The social scientist, Kurt Lewin, once stated, “If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.”

There are many reasons for and against every decision. Knowing what those reasons are and how to properly weigh them to make the right decision can be more art than science. However, Lewin’s concept of force field analysis is a technique change leaders can use for evaluating the variables present in their change management program before making the decision to go ahead.

Within the idea of force field analysis there are driving forces – those things helping you achieve change – and restraining forces – those that would prevent change from occurring. By listing those forces, as shown below, force field analysis offers you a clearer picture of the strategies needed for successful change. Specifically, force field analysis helps you:

• Decide if you have the right support for the change initiative
• Identify what obstacles are standing in your way
• Find ways to reduce or marginalize those obstacles

Change leaders who take the time to weigh the pros and cons in this way will have the information they need to weaken the negative forces and strengthen and leverage the positive ones. For the pictoral learner, placing concepts into a picture yields an immediate grasp of what to minimize, and what to augment.  Even for those who aren’t pictoral by nature can gain the understanding and engagement of those who are by depicting the situation as simply as is done below.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Change Management.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.