Kotter on the importance of establishing a sense of urgecy

Instilling a sense of crisis – Crisis v Urgency in change management

Despite not officially being part of any change management model, instilling, establishing or creating a sense of crisis can be virtually considered as a primary component of modern change management.

One of the most notable, arguably the most notable, example of successful implementation of this ploy dates back to the mid 1990s when Mr Kun-Hee Lee, chairman and son of the Samsung Group founder, appointed Mr Jong-Yong Yun as the Group president and CEO urging him to “change everything except his spouse and children” (Lewis, 2005).

Mr Yun’s task was indeed particularly tricky and ambitious; notwithstanding, he was able to succeed beyond all expectations. His recipe for success? As claimed by himself (Yun, 2003), driving change encouraging a sense of crisis and instilling in the business management the conviction that the company could be forced into bankruptcy any time soon.

In 1997, by reason of the Asian economic downturn Samsung, as all of the other South-Korean organizations, was deeply under pressure; so bleak was the general economic scenario at the time as to require an IMF bailout. This was indeed a case of real financial crisis when organizations were experiencing severe hardships and were literally struggling to stay afloat.

Mr Yun, who might have initially hardly appeared to be the ideal candidate to spearhead the particularly challenging and tricky process of change entrusted to him by the Samsung chairman, showed very soon and contrary to all expectations not only to be the most suitable person to perform the daunting task, but also to have unrivalled business capabilities. The course of action he implemented to enable the business to leave the danger zone it occupied included the difficult and tough decisions to: dismiss 24,000 employees (a third of the company’s overall workforce), sell $2 billion of non-core businesses that were losing money, drastically reduce overheads, dismantle the company rigid management structure and massively invest in technology, design and human capital recruiting about 300 American MBA graduates and 700 PhD-level engineers.

The economic crisis was actually still there, but Mr Yun managed things so exceptionally well insofar as to attain a spectacular success, not only from the financial point of view but also in terms of the repositioning of the corporation in the electronics market. Previously known as a cheap consumer electronics manufacturer, thanks to Mr Yun Samsung was thus acknowledged and regarded as a global manufacturer of high-end electronics products.

Instilling a sense of crisis has been ever since regarded as a permanent tenet and pillar of Samsung corporate culture, Mr Yun did not want the business management to ever forget the lessons learned during the dreary downturn which severely affected the organization during the mid-1990s; as he used to say (Yun, 2003): “We must not lose the sense of crisis that helped us change.”

Differently from many other executives, Mr Yun was well-aware of the circumstance that complacency might have been widespread within the company and of the likely resistance which would have been opposed by managers when pushed beyond their comfort zone. Mr Yun’s credo, nonetheless, was basically underpinned by the certitude that the corporation could have not rested on its laurels, but had rather to remain constantly vigilant: “When everything goes smoothly is the time when things go wrong” (Yun, 2003).

Creating a sense of perpetual crisis may indeed prove to be detrimental for employees’ nerves, but Mr Yun applied this strategy with extreme and careful consistency. His approach was not based on generating and regenerating a sense of crisis whenever the corporation had to undergo a restructuring or change process, but on relentlessly doing whatever it was considered necessary to firmly embed this belief in the organization’s culture, trying thus to develop and establish a culture of perpetual crisis (Fortune, 2005).

Amongst Mr Yun’s statements one in particular appears to be extremely interesting and noteworthy. Whereas many executives were fervently discussing the importance of the role played by business strategy and its implementation for organizational success, Mr Yun was supporting the idea that what actually makes a difference is not business strategy, but rather organizational culture; insofar as claiming that the success of Samsung was not due to its business strategy, but indeed to its corporate culture (Fortune, 2005).

Mr Yun constantly and actively spread a philosophy of imminent disaster within the organization with the ultimate intent of fostering and creating a robust, broad, common cultural ability to deal with crises (Fortune, 2005). He basically seemed to aim at replacing the dictum “change is always with us” with the motto “crisis is always with us.” Implemented in such a way, the sense of crisis rather than causing high levels of stress and anxiety should contribute to make individuals ready and used to crisis and to effectively deal with this. At the same time, it is also particularly important to avert that the circumstance individuals get used to crises might, also inadvertently, prompt these to belittle and weaken the intensity of the efforts required to face these and cause employees to underestimate the importance of the likely remarkable consequences produced by these events. The fact individuals become acquainted with crises should not clearly lead to these considering crises as less challenging, requiring low levels of attention and let alone contributing to generate complacency amongst the organization management.

