Lewin: The Process of Change
Much of the theorizing on the change process is rooted in Lewin’s (1947) original concepts of unfreezing, movement, and refreezing. This is a linear description often applied to understanding change in both individuals and social systems:
Unfreezing→ Movement→ Refreezing
Unfreezing.
In Lewin’s framework, the first step toward change is unfreezing, or developing openness toward something different, a melting of the solidity of the current state. The process of unfreezing is an energy creation activity. Unfreezing may involve numerous methods, depending on the specific area of change. For example, to enable a group to attain higher-level productivity, one might use social comparison processes (such as productivity data) to show how other groups are already attaining such levels. In New York City during the 1990s, one of several techniques used to engage precinct commanders in a renewed effort to reduce crime was to employ a process called CompStat (computerized or comparative statistics). This involved using key statistical measures, gathered weekly and reported separately by police precinct. Precinct commanders were able to see how their precincts compared with others. Those at higher and lower ends of the spectrum were singled out in public forums of peers and police “brass.” Moreover, everyone’s data were public to all present. The CompStat process is a form of feedback useful at this stage and discussed in greater detail in a later section. This part of the change process has also been referred to as developing awareness of the need for change (Lippitt, Watson, and Westerley, 1958). The critical psychological process involved in unfreezing is concerned with creating the motivation for becoming different.
Driving and Restraining Forces.
Lewin’s application of force field analysis to characterize human social behavior is relevant to understanding the process of unfreezing. Force field analysis is a useful method for portraying the array of forces acting on a system at any given time, and it serves to illustrate the current state of the system. Among these forces are those that promote the change goal (driving forces) and those working in opposition to it (restraining forces). Furthermore, the forces may differ in strength in facilitating or hindering movement. These driving and restraining forces, along with their relative strengths, together identify a quasi-stationary equilibrium that reflects the current state, albeit always changing in minute ways at any given moment.
Driving forces are the motivations, attitudes, behaviors, or other characteristics of a situation that help move toward the goal or unfreeze from the existing situation. In an example of someone trying to get in better physical shape, some of the forces might be tiring easily when climbing stairs, increasing difficulty getting around a tennis court, discomfort in clothes that are getting too tight, or a desire to feel better.
Restraining forces are the opposite: they are the constellation of forces working against change to keep the status quo in place. Again, with the goal of getting in better shape, some examples of restraining forces are low willpower and motivation, enjoyment of eating as a social experience, a preference for sloth, and finding oneself often in the presence of lots of unhealthy food.
To begin the process of change, or unfreezing, the driving forces must be relatively stronger than the resisting forces, and a certain level of tension must be created. Increasing tension is a key factor in unfreezing and creating motivational energy to change. It is the fuel that powers the beginning of the change process. For the tension to be productive, it must be experienced at an optimal level. If the candle is brought too close to the ice cube or for too long, it produces too much tension. If it is kept too far away, not enough unfreezing occurs and not enough tension. Some feelings associated with tension are stress, discomfort, and anxiety. A variety of methods may be used to create productive levels of tension. Examples include the CompStat process and any of the many formal methods used in organizations to create feedback opportunities (multirater feedback, performance appraisals).
A useful construct for understanding a system’s ability to handle tension is tolerance for ambiguity or the unknown. This refers to one’s ability to handle the feelings generated by the tension in a productive way. In fact, tolerance for ambiguity is a construct cited as a core quality associated with creativity and effective leadership, as well as productive conflict resolution and successful change.
As an example, the legal order to break up the Bell system and AT&T to create competition in long-distance phone service created tension in that system (AT&T) to change (Tunstall, 1985). In this case, an external event (a federal court order) stimulated (actually forced) a process of unfreezing from the status quo. A situation that once worked—that was comfortable, successful, and stable—now becomes uncomfortable, does not work so well any longer, and forces people to look at something in a new way.
Movement.
Once openness or a sufficient state of tension has been achieved, the next step is transition or movement: taking some action that changes or moves the social system to a new level. Some examples of this movement in our get-in-shape example are eating better foods (to lose weight), walking to work rather than driving (to get oneself in shape), and similar activities. Examples in other realms are reorganizing employees’ job responsibilities (to increase organizational efficiency) and engaging in acts of civil disobedience (to improve the social, economic, or political conditions of a particular group).
