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Lessons in Planned Change

  • June 5, 2020
  • Posted by: Dr. Cindy Banyai
  • Category: Thoughts
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Gilmore Crosby’s book, Planned Change, is based on why Kurt Lewin’s Social Science is the best practice for business performance and change management. Planned Change is aimed at introducing Lewin in a new way, both simplified yet substantial enough to guide anyone who is trying to plan change, whether at the individual, group/team, organizational, or societal level. Crosby believes if you want to effectively implement change in an organization, Lewin’s methodology is the best option.

Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) earned a PhD and taught as a non-tenured “lecturer” at the University of Berlin. Lewin understood the minority experience in a way only a minority can. Him and his family were among the Jewish population during the rise of Hitler in Germany. Lewin fled to the US in 1933 when Hitler was on the rise of power, however, his mother was killed by the Nazi’s in a concentration camp. In 1944, Lewin founded the MIT Center for Group Dynamics. According to Crosby, if there was ever a riot, Kurt Lewin is who they would call to move people forward more effectively. In 1946, the T-group was born.

Kurt Lewin believed in nine principles of planned change. In his book, Crosby dives a bit deeper into a few of Lewin’s theories. Field Theory (#7) says that everything is in a quasi-stationary homeostasis. Lewin states that decisions have a systemic view that takes in to account the past, the present and future aspirations. Gilmore Crosby used the example of a mother of 5 children. Her decisions will be based on the well being of the entire family and what is best for them. There are many more factors that go into her decision making besides just her personality. Lewin believes that the whole of a situation must be observed and what’s driving behavior. Crosby discussed the marginal man, which is the person standing on the boundary between the minority group (MI) and the majority group (MA). The minority experience for Lewin was to always be on the margin.

Lewin’s Principle #4 was Democratic Principles and Leadership. Crosby explained Lewin’s Leadership Style Triangle. One corner of the triangle is Authoritarian Style. This style is considered “too controlling”, reactive, unreliable performance and low morale. The second corner of the triangle is the Democratic Style which is “balances/situational.” Characteristics of this corner include self-differentiation, high performance, low tension and high morale. Lastly, the Laissez-Faire corner is “too passive and reactive.” This also includes low performance, high tension and low morale. There are two axis – the Freedom Axis and the Leadership and Structure Axis. The Democratic and Laissez Faire Style fall on the Freedom Axis and the Democratic and Authoritarian Style fall on the Leadership and Structure Axis. Lewin and his group wanted to know it wasn’t just personality that effected these leadership styles. He created the formula B=F(P,E) which represents behavior as a function of the personality and environment. Lewin also included group decision making and that when people are influencing each other there is higher implementation of decisions.

Lewin’s 8th Principle is the Social Construction of Reality. He stated that in order to change beliefs and behaviors the individual has to arrive on their own and cannot be forced. Change is also much more likely through mutual explorations. Harping on Democratic Leadership, Lewin states that all are peers when in the role of a T-group participant. “The democratic leader has to be in power and has to use his power for active re-education.” -Kurt Lewin

The last principle, Group Dynamics (#3) Involves Interracial Commissions which are T-groups that were created by accident. A T-Group focuses on the self and others in the group. A T-Group task processes observation in the here and now. Lewin based learning involved T-group based learning and Leadership Development, Action Research/Survey based work group sessions, Action Research and Force Field Analysis in Whole Systems Planning and Implementation, Skill transfer to organization and Democratic Principles.

Watch the whole GIODN Book Club presentation with Gilmore Crosby here!

 

 

best practice Kurt Lewin Organization Development planned change T-group

Author: cindy

Dr. Cindy Banyai is the Vice President of Strategy and Operations at the Institute of Organization Development. She has worked in the field of organization development since 2006 as head of her own consulting firm specializing in evaluation and starting a nonprofit providing housing for homeless families. She is the founder and Principal Consultant of Banyai Evaluation and Consulting, LLC. She also teaches in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Florida Gulf Coast University. Dr. Banyai received her Master’s and Ph.D. from Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan where her research focused on community development, public administration, evaluation, and governance. Her works have been published in peer-reviewed journals and she has published, edited, and contributed to several books on public administration and community development. Dr. Banyai has worked in the field of community development since 2000, exercising skills such as facilitation, research and reporting, and participatory engagement practices. In 2012, she joined a start-up nonprofit as its first Executive Director to develop the organization’s infrastructure and practice to provide housing and services to homeless families. She gained valuable insights about poverty, housing, and homelessness, while conducting research and evaluation for the organization and participating in local resource networks and advocacy groups. She received the Donald W. Littrell New Professional Award in 2015 from the Community Development Society for her work on regional initiatives at the Southwest Florida Community Foundation and for her commitment to community-based advocacy organizations such as BikeWalkLee. Dr. Banyai continues to serve the field of community development as the President of the Community Development Society and representative to the United Nations for International Association for Community Development, an NGO with UN consultative status. Through her consulting work, Dr. Banyai has worked with civil society leaders and government officials from more than 25 countries. Recently she focused on crafting an evaluation culture in Southwest Florida working with the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. Her initial work there focused on outcomes then expanded to include nonprofit capacity building, community research to inform grant processes, grant scoring, assessment of regional nonprofit capacity, collective impact process design, and impact evaluation of regional initiatives. She has also engaged in strategic planning and organization development with numerous local nonprofit organizations, as well as with global partners and companies through the global online training company the Institute for Organization Development. Evidence of Dr. Banyai’s advocacy of evaluation and its use is found in the increased evaluation capacity of nonprofits she has coached and the progress that has been made in data-based decision-making in collaborative initiatives. She also worked to institutionalize evaluation in governments and nonprofits around the world through technical assistance for the Japan International Cooperation Agency. There she helped national and local government actors in Nepal, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Greater Africa, Tunisia, and Chile.  In recognition of her evaluation work, she received the 2018 Evaluation Advocacy and Use Practice Award from the American Evaluation Association.