A company cultural ability to effectually cope and deal with crises may indeed enable this to gain competitive edge vis-a-vis those which are not ready to face unexpected financial disasters and downturn periods.

Whether the sense of crisis should be perceived by individuals as whether these “are constantly living besides a bomb which could explode anytime soon”, it is hardly imaginable that employees may ever perform their duties properly and effectively. In contrast, whether the business culture is underpinned by the idea that “in the event of crisis we are ready and capable to promptly and effectively cope with it and we know how to deal with it”, the attitude and readiness to crisis may unquestionably prove to be an effective contributor to organizational success and help employers to gain competitive edge over their competitors.

Andy Groves, former Intel CEO chairman, definitely represents and additional strong supporter of the “instilling a sense of crisis” tactic as an effectual means to facilitate the introduction of change. To this extent, he indeed regards as particularly significant also a “healthy dose of paranoia” (Kandell, 2005).

The methods used to instil a sense of crisis are basically the same as those which can be used to create or establish a sense of urgency; the different result essentially depends upon the extent, the degree and the gravity these entail. Having recourse to the one or the other should sorely depend on the evaluation of the expected effects which these are likely to produce on individuals.

A few examples of the reasons which may be used by an employer to underpin the sense of crisis are:

- The possibility that markets for cash cows may collapse overnight,

- Competitors might bounce back,

- Chinese companies will inevitably and aggressively take away the market (a strategy which Samsung knows very well from its history),

- Product innovation is the only remedy,

- Cutting cost and complexity is needed to lead the innovation pace,

- It is necessary to be the first in the market and to market (adapted from Fortune, 2005).

A few examples

3M Brazil

In 2007, 3M Brazil decided to introduce a lean manufacturing approach in its factories. The change process was mainly driven “by participative middle management support”; notwithstanding, the desired objective was actually attained when the business CEO motivated change creating a genuine sense of urgency.

The organization had already planned to double inventory turns, but the need to attain that result had emerged as even more important after the business CEO participation at the Brazilian Lean Summit organized by the Lean Institute Brazil, during which several companies revealed to record much better inventory turns performances thanks to the introduction of the lean manufacturing or production methodology (Calia and Barbeiro, 2007).

Enterprise Denmark

Enterprise has been for a long time the only technical contractor of the Danish State Railway (DSB) and the only operator of the national rail network (Bane Danmark). When the railway industry was liberalised in Europe, the organization had to decide whether to expand its activity abroad or continue to maintain its operations within the Danish boundaries. The ambitious top management appointed in February 2007 decided to expand the company activities throughout the European territory; the headquarters planned hence to become the main technical contractor in Scandinavia by 2010 and in Europe later in 2015.

To implement the change process necessary to pursue its strategy within the identified timescale, the organization business leaders decided to adopt the Kotter’s 8-stage model, with the exception of the first stage, to wit: create urgency. The entire workforce was actually aware that change was required and to some extent employees were also prepared to change, but the dominating feeling was that change should have occurred earlier and that it might possibly be too late to introduce it. Establishing a sense of urgency was hence considered by the Enterprise top executives as a pointless stage and arguably likely to produce counterproductive effects. More in particular, managers were afraid that urgency could have brought frustration, rather than motivation to change. The organization management instead of establishing a sense of urgency decided thus to inspire trust in the future, that is, we need change, we need it here and now, and we are still in time.

The project is still underway and, as usually happens in these cases, it has not been immune from difficulties. From the Kotter’s point of view the project failed, albeit deliberately, to establish a sense of urgency to which trust was preferred. This choice, notwithstanding, seems to be in line with the employees’ shared reservations, that is, “is this the right moment?”, rather than “is that really necessary”?

Reportedly, the change process has not derailed yet, thanks to the careful attention which the organization management has paid to its most important asset, that is to say its human capital (Petersen, Ballegaard and Pedersen, 2008).

Pilkington Australasia

In the early 1990s, Pilkington Australasia, by reason of a harsh recession which had seen many of its clients collapsing, had to implement a long process of change entailing a series of important restructurings and mergers.


