Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory: a review and Re-evaluation

Conclusion

One has to sit up and take notice when someone of the standing of Edgar Schein states:

Kurt Lewin was a scientist and researcher par excel- lence, yet Lewin probably contributed more to the practice of management and to the field of organ- izational consulting than anyone in history. On the scientific front, Lewin was a genius in creating true social experiments that demonstrated unequivocally the impact of leadership style and social climate on the productivity and emotional life of the group. (Schein 1997, p. 7)

There is little doubt that Kurt Lewin was one of the outstanding social scientists of his day and that his achievements were numerous (Marrow 1969). Though his work encountered fierce criticism in the 1980s and 1990s (see Hatch 1997; Kanter et al. 1992; Pettigrew 1985), the 1990s and especially the last decade have seen strong support for the continu- ing relevance of his work. Hendry (1996) and Elrod and Tippett (2002) provided robust evidence for the efficacy of Lewin’ three-step model of change. Simi- larly, his work on action research and group dynam- ics has received considerable praise (Cassell and Johnson 2006; Coghlan and Jacobs 2005; Dickens and Watkins 1999). In addition, a recent review of 60 years of the change literature also found significant support for the participative and ethical dimension of Lewin’s approach to change (Oreg et al. 2011).

Therefore, even now, more than 60 years after his death, his work is highly influential and central to OD, change management, and consultancy theory and practice (Burnes 2004a, 2007; Marion 2002). However, as this paper has shown, field theory, which Lewin considered to be the foundation on which all his work was based (M. Lewin 1998), has not received
the same level of attention and support as other elements of his work. Lewin’s basic argument was that, if one does not understand the current situation, the forces that are maintaining the current quasi- stationary equilibrium, one cannot even begin to bring about change. Beyond that, field theory allows indi- viduals and groups to explore, understand and learn about themselves and how they perceive the world and how those around them perceive it.
For Lewin, this learning was only the start of the change process; it enabled the unfreezing of behav- iour and the creation of a willingness to change. However, in order to bring about change, one has to establish which forces to modify in the life space, and to judge what effect this would have. To achieve this, it is necessary to understand group dynamics, the second element in Lewin’s planned approach to change. In its turn, this relies on a structured, participative and iterative process for identifying and analysing the change options and then implementing the chosen ones. For Lewin, this process was action research, the third element in planned change. This, though, only achieves the ‘moving’ of behaviour; it does not necessarily sustain – refreeze – the behaviour.
This is the importance of the fourth element of planned change, the three-step model, because it focuses not just on motivating and bringing about change, but also on sustaining it. As Lewin (1947a,
p. 228) noted, change is ‘frequently short lived; after a “shot in the arm,” group life soon returns to the previous level’. This is where field theory once again plays its role. The process of participative learning, which is fundamental to field theory, allows individu- als and groups both to map out their current life space (their reality) and construct a new, more desired life space (reality). However, this can only be done if there is widespread participation, understand- ing and learning. This is why changes that are imposed or that only have superficial participation tend to bring only limited benefits – those who have to make the changes have only limited understanding of, and commitment to, what is being changed and why (Burnes 2009; Oreg et al. 2011).
Lewin’s field theory was a significant break with the contemporary view of human behaviour. It offered a holistic view of human behaviour that focused on the entirety of a person or group’s perceptual or psychological environment (Lewin 1943a,b). How is it, then, that in the organizational sphere, field theory almost disappeared from view after his death, and that even when it made a reap-

