Management and Leadership Organizations

John Kotter, in his book “Leading Change”, defines change management as an approach to transitioning teams, individuals and organizations to a desired future state. The main focus of the change management processes is to address the people and organizational factors that spearhead the transition to a new role at the end of the process.

All change actions are initiated by internal and external factors which include but are not limited to low performance and satisfaction, new leadership and mission, conflict, economic, political, cultural, social and technological factors.

With organizational development comes evolving or hybrid change management models which address Planned, Unplanned, Evolutionary and Revolutionary issues leading to change. Some of the change management models to address the types of changes highlighted above include but are not limited to: Kurt Lewin’s Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze model; John Kotter’s Influential 8-step model, ADKAR, Steve Corey’s 7 Habits Model and Kubler-Ross five stages of grieve model among others.

Kurt Lewin’s Unfreeze-Change-Freeze model focuses on processes. Lewin proposes that organizations prior to the commencement, do a Force Field analysis to determine the forces that drive or resist change. According to him, organization must maintain the status quo when the two forces are balanced and overcome apathy and implement change when forces of change are stronger than those that resist change. Also, leaders must increase and support forces of change where implementation of change are unlikely to be successful.

“Unfreeze” - the first stage, involves questioning existing practices, behaviors and motivations to develop change. It is also important that organizational members and leaders are aware of strong internal and external forces for change. Employees and the organization at this stage “to embrace change, must also engage in a process that changes how they think about themselves, not just their jobs (Williams, 2010).

“Change” – the second stage is where new practices and policies are implemented and new behaviors and skills are learned. It involves technology, people, products, services, or management practices and administration. It is important that the leader continues to support the process, emphasize the importance of the process and correct the change initiative as needed.

In the final stage “Freeze” sometimes called “Refreeze”, newly learned behaviors and freshly implemented practices are encouraged and supported to become part of employees’ routines. The role of the leader in providing continuous resources, coaching, using appropriate reward systems to maintain the changes implemented for the future is critical; “a change towards a higher level of group performance is frequently short-lived, after a "shot in the arm", group life soon returns to the previous