  

Real crisis notwithstanding, the top management did not resort either to create a sense of urgency or to establish a sense of crisis. This very soon proved to be a massive blunder causing serious hardships during the merging procedures.

The sense of urgency was, in contrast, later established by the new General Manager, HR, appointed in 1992. By means of a massive and open communication programme, this was able to motivate change creating a vision and setting the new direction; clearly, after having established the required and genuine sense of urgency the circumstance actually required (Graetz, 2000).

Conclusions

Whereas the effectiveness and usefulness of establishing or generating a sense of urgency in change management can be taken as axiomatic, it still remains to determine whether increasing the dose of the remedy “urgency” to the “crisis” level might actually produce side effects or even lethal effects.

The cases of successful implementation of change by generating a sense of urgency are indeed copious and can be found also in the distant past. Nonetheless, a considerable number of change processes have also been successfully implemented thanks to the method of instilling a sense of crisis. The Samsung and Intel cases respectively discussed and mentioned above are definitely emblematic of the effectiveness of this approach. In practice, the two terms “crisis” and “urgency” are interchangeably used as a matter of course, which makes it harder to find out what is the real meaning that executives and business leaders attach to these terms and consequently difficult to determine whether urgency has to be considered preferable to crisis or otherwise.

In many instances the sense of crisis diffused within the organization was actually supported by the existence of a real crisis affecting not just the organization, but the whole national economy, as for example in the cases of Samsung and Pilkington Australasia. In these cases, where the genuine existence of a crisis is glaring and palpable, the lack of the business senior executives’ initiative to instil a sense of crisis might be even perceived as highly suspicious by employees. Individuals are able to realize what is going on and under some circumstances they could even call for change in order to secure their organization survival and thus their job stability. In the case of Enterprise Denmark, for instance, employee awareness of the need for change was so evident as to suggest the organization’s management to inspire trust, rather than urgency.

The real problem as usually happens is not concerned with the wording, albeit formally there is indeed a considerable difference between the two terms, but with the mode the need for urgency or crisis is communicated to the workforce and, most importantly, with how it is perceived by individuals. Embedding in an organization corporate culture the need for urgency or crisis and deprecating complacency can definitely enable employers to effectually manage change whenever this is promptly required, but can also considerably help these to support the regular, proper unfolding of the business operations under any circumstances.
 

Longo, R., (2011), Instilling a sense of crisis – Crisis v Urgency in change management, HR Professionals, Milan [online].

Manipulation and instilling a sense of urgency: do they really contribute to make the process of change smooth sailing?

Despite change is and has always been with us, especially during the last decades change, with particular reference to the exogenous environment, has occurred at an increasingly fast pace. This circumstance has accounted for employers feeling the urge to acquaint themselves with change and to virtually constantly be involved in the implementation of change initiatives within their organisation.

As contended by Kotter (2008), over the centuries the rate of change has been going up and down not following a linear and clearly identifiable trend so that it could be argued that, over the past century, the rate of change has been averagely creeping up. More recently, however, the frequency change takes place has remarkably increased, insofar as change which has been traditionally deemed episodic can nowadays be regarded as continuous.

Leading change is typically considered as a difficult feat by reason of the energy it requires and the efforts managers have to make to oppose the harsh and fierce restraining forces usually emerging during its introduction. As properly summarised by Kanter (1983), change is considered “exhilarating when done by us and disturbing when done to us.” To achieve the intended results managers should drive change providing first and foremost a sense of direction, purpose and meaningfulness to the overall process. Yet, since for the successful attainment of the final aim people definitely represent a key factor, managers efforts need to be directed to, and focused on, engaging and truly involving in the process all of an organisation employees.

The activities performed by managers to implement change invariably encounter the harsh resistance opposed by the individuals who feel threated by the employer initiative. To counterbalance and win individual resistance, managers might be at times tempted to resort to methods which could be apparently considered questionable and controversial so that the need to answer the question whether it could be considered appropriate applying in change management the Machiavellian dictum “the end justifies the means” emerges somewhat of spontaneously. An additional significant point is represented by the behaviour exhibited by managers when implementing change and more specifically whether these might be considered as acting with integrity and ethically in the event should manipulate information.
 

