If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.1
- Kurt Lewin
When you want to change something, you need to understand it. Kurt Lewin truly believed in what he said, as he developed a change management model to help people and organizations tackle changes.
Read along to learn more about Lewin's change model, its three stages, and its advantages and disadvantages.
Lewin's Change Management Model
Kurt Lewin was born in 1890; he was a psychologist specializing in social psychology and behavior study. He wrote many books on sociology: "A Dynamic Theory of Personality," "Principles of Topological Psychology," "Resolving Social Conflicts," etc.2 But it was only late in his career that he developed the model that made him famous in the change management field.
Change management is a process that helps an organization adapt to changes.
Like many other psychologists, Kurt Lewin realized that people resist changes, which is why implementing changes in organizations is tricky. For this reason, he developed an easy-to-apply model to help organizations plan and implement changes. This model has three steps: unfreeze, change, and refreeze. It became very popular because of its simplicity and easy-to-apply process.
Lewin's model of change is not the only model of change management he created.
He also developed a force field analysis model that can help determine the forces that are working for the changes and the forces working against them. The idea is to use the tool to give some recommendations. You can find Lewin's force field diagram below (Fig. 1):
This model has five steps:
- Describe the change: Describe the current situation, the proposed changes, and the goals you would like to achieve. You have to write it down in the middle of the diagram.
- Identify the forces for the change: In this step, you will determine all the elements that are helping or can help the change. You then place these elements on the left side of the diagram.
- Identify the forces against the change: Contrary to the previous step, here you will determine all the elements fighting or threatening the change. You then place these elements on the right side of the diagram.
- Assign a score: Then, you need to evaluate the impact of the forces on the change by assigning them a score from 1 (lowest importance) to 10 (highest importance) and write it down on each respective arrow. You can also decide to place them in order of importance.
- Analyze: Now that you have completed the diagram, you can visually see how those forces affect the change you try to implement. You can then define a strategy to help you use those forces or help you fight them.5
Lewin's 3-Stage Model of Change
Kurt Lewin's model is straightforward and has three stages3:
Unfreeze: Preparing for the changes.
This step is about unfreezing the status quo and preparing for future changes. That's where the management needs to gather support within the organization so that everyone recognizes the need to change. In this step, the leadership will determine what needs to be changed. They will also create and communicate the new processes.
Change: Implementing the changes.
This step is about implementing the necessary changes the organization will go through. Even the best plan must evolve, and the organization should adapt its plans and changes accordingly. In this stage, the organization must ensure that everyone participates and reaches the common goal.
Refreeze: Creating a new status quo.
It's crucial that the recent changes stay anchored in the company and that people don't return to their old ways. This step is about creating a new status quo and ensuring that those changes are now part of the company's culture and will stay there over the long term.
You can use the following figure (Fig. 2) to help you visualize Lewin's 3-step model.
You can use Lewin's force field analysis in the unfreezing stage to help you develop a strategy and analyze the forces that will help and work against the change you plan.
Kurt Lewin was one of many change management leaders who created a model or a theory to help organizations implement changes. We can cite: The bridge transition model, Kotter's Eight-Step model, Action Research, Organizational development, etc.
1. The Bridges Transition Model
The Bridges transition model is another popular change model. This model focuses on how people perceive the changes; it's about understanding how people feel. The model identifies three stages people go through when a change occurs:
Endings: This is the stage where people understand that something is ending and something else will start.
Neutral zone: This is the transition phase where new processes are not totally in place, and people must adapt to the new status quo.
New beginnings: This is the stage where people understand it's a new beginning.4
2. Kotter's model of change
Finally, John Kotter also developed a change model for organizations. Kotter's model has height steps:
- Establishing a sense of urgency - The first step is ensuring everyone understands that changes need to happen urgently.
- Creating the guiding coalition - The second step is about gathering a team to help guide the company's change.
- Developing a vision and strategy - The management needs to create a vision that shows where the organization is heading.
- Communicating the change vision - The management must then communicate this vision to the entire organization.
- Empowering employees for broad-based action - The organization needs to give the means to their employees to enact the changes.
- Generating short-term wins - The management needs to create short-term goals that the organization can achieve, which is a sign that the company is moving in the right direction.
- Consolidating gains and producing more change - Progress must happen daily, and people need to notice it.
- Anchoring new approaches in the culture - Changes must be anchored to the company's culture.
Lewin's Change Model Real-Life Example
Let's take a practical example to apply Lewin's change model:
You become the CEO of a company that produces chemical products and would like to improve safety and reduce the number of incidents. Having heard about Lewin's model, you decide to implement it.
Unfreeze: you determine that there are three types of incidents in your company: serious, moderate, and small. Your goal is to reduce all incidents and ensure you don't have any serious ones. You organize a meeting and share your vision with the company's leaders. You then start to plan the changes that will happen: new training, new procedures, safer machinery, etc.
Change: you implement the company's new training, procedures, and structural changes; you buy the latest machinery, etc. You also encourage and reward your employees for coming up with innovative ideas for implementing new and safer processes.
Refreeze: you ensure that the new process and structure are well ingrained in people's minds. You ensure that a new, safer culture is implemented in your company.
Advantages of Lewin's Change Model
There are a couple of advantages of using Lewin's change model:
The most significant advantage of Lewin's model is that it is easy to understand and logical when implemented.
Lewin's model is much easier and requires less preparation than other change management models.
The models' steps are easily discernable in real life: people are in the preparation phase, the changing phase, and the after-change phase.
Lewin's model has been used and proven effective for many years.
Disadvantages of Lewin's Change Model
However, Lewin's model is not perfect, and many criticisms exist. Some of the disadvantages of Lewin's change model are:
Lewin's model is often criticized as being too simple; there aren't many details about every stage. When implementing the model, you simply have a basic structure but not much detailed information on how to implement the changes effectively.
The model doesn't offer many compromises to change once it starts.
The model is about the change, not about the people in the organization. It needs to take into consideration how people will perceive the differences.
Lewin's model is a straightforward model that can help an organization plan for changes. However, the model is quite simple, and the organization will likely need other tools to implement those changes.
Lewin's Change Model - Key takeaways
- Operating changes in an organization is not easy. That's why various models and change management theories exist to facilitate changes. They include Lewin's three stages model, Kotter's 8 step model, the Bridges transition model, etc.
- Change management is a process that helps an organization adapt to changes and evolution.
- Kurt Lewin's model of change has three steps:
- Unfreeze: Preparing for the changes,
- Change: Implementing the changes,
- Refreeze: Creating a new status quo.
- Lewin's model is easy to understand and logical when implemented; it's much easier to use than other models.
- Lewin's model is often criticized for being too simple and lacking detailed information on implementing changes effectively.
References
- AZquotes. https://www.azquotes.com/author/21978-Kurt_Lewin
- Thriftbooks. Books by Kurt Lewin. https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/kurt-lewin/265258/
- Stephen P. Robbins & Timothy A. Judge. Organizational behavior. 2019
- Norlyn Opinaldo. William Bridges Transition Model Theory, Definition, and Templates. 10/06/2022. https://gitmind.com/bridges-transition-model.html
- Jaydee Reyes. What is Force Field Analysis? 24/04/2022. https://safetyculture.com/topics/force-field-analysis/
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