By Issa Bass
 

Qualitative change will always be opposed by restraining forces that are either too comfortable with the status quo or are afraid of the unknown. In a competitive global market where constant innovation and continuous improvement are the driving forces that keep businesses running, identifying those forces in order to assess the risks involved and to better weight the effectiveness of potential changes becomes an imperative.

The Force Field Analysis is a managerial tool used for that purpose. FFA is a technique developed by Kurt Lewin, -a 20^th century social scientist- as a tool for analyzing forces opposed to change. It rests on the premise that change is the result of a conflict between opposing forces, in order for it to take place, the driving forces must overcome the restraining forces.

Whenever changes are necessary, FFA can be used to determine the forces that oppose or stimulate the proposed changes. The opposing forces that are closely affected by the changes must be associated with the risk assessment and the decision making. The two groups are charted according to how important they can impact the changes, with the objective of abating the repulsive forces and invigorating the proponents of changes.

To conduct a FFA, a certain number of steps should be taken:

• The first of which should be the description of the current and the ideal states, to analyze how they compare and what will happen if changes are not made.
• Describe the problem to be solved and how to go about it. Brainstorming sessions can be an effective tool for that purpose.
• Identify and divide the stakeholders who are directly implicated in the decision making in two groups: the proponents for the changes and the restraining forces and then select a facilitator to mend the fences.
• Each group should list the reasons why it is for or against the changes. The listing can be based on questionnaires for or against changes.

The listing should classify the reasons according to their level of importance; a scale value can be used as a weight for each reason. Some of the issues to be considered are:

· Company's needs

· Cost of the changes

· Company's values

· Social environment (Institutions, policies..)

· Company's Resources

· How the company usually operates

· Stakeholders' interests

· Stakeholders' attitudes

The two lists are merged in the same chart to visualize the conflicting forces.

• Question every item on the lists to test their validity and determine how critical they are for the proposed changes.
• Add the scores to determine the feasibility of the changes. If the reasons for a change are overwhelming, take the appropriate course of action by strengthening the forces for change.

An operation manager has suggested that all the operations of a fictitious company should be consolidated in one facility. The following diagram depicts and example of a Force Field Analysis.

About the author
Issa Bass is the managing editor of SixSigmaFirst. He can be reached at issa@sixsigmafirst.com

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