Analysing the most widely recognized change management models developed so far we can actually identify in some of them a few traits which could apparently (but just apparently) be considered very closely linked to information manipulation. The change management frameworks developed by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Kanter et al, 1992) and John Kotter (1996) consider indeed both crucial for the successful introduction of change establishing or creating a sense of urgency, but can this requirement actually be considered as, and associated with, manipulation? The answer, it is better to immediately point it out, is: no, it cannot.

Manipulation

Robbins (2007) defines manipulation as the managers “covert influence attempts”; meaning that to practically achieve their intended results managers might at times opt to manipulate the information provided to employees. Robbins (2007) refers to manipulation as to a process aiming at deliberately and intentionally providing to others distorted and false information. The intended objective is to let information appear more acceptable and to some extent even attractive to the other individuals. News are hence spread deliberately avoiding unveiling the aspects and facts which are likely to be negatively perceived by employees and thus likely to prompt these to oppose resistance to change. At the same time, false rumours aiming at influencing individual perception of the real consequences of accepting or resisting change are also diffused.

The two informal communication channels activated, clearly aiming at preventing the emergence of restraining forces whereas favouring the development of the driving ones, are intended to produce the exclusive objective to facilitate the planned or ongoing introduction of change.

An example of manipulation can be represented by the management activity of spreading rumours about the imminent closing down of one of the employer factories, stores or branches to prevent employee resistance to the planned “across-the-board salary cut” (Robbins, 2007). The aim would clearly be that to receive the employees’ support to the planned reduction of the personnel budget smoothly and quickly, before unions could have the time to organise and threat industrial action or the worst comes to the worst prevent the employees to plan any activity aiming at opposing the plan. Faced with the possibility to lose their job and not having other available options, individuals would very likely accept a salary reduction.

Manipulation nonetheless is not invariably intended to completely and deliberately distort the real content of a message. Buchanan (2001), for instance, reports the case of a successful and controversial change implementation process in a hospital where manipulation was indeed used, but in a rather particular way. One of the hospital managers in charge of leading a “re-engineering change process” recounts that, despite he dislikes using the verb manipulate, at one point he had to do that. He also refers that he had to resort to manipulation as somewhat of an obligation, the last resort to surmount an unexpected severe situation. One day the manager was approached by a very angry consultant who had learned about a particular aspect of the change procedure underway, which would have directly affected him and about which he was not clearly happy. The manager was then prompted to provide a suitable and convincing answer and so he did with the help of manipulation, insofar as the consultant was even quite happy for the feedback he received. The answer was neither completely a lie, nor completely the true, but the consultant accepted it and the process went on.

It clearly was a case of manipulation, but reportedly in that instance it revealed to be particularly important for the successful implementation of the overall process and did not allegedly produced any major reported downside.

Crisis or urgency?

Before investigating the appropriateness and effectiveness of practically resorting to activities aiming at establishing a sense of urgency or instilling a sense of crisis, it is worth to determine whether the two terms “urgency” and “crisis” can actually be considered equivalent.

The Oxford Dictionary (2006) defines urgency as a state requiring immediate action or attention; the Cambridge Dictionary (2008) also stresses the need for the required action to be performed before anything else. Crisis is defined by The Oxford Dictionary (2006) as a time of intense difficulty and danger, whereas the Cambridge Dictionary (2008) defines crisis as a situation which has reached an extremely difficult or dangerous point.

The presence of some overlaps notwithstanding, it appears that the two words relate to two different levels of severity and necessity and consequently concepts. The two terms nonetheless are very often interchangeably used in practice, as whether these were actually synonyms. As acknowledged by Clarke (2009), to the largest part of professionals “urgent” appears to be a “close cousin” of “crisis.” The former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner delivering a speech to Harvard Business School’s MBA students did not make any difference between the two terms either: “Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis or urgency. No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive.”

Kotter (2009), who recognises that there actually is a certain degree of confusion on the use of the term crisis in change management, maintains that the belief according to which “without a burning platform” you cannot successfully deliver and implement change is actually erroneous. The concept of “burning platform” relates to the hypothetical circumstance in which whether an individual should find himself in a burning platform, although the two available options are indeed both terrible, jumping from the platform is a better option compared to stay. Under the “burning platform” circumstance, however, an individual would essentially have no choice; jumping from the platform would represent the only option available to the person to try and save his/her life. Perceived in this way, crisis is likely to negatively impact people behaviour by reason of inducing stress, panic and anxiety, feelings which would hardly reveal to be useful for an individual undergoing change or any other difficult situation.

