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Kurt Lewins And Kurt Kotter's 3-Step Model Of Change

2540 Words11 Pages
In current business environment, change is a common element that is continuously occurring irrespective of an organisations size, industry and age. As the world is changing, organisations must also change quickly to stay competitive. According Kotter (1996), organisations that handle change well thrive whilst those that do not either fail or struggle to survive. In this literature, the change that organisation XYZ underwent will be linked to Kurt Lewins 3-step model of change namely unfreeze, change and refreeze. In addition, will be the discussion of other key change management models such as Kotters 8 step model and Procsi model.
Lewin (1947a) argues that, all change management procedures undertaken in any organisation can be broken down into or can fit into his three step model which is individually elaborated below: STEP 1:Unfreeze:
According to Lewin, unfreezing state of change management is the first and foremost step of all change management initiatives where change managers disturb the equilibrium and disrupt the stability in an organisation so that current ineffective business practices can be discarded and new practices will be learnt. Lewin (1947) states ‘’to break open the shell of complacency and self-righteousness, it is necessary to bring about an emotional stir up’’. Burns (2004) elaborates further on Lewins first step as breaking down the status quo of the organisation. This may take the form of managers getting a message across to an organisations staff
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