,
and organizational life cycle differences can account for whether
organizations experience incremental, punctuated equilibrium, or
continuous change. He also draws on the natural sciences, in the form of
population ecology, to argue that in any given population of organizations
one would expect to see all three types of change. Therefore, rather like
the Jungian concept of the light and dark, these various perspectives on
change may be shadow images of each other, none of which by
themselves are capable of portraying the whole.