The concept of urgency to which Kotter (2009) refers has nothing to do with such concepts of crisis, which whether instilled to employees is unlikely to produce any positive outcome. Despite urgency is intended to strongly motivate individuals to relentlessly achieve the final objective, it is in fact not intended to produce considerable levels of stress or anxiety.

Crises are not necessarily helpful to implement changes; these can eventually be used by business leaders to investigate whether they can capitalize on the current state of crisis to curb complacency and establish a truly sense of urgency. According to the circumstances, notwithstanding, employers might also have no chances to make this attempt and what business leaders can hence actually hope is that their organisations will be able to emerge well from those situations (Kotter, 2009).

Despite the terms urgency and crisis actually have a different meaning and their inappropriate use might have an impact on individual perception and feelings, in business the two words are still interchangeably used.

Establishing or creating a sense of urgency

As discussed earlier, generating or establishing a sense of urgency is one of the pillars of the change management models proposed by Kanter et al (1992) and Kotter (1996). Kanter, according to the information and feedback gathered by some empiric studies and investigations, is attributing a growing importance to this component of his model insofar as considering it as an “exceptionally important asset” (Craven, 2008).

Establishing and creating a sense of urgency could be to some extent considered as an initiative similar to that of manipulating information, but this is not actually the case. Kanter (2008) defines a false sense of urgency as a “terrible, terrible problem” in that it is very likely to generate in turn anxiety, frenetic behaviour and stress. These components cannot be obviously identified with what it takes to facilitate and ease the implementation of change. By contrast, during this procedure individuals need to be lucid, involved, informed and aware of the positive effects that the successful change process implementation can bring to them and to the overall organisation. Individuals whose feelings are dominated by confusion, fear, stress and anxiety are much more prone to take a defensive position and as such to resist change.

A false sense of urgency, Kotter (2009) warns, is extremely detrimental for a business and points out to frequent meetings and Power Point presentations, which he defines activity and not productivity, as a clear evidence of a bogus sense of urgency. What he also deems extremely dangerous and capable to seriously jeopardise the successful implementation of change is complacency, which sometimes is more difficult to identify. Managers invariably claim that in their area everything is going sorely well and that they are performing their activities in the most proper way so that there is no need to plan, design and implement any change.

The overall idea could apparently be considered puzzling: on the one hand business leaders have to establish and generate a sense of urgency, which actually sounds as somewhat of an artificial procedure, but on the other hand this sense of urgency has to be genuine and truly existing. From this point of view, urgency can be considered as the opposite concept of complacency. Whereas managers may think that everything is going absolutely well and nothing need to be done, business leaders should investigate, scrutinise and examine what is going on in the market and what their competitors are doing to foresee possible threats and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the external environment. Urgency has to actually be generated from this constant investigation.

As Kotter (2009) suggests, a true sense of urgency is not a natural state and “it has to be created and recreated.” This requires CEOs and top executives to be very skilled, mindful and invariably active in trying to come up with better and more suitable approaches to do things, albeit in practice the largest part of the business executives (possibly in a bid to avoid being forced to leave their comfort zone) may be persuaded to be already acting with “smart urgency” (Kotter, 2009). To create and establish a sense of urgency employers need to understand how to generate urgency and identify which circumstances can help them to generate it, but they do not essentially need to invent anything.

To eradicate false urgency and genuine complacency business leaders should every now and then leave their offices and visit the different areas of their organisation premises to look at what people actually do (and say), rather than only listening at what managers say (Kotter, 2009). Whether urgency is generated on the basis of false information the result yielded by the initiatives implemented in the light of this cannot obviously be positive.

The need for urgency cannot be considered as a geographically limited issue. It acquires the same significance, and can be managed in virtually the same way, in North America, Europe and East Asia (Kotter, 2008). Some differences might, by contrast, occur amongst organisations according, for instance, to their size. Large corporations might find, for example, it more difficult establishing a sense of urgency (even though it was not the case for Mr Yun when in the mid-1990s he had to introduce a massive process of change in Samsung), albeit it does not mean that this is a straightforward task to perform within small businesses.

