cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

The underpinning theoryLewin, three-step model: organism, machineKurt Lewin (1951) developed his ideas about organizational change fromthe perspective of the organism metaphor. His model of organizationalchange is well known and much quoted by managers today. Lewin isresponsible for introducing force field analysis, which examines thedriving and resisting forces in any change situation (see Figure 3.1). Theunderlying principle is that driving forces must outweigh resisting forcesin any situation if change is to happen.Management Boardasking for thisWill free up time for usProvides opportunity forquestioning customerrequirementsGood PR for usSpeed up executive reporting processWe have little time free totackle thisCustomers will bedisgruntled by changesSAP will override all this in2 years timeFigure 3.1 Lewin's force field analysisSource: Lewin (1951)Using the example illustrated in Figure 3.1, if the desire of a manager isto speed up the executive reporting process, then either the drivingforces need to be augmented or the resisting forces decreased. Or evenbetter, both of these must happen. This means for example ensuring thatthose responsible for making the changes to the executive reportingprocess are aware of how much time it will free up if they are successful,and what benefits this will have for them (augmenting driving force). Itmight also mean spending some time and effort managing customerexpectations and supporting them in coping with the new process(reducing resisting force).Lewin suggested a way of looking at the overall process of makingchanges. He proposed that organizational changes have three steps. Thefirst step involves unfreezing the current state of affairs. This means110