Implementing Change in an Organization: Drivers, Resistance, and Kurt Lewin Model

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The aim of this report is to know the issues that client is facing in implementing the change and
the drivers that forces change in an organization. Further aim is to know the factors that lead to
resistance of change and then applying Kurt lewin model to implement change in an
organization.
Change is part of business and is necessity for the survival. The businesses changes because of
the change drivers that are classified as internal and external drivers. External drivers are the
external forces that include the need to change the internal system in order to fulfill the
stakeholders demand. The external drivers are political forces, economical forces, social forces,
technological forces, legal and environmental forces (Burke, 2017). Internal drivers are all
related to the organization culture, leader’s behavior and employee’s mindset. It is essential to
change the system as per internal and external forces in order to be successful for the long term
(Cameron & Green, 2015).
Implementing change in an organization is a difficult process as many employees resist change
or not ready to accept the new process, practices or policies. The main reason behind resistance
of change is loss of status or job security in an organization. In an organization, mainly
managers, employees and peers resist change related to technology advancement as they feel that
it will eliminate their role from the organization or resultant into downsizing or reducing the
current workforce. The main reason behind the failure of change is miscommunication, due to
informal communication the employees are less aware about the need of change that will directly
leads to conflicts between the management and employees and they start resisting change
(Haddad & Kontnour, 2015). Peer pressure is also the reason of resisting change as managers
sometimes resist change to protect their groups from the loss or to save their status. Change is
successful when there is the trust in the environment. Mistrust in organization leads to failure of
change or implementing change in an environment where most of the workers do not trust each
other resultant in the limited success. Some managers or employees resist change to prove that
the decision taken by management is worthless. They may resist due to the fear of loss of power
as change might be transformational that will impact the whole organizational structure
(Agboola & Salaw, 2011).For some employees to come out of the comfort zone is the difficult
task as they think that they will lack capabilities to do the new job. Fear is considered as the
powerful motivator to resist the change. According to (Voehl & Harrington, 2016)change is

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implemented successfully only when it is communicated effectively to the employees what is the
need of change and how employees and organization will benefit from it than only each
individual support and accept the change in the workplace.
Change management process or for implementing change the organization needs to follow a
process that includes urgency creation, build a strong convincing team, create a vision,
communication of need to change, removing obstacles, and go for quick wins and let the change
mature and integrate it in the day to day activities of employees. Mainly a change process
includes planning for the change, communicating that need of change to employees and then
implementing the change in the workplace. An effective change management process consist of a
clear vision, proper planning, effective communication, strong leadership style, and complete
involvement of the employees in the change process or active participants in change
implementation. Kurt Lewin developed a change model of that includes three stages; unfreezing,
change and refreezing (Cummings, et al., 2016). Unfreezing involves challenging the status
quo or making stakeholders and employees aware about the need of change. It includes making
them employees aware about how present stage of the organization is becoming an obstacle in
the growth. Old practices, thinking, processes and structure of the organization must be
examined by the employees or management in order to understand the need of change. The main
motive of unfreezing stage is to make the employees understand d the need of change so that
chances of resistance become low. The second stage is considered as the hardest one as it is the
stage where people begin to move. Kurt Lewin recognized this stage where organization starts to
move into the new stage or ready to change the status quo (Miner, 2015). This is the stage
where change becomes real or implemented. In this stage the people learn different things,
processes, skills, behavior and update there thinking. While transition from the first stage to
second stage take time and cannot be done instantly. For instance, the change stage proves to be
productive in an organization due to following factors that are strong communication, changing
mindset of employees, active participants of the employees and increasing familiarity of
employees with the change status. According to the business case study of Corus, the change can
be implemented through effective listening of the fears and desires of the stakeholders. Corus
focused on involvement of each individual by establishing effective communication channel
including written and verbal interaction through newsletters, intranet messages, workshops and
open conversation (Spellman, 2011). Lewin called the final stage as refreezing stage that is