Does manipulation invariably represent a viable, supportable option?

Whilst resorting to information or people manipulation cannot be in general considered as appropriate, things are different as regards urgency.

It can be assumed as a general rule that whether an employer has real, compelling reasons for introducing change this should not find it particularly difficult, after having established an efficient communication channel, to get the employee approval and support at large. In these instances, information manipulation and distortion would indeed reveal completely pointless. Manipulation actually habitually comes to play when employers:

- Are extremely uncertain and doubtful about the outcome of their plan;

- Lack trust and confidence on the proposed change;

- Are essentially aware of actually posing a real threat to employees;

- Adopt an anachronistic autocratic leadership style.

Whatever the case, information manipulation will not never ever turn to be useful whatsoever. Sooner or later people become aware of the real reasons for the employer having introduced change and would invariably be in a position to come back to the old way of doing things or threat industrial action. Under such circumstance the employer bargaining power would result extremely weakened by the aggravating factor that the employer had actually tried to conceal from employees the truth.

The only case in which manipulation could turn to be effective is perhaps that in which a change process has to be implemented within an extremely short period of time, for instance according to the Big-Bang approach suggested by Peters (1993): “change radically and do it quickly.” In such a case, since the employer has to implement change rapidly, this might find it particularly difficult to put in place what it takes to appropriately communicate the reasons for change and wait for individuals to genuinely understand these. It clearly depends on the circumstances, but manipulation at large should never be considered as a valued option, nobody likes to be told lies and untrue stories.

Manipulation has hence nothing to do with establishing or generating a sense of urgency, which has rather to be based on real facts and circumstances.

Since change is invariably with us, in order to organizations permanently gain readiness to successful change implementation these should first and foremost work on their culture. Employers will be able to successfully and constantly deal with change only by embedding it in their corporate culture (Kotter, 2009) and by making it a strong component of the organizational values and beliefs. Change would thus be seen by the employees as a rule and not as an exception. This would definitely contribute to make individuals understand that the employer considers their ability and adaptability to change as a mandatory prerequisite and as a behaviour which every employee should be able to exhibit.

Longo, R., (2011), Manipulation and instilling a sense of urgency: do they really contribute to make the process of change smooth sailing?, HR Professionals, Milan [online].

Is Lewin’s change management model still valid?

Amongst the widely acknowledged change management models one of the most interesting and criticised as well is that developed by Kurt Lewin back in the late 1940s. Despite the model has been accused of being “quaintly linear and static”, “wildly inappropriate” (Kanter et al, 1992) and more in general “simplistic”, the Lewin approach is still regarded by a considerable number of authors and practitioners as extremely relevant. Many things have indeed changed since 1947, when the model was presented and the environment where businesses operate is evolving at an increasingly higher speed; notwithstanding, many of the change management models developed in more recent times have clearly been devised building on the Lewin approach.

Lewin’s model takes the name from the three stages throughout which it actually unfolds, namely Unfreeze/Change/Refreeze.

Lewin (1947) put at the basis of his model the assumption that “motivation for change must be generated before change can occur” so that once the need for change has been identified the unfreezing stage, from which change stems, can begin.

Unfreezing

This is the first stage of the change approach developed by Kurt Lewin (1947), actually it could be argued that unfreezing represents somewhat of a pre-stage to change in that the aim of this phase is preparing individuals to change and making the organisation ready to move from the current position to the new desired one.

Since during the unfreezing stage individuals could feel their status quo threatened, it is crucial that all of the employees become aware from the outset of the organization’s necessity and urgency for change.

In some cases the need for change can appear to be somewhat of the blindly obvious as, for instance, in those cases in which declining sales or profits or unsatisfactory overall financial results have been recorded or when a large number of customer complaints have been received by the business. However, in other occasions the need and urgency for change may not appear so evident, so that creating a situation for the organization needing and wanting change could definitely help. In general, we are looking at developing a persuasive and compelling communication process in order to support the idea that things cannot continue to be handled the way they currently are.

At this stage, it is crucially important determine and provide evidence of the reasons and factors accounting for the need for change, the main object being to receive the approval and support for change from everybody.

