THE CHANGE AGENT'S GUIDE

Change For the Better

Change is everywhere and is always happening. It is a coming together and a falling apart. Somewhere in the middle is a state of ‘No Change,’ which we could also call “stasis” except that the stasis is inherently unstable, coming apart even as it is coming together. A better term is quasi-stasis, a sometimes-desired state of equilibrium, a balance of forces between the coming together and the falling apart.

For each of us individual humans, ‘change’ is life itself, a coming together of trillions of atoms to make a whole living thing, walking, talking and acting on the world around us.

This living whole is always and continuously in a state of flux. But the flux is not random. It is mostly purposeful, and the goal is to reach a better state of equilibrium. That striving or converging toward the ‘better’ state could also be called “PROBLEM SOLVING.” If the result of this coming together is an improved quasi-stasis, that could be called “PROGRESS.”

Living Social Systems

To begin to understand who is being served or who is in need of change, it's helpful to review what social systems are, how they come into being, how they keep going, how they change, and how they grow and decay.

We can begin to have a coherent social system when we have not only a joint recognition of common concerns but a division of labor and an integrated set of relations capable of producing joint action.

Most of us are embedded in social organizations with specified roles and task expectations relating to innumerable shared goals and concerns. However, the degree of connectedness and the areas of shared concern vary widely from group to group.

The change agent, in the initial survey of the scene, will have to make some judgments about the strength and tightness of the social organisms with which they are dealing. Sometimes, the first task of the change agent may be to bring people together and to increase the degree of cohesion, but in other cases, the more urgent first task may to be to open up a system which is so tightly bound and ordered within itself that it has lost the ability to change.

Basic Idea: Cycles of Problem-Solving

All human activity is made up of repeating cycles of actions driven by the need to survive and thrive. As people and systems learn and grow the set of actions included in the cycle becomes progressively more intricate and more successful.

A change process is founded on the idea of a cycle of specific actions which promote positive system change, a cycle which needs to be repeated over and over again as a change advances, with careful attention to each of the action steps. Thus, the "steps" are also guiding principles which the change agent must attend to on a continuing basis.

Kurt Lewin's three-stage change model

Lewin's Insights into the Change Process

If you are confronted by an established system containing a rather well-defined social structure and long-standing relationships, then your initial “change” activity may have to be directed toward weakening or loosening some of these bonds, at least temporarily.

This brings us to one of the many valuable insights into change processes introduced by the great social psychologist and field theorist, Kurt Lewin. Lewin proposed that all social systems exist in a state of what he called “quasi-stationary equilibrium,” the parts being held together by a cohesive energy which also acts as a barrier to outside influences.

Like all living things, social systems are required to absorb new inputs from outside on a continuing basis as a matter of survival, but they do so in a highly controlled manner, which preserves the essential stability and relations among existing elements over time.

Lewin therefore proposed a three-step change model to explain this process:

Unfreezing
Moving
Refreezing

1. Unfreezing: Often a change agent’s first task

Lewin proposed that the initial posture of most social systems to change is “frozen.” They don’t want ‘change.’ Change means trouble, disruption.

Therefore, the initial task of those who wish to bring about change is to unfreeze the system, to create an environment in which ties are at least temporarily loosened and barriers made temporarily permeable

2. Moving: Only possible if there is openness to change

The second step in Lewin’s change model is what he called “moving.” This is the introduction of the change or innovation and its initial acceptance or absorption into the system.

The more permeable the barriers and the looser the interconnections within the system, the more rapidly and easily new elements can enter. This is what we could call system “openness.” Advanced and sophisticated systems are able to retain a great deal of internal stability while still welcoming many types of innovations.

3. Refreezing: Making sure the change stays (if it is good)

The final step in Lewin’s simple model is “refreezing,” i.e., the return to stability wherein the new elements are incorporated. Of course, systems that are temporarily open to new ideas can close up again without incorporating any new elements.

New elements can be tolerated for a time but then rejected, often at a point in time when members are forced by circumstance to decide what is “really important” (e.g., when budget trimming is required). Thus, in many ways the greatest challenge for the change agent is to gain a level of acceptance for the innovation that is strong enough to survive this closing-up process.

Expanding Upon Lewin's Three-Stage Model

Lewin’s three-step unfreezing-moving-refreezing model actually covers all of the seven stages around which The Change Agent's Guide is built, but they are introduced here because they help us to understand the critical aspect of the first stage. The level of concern for a problem, or the sense of a need to change the status quo, must reach the point at which the system becomes unfrozen. The “moving” part of Lewin’s model really goes with our Stages 2, 3, 4, and 5. The “refreezing” applies to Stage 6.

Adding Reason to the Process of Action

Designing “change” is based on the practical idea that we should add reason to the process of problem-solving. In essence, we need to first define the problem as clearly as possible. Having done this, we need to cast a wide net for solution ideas and resources that might be relevant. Further, we need to sort through such ideas and resources to find the combination that makes the most sense and has the best fit to the problem at hand. Then we need to apply that solution in a coherent and concerted manner to give the best chance of success.

This kind of rational strategy could be broken down into any number of separate steps, but it is also important to keep the presentation simple. As change agents develop a greater understanding of what is involved, they may want to add others or organize their strategies somewhat differently. The seven stages in The Guide are a good starter set