Corporate
Change a Process Not an Event
“If you want
to truly understand
something, try to change it.”
- Kurt Lewin
It is a sad fact that nearly 80 per cent of all major change
initiatives fail. Research into the cause point to people
not accepting and adopting change as the single greatest obstacle
to success.
In 1932, Kurt Lewin, a renowned academic who fled Nazi Germany,
proposed a host of new ideas on human behaviour, its formation
and its consistency. Through many studies and applications
he evolved a very simple model for changing the way people
think and act. Eventually the model became known as the three-phase
model: unfreezing, transformation and refreezing.
Unfreezing
refers to the idea of shocking a system out of complacency. It means
creating awareness and understanding the status quo is no longer
sufficient and that trying to maintain things as they are, or return
to the “good old days” won’t work. It is amazing
how that advice is so relevant in today’s organizational setting.
Transformation, the process of making purposeful adjustments to
the way one operates, according to Lewin, will only take place after
the status quo has been altered.
Refreezing refers to the process of making the adjustments to the
system part of “the way we do things around here.”
Many books have been written about how to actually transform an
organization and many of them can be traced to Lewin. They have
borrowed and built upon his work, developing sophisticated models
for change at both the individual and organizational levels.
The conclusion one can draw from the wealth of literature and advice
on how to transform an organization is that, in truth, there is
no single right approach for tackling change. However, there are
some general principles that, based on the issues at hand, tend
to work better than others.
Change as a process, not an event, is the first example of a principle
that seems to be effective. At the heart of this principle is the
belief that change requires a process for converting the behaviour
of key groups of people. By anticipating and organizing the tactics
necessary to convert behaviours, an organization will minimize the
time, dollars, energy and loss in productivity caused by change
and upheaval.
A second principle is that stakeholder involvement is necessary
but not sufficient. Ensuring those affected by the change have a
voice in the process is an effective means of achieving acceptance
and support. However, it is unreasonable to assume all employees
can participate in every decision, particularly the more strategic
choices that should quite properly be in the hands of the leadership
team.
A third principle is that communication is critical to successful
change. In a situation of rapid change and upheaval, where old rules
don’t apply and new rules have not been created, people need
reassurance that someone is in charge, that someone knows where
the organization is headed and has a plan to get there.
Change is, therefore, dependent on the organization’s willingness
and ability to communicate the process, the decision rationale,
and the projected impact of decisions on individuals and groups.
The final principle is to understand that a sense of urgency is
good, but a feeling of anxiety is bad. Jolting people out of complacency
is a necessary step in the change process. A sense of urgency is
created when a threat and a solution are readily identifiable and
results in channeling energy into useful behaviour. Anxiety is created
when only the threat, either real or imagined, is identified.
Understanding these key principles will help ensure the level of
commitment to the change increases and the level of resistance to
the change decreases, a scenario that speaks to success.