The unfreezing stage definitely is everything but plain sailing. During this phase it is very likely that an organisation’s core values and beliefs as well the way things are done could be disputed, event which may in turn trigger strong individuals’ reactions.

This is the phase during which, considering the Lewin’s Force Field Analysis (How to assess change feasibility), all of the restraining and driving forces have to emerge and have to be thoroughly assessed and investigated. The force field analysis effectively helps employers to determine whether the driving forces are actually more powerful than the restraining forces, in which case change could be designed and implemented.

This is the stage during which employers need to gain acceptance for change, communicating staff the benefits linked to change and trying to allay individuals fears (Porter et al, 2006).

As warned above, this will not really be smooth sailing. During this phase in fact it is very likely that the traditional way of doing things and the organization’s core values and beliefs may become the object of critics, circumstance which could in turn give rise to disputes within the business. All of that may contribute to generate a state of controlled crisis from which could finally emerge a stronger motivation and need for change (Ritchie, 2006) and for a new, different state of equilibrium.

During this phase organizations have not only to assess the need for change, but also the nature of the required change. Yet, businesses must also identify the plan of action they consider as the most suitable to attain the intended results and the most effective methods which may enable them to monitor change progress as well.

Understanding people fears and concerns is indeed particularly important in order to take appropriate, effective and consistent action enabling employers to allay individuals’ fears and concerns. In order to attain this aim, employers should, for instance, propose redundancy packages to those who want to leave, assure employment to those who fear to lose their job and training to those who believe may not be able to perform effectively according to the new required way of doing things. All of these measures, providing appropriate and consistent answers to staff concerns, will enable a business to better cope with resistance to change and counterbalance the effects of restraining forces eventually arising (Porter et al, 2006).

Change/Movement

Once the unfreezing stage has been completed and individuals have won the fears associated with the uncertainty emerged during this stage, staff are now keen to know, and maybe even curious about, the new proposed way of doing things within the organization.

Change is not clearly a process which can be completed in a short period of time and, although organizations may struggle to make individuals understand that change is intended to benefit all of them, there would invariably be individuals who will feel particularly threatened by the proposed change, especially those who have a strong interest in maintaining unaltered the status quo.

The change/movement phase, as its name suggests, represents the stage during which change occurs and is implemented.

Usually, during the unfolding of this phase, a relevant number of individuals feel worried either because they perceive change as a threat which could worsen their working conditions or, more in general, by reason of the shock of the new. Employers need to give individuals the time to understand change and get used to it and to accept the mistakes that it might imply especially at the beginning. Training, coaching and an open communication process can certainly be useful to make individuals understand that employers are aware of the hardships these are undergoing and that they are there to support them and do whatever they can to make things easier. Initially, people might possibly react paying lip service to the new practices and take time to accept the new direction and to actively and proactively take part to the change process.

In order to get the genuine support and participation of everybody within the company, the communication process should, in particular, make clear to the entire workforce which the benefits of change for them are and how change will practically contribute to improve their working conditions.

Despite it can definitely help, in many cases it might be unlikely that employees will do their utmost to favour a change process only by reason of the sense of urgency which has been created within the organisation and of the supposed and unspecified benefits it is expected to contribute to the organization as a whole. Establishing an open and effective communication channel between employer and employees should contribute to let staff feel  strongly connected to the organisation during the “transition” phase. Yet, allowing individuals time to understand and adapt to change will surely turn to be a key factor for the successful implementation of a change project.

Although very often employers may feel pressed for time, these should be aware that effective and successful change, in contrast, habitually actually requires time (Ritchie, 2006). In many circumstances change is not even achievable in one single bid and several attempts need to be made before fully attaining the intended results.

Refreeze

Once change has been implemented, its results commence being visible and people within the organisation start to become acquainted with the new way of working it is time, according to Lewin, to establish stability anew and “refreeze.”

The “refreeze” stage, notwithstanding, can be started once it can be taken for granted that individuals have shown to accept change and the outcome of change implementation can be considered the new norm, the new normality. The fresh behaviour needs to be internalised and to “become standard company practice … absorbed into the organisation’s culture” (Porter et al, 2006). The new way of doing things has to be institutionalised and have to become part of the day-to-day organisation’s and of its employees’ normal activity. Broadly speaking, refreezing could be considered as the lull after the storm, people feel now at ease with the new situation.