Although these activities signifying movement seem rather straightforward, complex processes are operating that make such movement difficult. Primary among these are restraining forces, which are also a form of resistance to change. This resistance is a key psychological component playing a strong role in the transition process. Resistance is the mobilization of energy to protect the status quo in the face of a real or perceived threat to it. Resistance may be thought of as behavior intended to protect one from the effect of real or imagined change (Zander, 1950). It is a key factor influencing the intensity of the conflicts that arise during change and the ability to resolve them productively. Early on, the degree of resistance has an impact on the ease of unfreezing. The stronger the resistance, the greater the effort is needed to unfreeze from the current state.
Refreezing.
Refreezing establishes actions or processes that support the new level of behavior and lead to resilience against the resistant forces encouraging old patterns and behaviors. In other words, deliberate steps must be taken to ensure that the new behaviors stick, or remain relatively permanent in the system. This is often a process of restabilizing a system to its new or changed level of functioning. For example, a group whose members are trying to embrace a norm of not talking about members behind their backs might adopt a process of frequent group meetings or avoiding discussion of interpersonal issues if all group members are not present. Refreezing may also be understood in terms of the degree of commitment to the new, changed state that exists in the system.
Commitment is a psychological construct that has received much empirical attention as a predictor of key organizational phenomena such as retention and performance. According to Salancik (1977), commitment is a state in which we become bound by our actions, where our beliefs about those actions keep us doing them. Salancik defines three aspects of committing behavior: it is visible, observable to oneself and others; irrevocable and cannot be taken back; and behavior undertaken of one’s own volition, or by choice. This is linked to personal responsibility: we usually accept responsibility for behavior we enact by choice.
This last component of commitment, volition, makes evidence for it ambiguous; it is not observable and can only be attributed. It is this element that distinguishes commitment from compliance. Here, I use compliance to refer to behavior whose origin lies outside of oneself and is based on the perceived values of the system. Argyris (1998) refers to compliance as external commitment, where the desired state is one of internal commitment. Many strategies for refreezing a system end up achieving compliance to change beca
use the methods used to bring about change do not offer choice for those whose commitment is needed. On the surface, compliance looks like commitment because both kinds of behavior are public, or visible, and may be irrevocable.
There are often many opportunities that tempt the system to move back to behaviors associated with the prechange state. This process has been referred to as commitment testing (Marcus, 1994). It occurs when we are faced with the choice of reverting to old behaviors. For example, once we change our eating habits to be healthier, commitment testing occurs as we see the pastry carousel at the local diner, or smell butter cookies baking in the kitchen, or are invited to have a piece of seven-layer cake at a birthday party. Or, referring back to the situation where we are trying to change a group norm, we are often seduced by the invitation from colleagues when they ask some variation of, “Can I tell you something about Chris that just happened? But you have to PROMISE not to tell anyone else.” Our response to these situations is an opportunity to test as well as renew our commitment to our new behavior.
Often, commitment testing engenders conflict. In the dietary examples, one conflict is intrapersonal, the other interpersonal. The desire to support the changed state is incompatible with the desire to revert to old habits. The resolution of this conflict affects the level of success of the change. To the extent that these conflicts are resolved in support of the changed state (looking away from the carousel, leaving the kitchen, or not agreeing to the colleague’s secrecy deal), the change is likely to be successful. That is, the refrozen state is likely to stay frozen.
Beckhard: Managing Planned Change
Beckhard and Harris (1987) and others (such as Bridges, 1980, 1986) have applied these concepts to understand and manage planned organization change; they use slightly different terms when applying Lewin’s concepts. Beckhard’s model can be represented as follows:
Current state→ Transition state→ Desired future state
When this model is applied to organization change, it often helps members develop a deeper understanding of the process and phases of planned change. Though linear looking, Beckhard suggests beginning with the end. The first step for those involved is to envision a desired future state. This helps to establish a goal for the change and serves the purpose of beginning the process of unfreezing by creating an openness to something different. Similarly, it has been found that starting with what people desire in the future generates energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and commitment to the plan and its implementation (Lindaman and Lippitt, 1979). Once this is undertaken, the next step is to move backward and assess the current state of the organization or entity—its current capabilities, capacities, and so forth. With the envisioned future and assessment of current state, the next phase is to create a transition state. This is based in part on the gaps between the current state and the desired future state. These gaps (like feedback) create tension, which serves as a motivating force in the transition state. The larger the gap, or discrepancy, the greater the tension is. The transition state is a way for a system to balance or modulate its own need for stability with its need for change.
