Improving Change Management: A Review of Two Articles

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Article review
Changes are necessary part of any organisation and at the same time there are different
challenges that confront these challenges. It is the role of the management that they apply the
best of theories and practices to improve the chances of making changes in an appropriate
manner. Different scientists have given different theories about change and change
management concept. What most of the researchers and theorists believe, that change
management is not an easy process and there are significant levels of complexities attached
with the change management (Hassard 2012). It is difficult to simplify the change
management process in just few steps. In this regards the most influential role is played by
agents that tends to make these changes. As the force field theory suggests that there are
criteria agents that promote changes while there are certain agents that disrupt these changes.
This report will review two articles one that suggests the reason why there is a requirement of
changing the change management. In this report a comparison will made between the two
articles and the idea they produce towards change management.
Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change
management
Kurt Lewin’s changing as three steps (unfreezing, changing and refreezing) is a most
commonly used theory in the change management. This articles suggests the fact that many
scholars have criticised Lewin’s change management model for being over simplistic and too
easy to describe the complexities that might arise in the change management. At the same
time, there are large numbers of scholars that also defends Lewins for this. They feel that it is
easy to explain things in a fragment that even a layman can understand. This article suggests
the fact that even after being criticised about such simplicity of the change process, the real
fact is that Kurt-Lewin never provided this kind of model (Mason, 2013). It is after his death
that many scholars interpreted it as a three step model and referred his writings to
demonstrate this model. The researcher who has researched on the scholarly work of the Kurt
Lewin suggests that he hated simplicity in explaining things. However the thing that
remained unquestionable is the model’s foundational significance. Nobody states that there is
any lagging in the concept given by him or the fact that it cannot be practically implemented

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within the organisation. Interestingly, there is no piece of work by Lewins that actually
defines this CATS model if it is somehow traced at all then it might be found in his article on
Human Relations (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown, 2016). Many scholars also adds a new
term to his model refreezing which Lewin never mentioned in any of his works.
This article also suggests how this model can act as a foundation stone to the change
management principles that can be implemented within the organisation. This CATS theory
presents itself as a base using which sub-fields of change management can be derived and
also the way in which it is significant in the present day practice. There are different forms of
CATS. The genealogical formation is the seven step model developed Lewin’s student
Lippitt’s. He took CATS as an intervention tool, suggesting it to be the phases of influence.
Second is Archaeological form that promoted the development of ‘Lewin’s classic model’ as
a key foundation of the change management (Schein, 2010). These forms of CATS gave the
idea and foundation stone for improving the change management process and helped in
development of innovative models that more specifically suites in the today’s time.
The first new frontier is that while studying the change the unit of analysis must be group and
not the individuals, organisation or wider society. There must be call for advances in statistics
and mathematics. These advances allow multiple variables related to groups and individuals
to be studied within the system. These advances suggest that fact that change management
becomes easier and effective when leaders communicate with group rather than
communicating with individuals (Sonenshein 2010). The researches have showed that
involving stakeholders in the change management process can help in achieving success. It is
the capability of the managers to overcome the resistance to change that gives them success
in the market. Group behaviours need to be focused more rather than individual behaviours.
The group behaviours need to be connected with concepts such as leadership, motivation and
culture. Researchers like Mantere et al, (2012) proposed a new insight to the group behaviour
in terms of change i.e. ‘Organizational sensebreaking→ Meaning void (unfreezing) →
Sensegiving → Acceptance of strategy’. It was taken from the Lewin’s idea of sensebreaking.
Second frontier is the idea that there is a requirement of new mathematics. This is necessary
for multi-variant analysis of the variables than can give strength to the understanding of the
change process (Wilson 2013). Statistics allow to understand the influence of each variable to
extent they are influencing the change process.