As discussed above and warned by Porter et al (2006), not invariably the intended change is achieved in one single bid. Sometimes in order to wholly attain the desired results several attempts are actually required. This is basically due to the circumstance that the moment change is implemented resistance can diminish in power in some areas and increase, or even appear, in other areas. In such cases, for a whole range of reasons, not least the financial one, it is not worth insisting with change in that doing so could seriously jeopardize the outcome of the entire process also at a later time. 

In general, refreezing is about stabilising and consolidating the new situation and system, preventing individuals from going back to the previous way of doing things and it is about building, or rather, re-building relationships.

This third and last stage of the process can be considered achieved when the new way of doing things is genuinely and willingly followed by individuals; put it another way, when every individual has genuinely embraced the effects of the introduced change.

Criticism directed against the model

It is indeed the third stage of the model, that is to say refreezing, which has provoked sharp criticism from many HR authors and practitioners. More in particular, it is argued that the modern business world is changing at a pace which gives no time to settle and consequently to refreeze after a change process has been implemented.

The Lewin’s model is hence perceived as a model basically lacking of the flexibility required to fit with the currently dominating constant and sometimes even chaotic process of change, actually requiring a great deal of flexibility. This criticism entails that the final stage of the process should not end up in a rigid, hard state but that it should rather conclude leaving the organisation in a sort of soft/jelly-like state which could be constantly shaped and moulded accordingly.

The criticism moved by Kanter et al (1992) about the lack of dynamism of the model is actually inappropriate, Lewin (1957) in fact was clearly aware of the circumstance that any change could have been “frequently short-lived.” The refreezing stage is not intended as a final, conclusive and stable point, but as the point necessary to determine from which point and/or state the following process of change starts.

Considering change as a constant process dominated by chaos and dealing with change according to this assumption are unlikely to enable employers to attain positive results. As suggested by Ritchie (2006), constant change notwithstanding, refreezing holds firmly its importance because without it individuals would “get caught in a transition trap where they aren’t sure how things should be done”; consequently, people will not be able to perform at appreciable standards and let alone at their best capacity.

Whether at the end of each change process the conclusion of the process itself is not clearly identified and recognized in some ways, which also means that a specific and definite objective has actually successfully been attained, it might also prove to be objectively tricky planning for a further change. It would hardly be possible to find out when and where a process has finished and when and from where the new procedure should start; circumstance which, at best, will definitely let feel individuals bewildered and extremely wary about the future proposals for change. 

The implementation of change is unquestionably a difficult feat to achieve needing the genuine contribution and support of all individuals within an organisation; not putting people in the situation to find out what is going on and, to some extent, to rejoice of the positive outcome of the previous attempts will be very likely the cause of growing disaffection with change processes and will contribute to reinforce the threatening power of restraining forces.

Refreezing is very much concerned with ascertain that people accept change and avoid that individuals use back the old method of doing things and this is possibly what Lewin intended by refreezing, supporting change in order it is maintained and taken for granted.

Ritchie (2006) suggests celebrating every successful change process as part of the refreezing stage to the double end of making employees aware of the conclusion of the process and of making these understand that change is not as hard as it might seem. Thanking staff for their contribution to the success of the procedure and for the efforts they have made throughout the process will certainly reinforce individuals’ confidence when prompted to deal with the next change process.

Lewin’s approach is not as static as it has been deemed to be in the end and it is definitely compatible with the idea that change is a journey which does not have an end but possibly just a number of rest stops. It is in fact widely recognised that change can allow just some moments of calm before the storm, with storm overwhelmingly predominating.

It can be concluded that Lewin’s change management approach is definitely still valid and that, in conjunction with the force field analysis, it can effectively enable businesses to successfully plan, design and implement change. Lewin’s approach is important not only in that representing a valuable structured approach to change management, but also because it can effectively help employers to keep track of all the achievements related to the previous change processes they have implemented, and ultimately to better keep pace with the ever changing world. What matters is not misunderstand the model and the way it has to be intended.

Longo, R., (2011), Is Lewin’s change management model still valid?; HR Professionals, [online].