Although this model is most often used in large, complex organization change, the concepts are applicable on both the individual and small group levels. Indeed, the model has been used successfully in managing many types of change, such as future search (Weisbord, 1992; on future search, see also chapter 38 on large group methods). This is a methodology for gathering all key stakeholders of a group or organization to identify and plan a desired future together. It takes place over a relatively short period of time (several days) and is intended to generate motivation, overcome resistance, and strengthen commitment to the agreed-on change plan.
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE CHANGE PROCESS
Lewin’s and Beckhard’s models are presented as linear conceptions of a sequential process of change. The models imply a logic and ordering of the phases one goes through in the change process. In practice, these models of change rarely feel as though they move in a linear fashion (see Burke, 2011). Rather Burke, Prochaska, and others refer to planned change more as a spiral than a line. There are many unanticipated, unintended consequences that affect and are affected by the intended, planned change effort. Furthermore, little empirical work has examined the factors that may facilitate or hinder moving from one stage to the next. For example, what might be some of the conditions conducive to unfreezing? In other words, what conditions motivate unfreezing? How can resistance be weakened or overcome without inducing compliance? What factors make refreezing difficult? How is commitment to change maintained? We turn now to a discussion of these and related questions.
Motivation and Unfreezing
Whenever a change is contemplated in any social system, a key question that is often raised among the leaders of planned change is, “How can we get people to buy in to a new state of affairs?” The key psychological process these leaders are grappling with concerns generating the motivation to change, to unfreeze from the current state.
Creation of conflict is inherent in the process of unfreezing. The nature of the conflict, though differing with the situation, may be expressed as follows: “Our desire to do things as we’ve been doing them is incompatible with our need and desire to do things differently in the future.” In other words, the existing state is incompatible with the desired or necessary future state. The prospect of change spurs this conflict. Beckhard’s model brings out this conflict in identifying gaps between the current state and the desired future. Bartunek (1993) refers to this as a conflict of cognitive schemas—our beliefs and expectations about ourselves and our environment. The original schema is no longer adequate and a new schema is not yet apparent. The experience of this conflict often gives rise to resistance—the forces working to protect the status quo.
Conflict creates the tension or motivating forces that call into question the status quo; it contributes to the process of unfreezing from the current state. Therefore, a curious question to consider is how to create conflict that increases the level of tension to unfreeze from the current state to move out of one’s comfort zone. I focus on two areas: feedback and social support.
A common method used to generate motivation centers on providing feedback to the system. This can occur in many forms. The intent is to identify and make salient discrepancies between the current state and the desired or ideal state. Feedback, or information obtained about a system from outside the system, is a common way to increase people’s understanding of the need for change. Information constituting feedback is intended to stimulate the kind of conflict that motivates change. Nonetheless, the conflict that might be generated by the feedback can be handled in a variety of ways, sometimes, but not always, in ways that increase the motivation to change.
There is often ample feedback available from our social environment. Unfortunately, though, such social feedback is rarely unambiguous because it can be interpreted in multiple ways. Furthermore, our interpretation (on the receiving end) is strongly influenced by factors such as our own needs and experiences, the context and timing of when it occurs, the sender or source of the feedback, and so on. Meaningful, accurate feedback can be most useful as a motivator of change when it occurs in a context of support, is nonevaluative and nonjudgmental, and builds on existing strengths of the group, community, or organization.
Earlier, I described the process of unfreezing as generating the energy to change and tolerating the ambiguity that unfreezing can foster. What contributes to the ability of an individual or group to tolerate ambiguity? One element concerns the perception that one possesses or has access to the resources needed to manage the unknown. Social support is often cited as one of those critical resources in managing significant personal change. Approaches using a twelve-step model (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous) rely on social support as a way to strengthen people’s tolerance for the stressful, anxious state that accompanies ambiguity during change. Social support can derive from many sources. In these
programs, it comes from working in a group with individuals who share a common personal goal and often have had similar personal experiences outside the context of the twelve-step meetings. Social support may also stem from benevolent leadership or when those in authority contribute to the social climate in a way conducive to individuals’ being able to tolerate the ambiguity of change. Behaviors by those in authority that may enhance people’s ability to tolerate ambiguity include doing things to contribute to feelings of safety, keeping some aspects of the social environment stable and predictable, highlighting opportunities for members to support each other, and so forth.
The CompStat process was successfully used to unfreeze the New York City Police Department from the status quo. The public forum in which comparisons were presented created a certain degree of tension among precinct commanders responsible for their neighborhoods to improve their crime statistics.
The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed) Page 77