Lewin’s change model — What It Is, and Where It Belongs

What it does

Lewin’s interest was in the forces that keep a group’s behaviour stable — those pushing for change and those resisting it. His practical observation was that reducing resistance often achieves more than pushing harder, since pressure tends to call up counter-pressure. The familiar three steps of unfreezing, moving and refreezing came to stand for this work.

Reach for it when: When a change keeps being announced more forcefully and the resistance grows to match, and before a change effort, to name what is currently holding things in place.
Where it stops: The tidy three-step model was largely assembled by others after Lewin’s death, and organisations today rarely refreeze at all. The force-field idea travels better than the sequence.

Kurt Lewin, “Frontiers in Group Dynamics”, Human Relations, 1947; on the model’s later construction, Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman & Kenneth G. Brown, “Unfreezing Change as Three Steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s Legacy for Change Management”, Human Relations, 2016.

Why it sits at Organisation

How the business is put together to act: how work is grouped, who decides what, what is expected of those who lead, and how people take up a change once it has been decided.

A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:

StructureMintzberg, The Structuring of Organizations (1979), on division of labour and coordinating mechanisms; Galbraith, Designing Complex Organizations (1973) and the Star Model, on lateral processes as the counterweight to grouping.
Decision rightsRogers & Blenko, “Who Has the D?”, Harvard Business Review (2006), the RAPID roles; Jensen & Meckling, “Specific and General Knowledge, and Organizational Structure” (1992), on placing decisions where the knowledge sits.
LeadershipMintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), on what managers actually do; Kotter, “What Leaders Really Do”, Harvard Business Review (1990); Charan, Drotter & Noel, The Leadership Pipeline (2001), on the transitions between layers.
AdoptionLewin, “Frontiers in Group Dynamics” (1947), unfreeze-change-refreeze; Hiatt, ADKAR (Prosci, 2006); Bridges, Managing Transitions (1991); Kotter, Leading Change (1996), whose other steps sit at their own addresses.

All of Organisation

What it touches elsewhere

Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Organisation lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.

HRHR supplies the people and the capability; Organisation is the shape they work within. Structure says which roles exist, and HR’s workforce planning and recruitment fill them.
GovernanceOwnership, the board and its reserved matters belong to Governance. The delegated authority schedule in Decision rights begins where the board’s reserved matters end.
CultureCulture holds the shared assumptions and norms; Organisation holds the formal structure and decision rights. Anchoring a change in the culture is Culture’s work, not Adoption’s.
Tactical goalsOwnership in Tactical goals names the one owner of an initiative and its responsibility split. Decision rights here cover the recurring decisions that exist whether or not an initiative is running.
Goal CoreKotter’s steps already sit here: urgency with Strategic goals · Diagnosis, the coalition’s resourcing with Tactical goals · Resourcing, short-term wins with Short term goals · Quick wins, and anchoring values with Purpose · Core values.
StakeholdersStakeholders · Engagement sets how each party is informed, consulted or involved. Adoption asks a later question: whether those whose daily work changes have taken the change up.
Project managementThe RACI matrix in Project management assigns roles per task inside a project. Decision rights allocate standing decisions across the organisation.

Filed at the same place

These answer questions that arise at Organisation too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.

Kotter’s eight-step change modelEight steps for changing how an organisation works, beginning with urgency and ending with making the change stick.
Situational leadershipThere is no single right way to lead — the right amount of direction depends on how ready the person is for that particular task.
The McKinsey 7S frameworkSeven things that have to agree with one another for an organisation to work: strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff and skills.
Mintzberg’s organisational configurationsOrganisations settle into a small number of coherent forms, and mixing the parts of different forms rarely works.
The Star ModelOrganisation design is more than structure: strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people have to be designed together.
The ADKAR modelOrganisations change only when individuals do, and each person has to pass through the same few conditions in order.

Elsewhere in Business Core

These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.

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