Lewin's Force Field Model
INTRODUCTIONthe Force Field analysis model was introduced by Kurt Lewin in 1951. Lewin was a German-American psychologist , known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. During his career, Lewin explored three general topics: applied research, action research, and group communication. He is often recognized as the "founder of social psychology" and was one of the first to study group dynamics and organizational development. He is also known as the author of several models; Force field analysis, action research, group dynamics, a change process and Lewin's equation which states that behavior is a function of the person in their environment: B=f(P,E).
The Wikipedia article is worth a read and explains these various models at a high level. A fascinating individual with many accomplishments. There seems to be an error with the date on this article that he passed away on. The Wikipedia entry notes that he died in 1947, yet several websites note that the model was developed in 1951!
FORCE FIELD ANALYSISThis analysis model describes the status quo as being an equilibrium between driving and resisting forces. Equilibrium exists when the forces for change and the forces against change are in equilibrium. The issue is when a change needs to be implemented, for example a new corporate strategy or a change to a firm's business environment, it's important to understand what are the forces that are driving the change and the forces resiting the change.
Driving ForcesThe driving forces are those forces that are responsible for driving the change. For example, this could be in response to competition, that a firm needs to change it's market strategy to address competitive forces. These are typically external forces a firm faces in the marketplace that will require it to change some aspect of the way it's operating. Driving forces are usually positive forces for change, good reasons why we need the change. These are reasonable, logical, economic and conscious decisions the firm makes.
Resisting ForcesResisting forces are those forces that resist change. For example, a firm can be in equilibrium; its products are selling well, there are competitors with alternate products but for now sales remains high and there is no short-term threat to profitability. Think of Kodak and how it continued to sell film despite seeing the looming competitive market for digital cameras. Those forces that resist change, equilibrium and the status quo, are typically reactive to change; emotional, negative, and illogical.
We see these driving and opposing forces in many aspects of our lives and our interactions with others. We compromise
as a way to sustain equilibrium in our relationships. Recently I saw a program on bridges, and even these structures are subject
to driving and resiting forces. As an analogy of Lewin's force field model in the physical space, consider the forces
on a bridge. Bridges are subject to driving (compression and opposing (tension) forces. When these forces are in equilibrium
a load can drive over the bridge without causing a collapse. If the compression force increases, because of higher loads on the bridge,
the equilibrium is compromised and the bridge can collapse.
To accommodate the change (higher loads) an additional supporting
pylon is added to the bridge and a new equilibrium is achieved. In summary, when change is made a new equilibrium between
opposing forces is required to sustain the change. In the business world, making changes and achieving an
equilibrium is often challenging.
Increasing the driving forces (pressure) does not always result in change as the negative forces resiting the change remain in place. Lewin's perspective is that it is easier to reduce the resisting forces rather than apply more pressure by the driving forces. For example, in some organizations driving Agile transformations, requires getting rid of staff who are not inclined to change and will instead resist the change. I've seen this happen several times whereby those who resist change are let go as part of departmental restructuring. In the words of a former GE executive, such resistors can "Flourish Off" somewhere else. Both driving and resiting forces must achieve a balance (negotiation?) to achieve a change. Otherwise resiting forces can subvert the change if not addressed.
When I worked at GE, our CEO (Jack Welsh) was a huge proponent of Six Sigma, a framework for process improvement championed by Motorola. He had a vision that everyone at GE, and its clients, would be trained on Six Sigma. Six Sigma was a large culture change with an intended goal of optimizing business processes and manufacturing through an analytical engineering approach. In summary, process re-engineering designed to reduce the defects within a process (a process performing at Six Sigma denotes only 3.4 defects per one million opportunities).
As an example, a GE Lighting manufacturing plant would have no more than 3.4 (say 4) defective light bulbs per million produced. There were good use cases in the beginning for the Six Sigma approach. Some processes were improved at various divisions mostly in manufacturing. However, as time went by, apathy set in and progress on Six Sigma adoption slowed. In fact, our GXS division was the slowest in GE's Six Sigma adoption. As adoption slowed, the CEO stipulated that all managers must be Six Sigma Black Belt certified and until they achieved that certification they would not be promotable.
In summary, there was no obvious attempt to address the resistant culture within GE opposing change. Instead, management prioritized increasing pressure to drive the change; e.g. increase the driving force by adding a barrier on promotions. The result was that managers, with many years of tenure, were unhappy. As GE's fortunes declined from a $600B capitalization in early 2000 to the recent $60B so did industry interest in Six Sigma.
THREE STAGE CHANGE MODELInfluencing the forces that maintain equilibrium may be easier than increasing the forces for change. This is the basis for Lewin's three step change model.
- Unfreeze - reduce the strength of forces maintaining the current equilibrium.
- Change - develop the new organizational culture (values, behaviors, norms, etc.) to move the organization to the intended change goal / strategy. Note that this often takes time and causes organizational chaos if not well implemented as it destabilizes the previous equilibrium. The goal is to establish a new equilibrium as a result of the change and to sustain it going forward.
- Freeze - stabilize the change and ensure the new equilibrium is achieved and sustained. This becomes the new normal.
In the bridge example above, to make a change so that it can accommodate a higher load, the traffic is halted on the bridge while construction adds the additional pylon (unfreeze). Once the change is made the increased traffic load can now traverse the bridge (freeze), as a new equilibrium is achieved. Over time, as more load is added, the bridge will have to undergo another change phase of stopping traffic, making the structural change and then opening it up again for traffic; unfreeze, change, freeze.
A large change may require several phases of unfreezing and re-freezing the organization. Strategic changes can be quite impactful and achieving change through several smaller phases may be less chaotic for a firm than one large change effort. For example, a firm adopting a digital transformation will typically approach it as a phased approach, learn from each one of its phases (un-freeze, change, freeze), before making further changes.
ExampleAs an example consider an Agile adoption at a large Bank. This involves moving from a waterfall based approach of software development to a an iterative Agile approach. In doing so there are many changes to roles, processes and tools for working in this new manner. Agile Scrum introduces new roles (e.g. Scrum Master, Product Owner) but most Agile shops don't have a role for Project Managers. The Product Owner is a new business role. Some business folks have expressed concern that they have a full time job already and don't have the time required to be a Product Owner as well. Line managers may see the introduction of Agile as diminishing their power. Others may see the change as just another of the many changes the Bank has made and has not resulted in nay real change; apathy and lack of buy-in results.
Example of an agile adoption: driving and opposing forces
Agile adoptions are often chaotic with many resistors (blockers) in the way of adopting the change. Some organizations (e.g. ING Bank, other nameless as well) have resorted to laying off staff who don't have the appetite for change - Agile victims. ING Bank had employees re-apply for the new roles that their Agile transformation brought on; not all made the cut.
This example illustrates the driving and opposing forces for an Agile transformation at a large Bank. The S column denotes on a scale of 1 to 5 the intensity of the force for driving or opposing the change, where 5 is powerful and 1 would be a weak force for change. Adding up the value for each force provides a value that describe the intensity of the force. In the example above the forces for change value is 32 whereas the resistance is estimated to be 27. This denotes there is more chance the change will be effected as there is more of a force for change than a force resisting the change. However, the differences are small and an executive would be wise to address the concerns of the opposing forces before the change is made. This is a simple example but illustrates how the model can be used to analyze an environment (concerns) before enacting a change that can destabilize the status quo.
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