Tag: tool

Use the Force

jocando Leave a comment
two lego stormtroopers pushing on opposite sides of an egg

Whether you’re trying to make a change as an individual, or trying to lead a team or organisation through a change, you want to know what you’re up against.  You want to know how easy or difficult it’s going to be, and how you can put the odds in favour of making the change.

There are a couple of tools that may be helpful here.  The first is Force Field Analysis, which developed from Kurt Lewin’s work in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Lewin posited that our current situation (the status quo) is maintained by the forces acting on us, and any change in our behaviour stems from changes in these forces.  Our environment is constantly changing, so the forces acting on us are constantly changing and we adapt.

Lewin suggested that if you could establish what these forces were, you could understand what forces needed to be diminished or strengthened to bring about change.

Diagram showing visual representation of force field analysis.
©2020 Joanna Candler

So a force field analysis is a way of visually representing the forces that support or act as obstacles to any proposed change. 

Here’s what to do:

  1. Identify the change you’re proposing.  Then,
  2. Brainstorm/list all forces that are pushing for the change (the driving forces) or preventing the change (the restraining forces)
  3. Draw a diagram like the one above.  On the left side side list the driving forces, on the right the restraining forces.
  4. Consider the strength of each of the forces.  You can either represent this visually, by drawing larger or smaller arrows (as above).  Or another way is to give each force a value from 1 (low) to 5 (high)
  5. Look at the balance for each side.  If using scores, add up the score for each side to get a total.

You should have something like this: 

If the forces for change are higher than the forces against the change, you are likely to be successful in making the change.  The change above looks likely to succeed, as 16>12.  However, if the forces against are higher, you’re likely to struggle. 

So this tool is often used for decision making – is it worth trying to make the change at all?  Are the forces against too strong to make the attempt?

Now comes the important part. 

Brainstorm how you can either increase the driving forces, or decrease the restraining forces, so you have a better chance of the change being successful.  (NB Focus on reducing the restraining forces.  If you increase the driving forces, the restraining forces may also increase, thereby maintaining the equilibrium.  The more you push someone to do something, the more they may resist!)

Now you have some practical actions to take before you make the change, to give you a better chance of making the change successfully.

So this is a handy tool before you start on any change journey to help you see the forces acting on you, and to give you ideas on how to push the odds in favour of the change.  You’ve probably noticed that it’s not particularly scientific.  Unless you’ve done some market research, you’re relying on brainstorming and guesswork.  That said, like any tool, it makes you stop, think and plan, and for teams it helps stimulate discussion.

Give it a try when you’re next planning to make a change, and see what you think.

All change is not created equal

jocando Leave a comment
board game pieces with different facial expressions

In the last post I talked about change load and change fatigue when there’s just too much change in a short period of time. Following on from this, it’s clear that change is experienced at the individual level – a small change might mean a minor adjustment for you but might be overwhelming for someone else.

Britt Andreatta in her book ‘Wired to Resist’ takes up this point.  I love her ideas as she has developed some visual tools to help you really think about the effect of changes on you and your team/organisation. You can listen to her explaining some of her ideas in this 10-minute video:

To start, she states that the effect of the change on any individual depends on four factors:

  • The time it takes for that person to get used to the change
  • The amount of disruption it causes them
  • The total number of changes they’re managing
  • How fast the changes are coming

Bringing the first two factors together gives you the ‘change matrix’.

2x2 matrix

So if the disruption the change causes is small, and the time it takes to get used to the change is small (‘time to acclimation’), then you can consider this to be ‘green’ – the effect will probably be small.

But if disruption is high and it takes a lot of time to get used to the change, the change can be classed as ‘red’.  

Individuals can then place whatever change is planned on this matrix.

mapping changes onto the change matrix

But as Andreatta outlines, there are other factors in play here. You’re going to react differently depending on whether you chose the change and if you want the change. 

And we also have to consider our earlier idea of change load.  When changes come together and start overlapping, their effect changes.  Two ‘orange’ changes may become a darker orange, and eventually a red. If you stack lots of changes on top of each other, you may meet or exceed your limits.

change matrix and max bandwidth

And we need to remember as individuals that organisational change overlaps with life changes. If your employee is going through a big life change at the moment, organisational changes are going to have a bigger effect (and vice versa).

Planning with the effects of change in mind

The book goes on to outline a new model to help managers plan changes in their organisation.  But for now, what I love about this is that it shows managers in the organisation that they have some tools and some control, indeed some responsibility, for managing changes so their staff aren’t overloaded.

In recent years, we have seen high and increasing stress levels at work and the response has often seemed to push the responsibility onto the individual employee – resilience training, yoga classes, meditation classes, and so on.  But companies can be more aware of all the changes across their organisation and track them.  Is someone noticing the fact that a massive IT rollout is happening at the same time as an office move and restructuring for one particular department?  Is an individual manager noticing that a team member is moving house at the same time as her role changes?

Organisations are made up of people. As humans we can adapt, but we also have to work within the limitations of the technology we’re built with – our brains. I’ll talk more about the brain in the next few posts.

References:

Andreatta, B. (2017), Wired to Resist: The Brain Science of Why Change Fails and a New Model for Driving Success

If you’re interested in learning more about the ideas in Britt Andreatta’s book, she is currently offering the ‘Change Quest model’ online course for free until June 30th 2020.