Today's business world is highly competitive. The way to survive is to reshape to the needs of a rapidly changing world. Resistance to change is a dead-end street for the individual and the organization. Customers are not only demanding excellent service, they are also demanding more. Organizations are reshaping themselves to change quickly in order to meet the needs of their customers. The organization's top leaders know they cannot throw money at every problem. They need highly committed and flexible workers.
A worker's first reaction to change is to resist it. People get comfortable performing tasks and processes a certain way. This comfort provides them with the security that they are the masters of their environment. They fear that change could disrupt their lives by making them look like a fool. The fear that they will not be able to adapt and learn and that their jobs will be harder making them lose a sense of control.
The unfreeze/refreeze model is one of the simplest models for understanding organizational or social change (Cummings). It was developed by Kurt Lewin, a physicist turned social scientist. Because of his professional background, he used physical science analogies to help explain social phenomenon (Cummings). His analogy deals with changing the shape of a block of ice. He describes a situation in which a man has the intention of making a round tire-shaped ring of ice with cherries in it to float in a big punch bowl. The man brings home a block of ice but it isn't the shape that he needs it to be so he has to figure out a way to reshape it so it fits in the bowl. Forcing the ice into the bowl will not help it to change so he has to come up with a different way of doing it. He decides to melt the ice in a pot on the stove. Although the ice i ...