Lewin, Hegel and the Dialectic of Force Field Analysis
Tom Wilson, HR Consultant, United States, Premium Member
Among other things, Lewin was a combat veteran of WWI on the German side. His classic Kriegslandshaft describes my experience of Vietnam, psychologically. That's useful to know.
His
Unfreezing. Moving, Refreezing and force field analysis is very much Hegelian in aspect, which is to say, they respond to Newtonian metrics. His quintessential formula, B= f(P,E), [Behavior is a function of the Person and the Environment], where E can be expressed F=MA) reflects this orientation.
It may be a small point, but Lewin would have laid out the chart, above, more like this:
The Progression (change) -->I<-- The Negation (no change)-
The point is that
Lewin was interested in reducing the forces of status quo as the focus of the unfreezing,
Action Research being the method he applied to define and reduce these obstacles rather than the Marxist method of applying overwhelming force for Moving. It is a subtle but profound difference.
Lewin would probably endorse the
Hoshin Kanri structures and
Lateral Thinking on principle.
