Organizational change is regarded as complex and multi-dimensioned and hence, a variation of change models is suggested such as Kurt Lewin’s Change Management Model, McKinsey 7-S Model, Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model. Among them, Lewin’s is one of the most widely-applied and influential models of change. It describes the planned approach to changes, using the analogy of water and ice to represent the process in three steps – unfreezing, moving (changing) and refreezing (Burnes, 2007).
According to Lewin (1947), the change process is initiated with unfreezing. The aim of the first step is to destabilize the equilibrium or status quo by reducing field forces which maintain an existing organizational culture and method of operation (McAleese, Creed, …show more content…
Burnes (2004) summarized main criticisms to the model, for example, Lewin’s Planned approach is too simplistic and mechanistic; Lewin’s work is only relevant to incremental and isolated change projects and is not able to incorporate radical, transformational change; Lewin’s model ignores the role of power and politics in organizations and the conflictual nature of much of organizational life; Lewin is seen as advocating a top-down, management-driven approach to change and ignoring situations requiring bottom-up …show more content…
However, keeping changing is not that realistic, the acceptance of the change, the new items, should be time consuming. Consequently, companies should have time to absorb these changes, the achievement from the change should be solidified. Hence, the refreezing action that matters. In the following paragraphs in this chapter, we will elaborate what can organizations do and why refreezing matters during the refreezing procedure.
From managers’ perspective, generally, the refreezing action will keep the organization staying at a relatively stable and balancing situation, aiming to ensure that the updated ways of working cannot be changed easily, by refreezing, the organization obtains the ability and the opportunity to enforce the support to the change action and the achievement of the change can be
According to Lewin (1947), the change process is initiated with unfreezing. The aim of the first step is to destabilize the equilibrium or status quo by reducing field forces which maintain an existing organizational culture and method of operation (McAleese, Creed, …show more content…
Burnes (2004) summarized main criticisms to the model, for example, Lewin’s Planned approach is too simplistic and mechanistic; Lewin’s work is only relevant to incremental and isolated change projects and is not able to incorporate radical, transformational change; Lewin’s model ignores the role of power and politics in organizations and the conflictual nature of much of organizational life; Lewin is seen as advocating a top-down, management-driven approach to change and ignoring situations requiring bottom-up …show more content…
However, keeping changing is not that realistic, the acceptance of the change, the new items, should be time consuming. Consequently, companies should have time to absorb these changes, the achievement from the change should be solidified. Hence, the refreezing action that matters. In the following paragraphs in this chapter, we will elaborate what can organizations do and why refreezing matters during the refreezing procedure.
From managers’ perspective, generally, the refreezing action will keep the organization staying at a relatively stable and balancing situation, aiming to ensure that the updated ways of working cannot be changed easily, by refreezing, the organization obtains the ability and the opportunity to enforce the support to the change action and the achievement of the change can be