pearance in the 1990s, it was mainly in a watered- down version? The answer lies in Lewin’s belief that rigour required ‘mathematization’ (Lewin 1949, p. 33). As discussed earlier, Lewin (1942) based his field theory on six fundamental principles. Five of these were derived from or were consistent with gestalt psychology. However, the sixth principle, ‘mathematical representation of the psychological situation’, was inspired by Cassirer’s philosophy of science. Mathematization was Lewin’s (1949) attempt to raise psychology to the level of the ‘para- digm science’, i.e. physics. In so doing, Lewin went beyond conventional topology to create his own Lewinian topology, replete with his own mathemati- cal formulae. Unfortunately, it was a topology math- ematicians rejected and most organizational psychologists did not or could not relate to. Conse- quently, after Lewin’s death, it went into decline.
Rummel (1975, p. 41) refers to Lewin’s adoption of a mathematical approach to field theory as a ‘gigantic misstep’. Certainly, in terms of misunder- standing the nature of rigour, it was. It was also a ‘misstep’ in terms of relevance – usability – because it undermined two of the guiding principles of his work: namely, that change is a participative process and a learning process (Burnes 2004a). In his desire for rigour, by couching his theory in complex math- ematics, Lewin made it very difficult for those who should have been involved in the change process either to participate in it or learn from it. In effect, Lewin fell foul of his own guiding principle – ‘that there is nothing so practical as a good theory’ – because Lewinian topology was not practical, i.e. it lacked relevance, and so could not be a good theory,
i.e. it lacked rigour.
However, if we remove the hodological maths, i.e. the ‘not good theory’, and concentrate on the under- lying gestalt theory and use of conventional topology to construct life spaces of the type shown in Figure 2, we would argue that great possibilities for participa- tion and learning open up. That is to say, rather than breaching Lewin’s guiding principle, this re-formed field theory restores it by aligning rigour and rel- evance. Just as Lewin demonstrated in the 1930s and 1940s by working with skilled facilitators, change participants can identify behavioural driving and restraining forces (Cartwright 1952a). They can begin to identify the secondary forces that lie around these and start to understand their perceptual envir- onment. They can create a life space that is theirs and that they understand and can learn from. They can gain insights into their behaviour – what they do and
why they do it – and learn about how to change it. In fact, they return to the essential nature of Lewin’s force field theory and capture its real purpose, which is not to quantify forces and relationships, but to produce understanding about what people do and why they do it. In essence, it allows individuals and groups to explore existing organizational realities, assess their appropriateness and create new organiza- tional realities. In this way, key questions can be addressed and answered about why so many change initiatives fail, why resistance to change arises and what the real barriers to behavioural change are (Burnes 2009; Dent and Goldberg 1999; Schein 1996, 1997). In particular, it provides a means of aligning OD with complexity and social construc- tionist perspectives on change.
There is one final and important point that arises from this examination of field theory and relates to its relevance to modern organizations. There is little doubt that organizations are facing more change than ever before. There is also little doubt that, in the main, their ability to manage change successfully appears to be inadequate to the task (Beer and Nohria 2000; Burnes 2009; Rogers et al. 2006; Senturia et al. 2008). However, field theory with the math- ematical quantification removed, but retaining its gestalt basis and conventional topology, provides a robust and holistic approach to understanding and changing behaviour. By allying this to the other three elements of Lewin’s Planned approach – group dynamics, action research and the three-step model of change – one is presented with a powerful approach to bringing about change (Burnes 2004a; Cooke 2006). Crucially, in an era where the untram- melled pursuit of personal gain has led to business failures and economic collapse, it is an ethical approach to change that addresses individual and organizational values (Burnes and By 2012; Burnes and Cooke 2012; Stiglitz 2010).
A substantial body of evidence has emerged in the last decade to show that OD is going through a ren- aissance in its traditional heartlands and a substantial expansion globally and that Lewin’s work lies at the centre of this renaissance (Burnes and Cooke 2012; Mozenter 2002; Ramos and Rees 2008; Wirtenberg et al. 2007). However, there is also evidence that the newer, large-scale OD approaches to change have been less successful than anticipated and that a key reason for this is the failure to achieve widespread participation, or to use Weisbord’s (1987) phrase, they have not been successful at ‘getting the whole system in the room’. As we pointed out earlier, these

newer approaches, such as AI, do seem to incorpo- rate key elements of Lewin’s planned change, but not field theory. Schein and others have argued that many aspects of Lewin’s work have become fundamental to understanding how organizations and the people who populate them behave (Argyris 1997; Bargal et al. 1992; Greiner and Cummings 2004; Hendry 1996; Schein 1996). The time now seems right to restore field theory to that list.