Change Barriers & Forces Canvas

Map what pushes for a change and what holds it back, name who or what is behind each force, and choose the few moves that tip the balance. The phased plan and the strategy sheets sit in the optional sections at the end.

Practice, not research: Lewin's force field analysis is an untested practitioner heuristic, and its strength ratings are structured judgment, not measurement. The research it echoes, on how people respond to change and on readiness, is stronger (Piderit, 2000; Rafferty et al., 2013). Scoring thresholds on this page are rules of thumb.

Use it when:

• A change you own has stalled and pushing harder is not working.
• You are about to launch a change and want to know what will resist it, and why.
• You are asked to "get people on board" and need something more specific than a communication plan.

Skip it when:

• You need to know who the people are and how they stand: use 8.6 Stakeholder & Change Impact or 8.17 Stakeholder Impact & Support Map.
• You want to know whether the organization can carry one more change: use 3.22 Change Load & Fatigue Check.

Force field analysis makes one memorable claim: the status quo is not stillness but an equilibrium held in place by driving and restraining forces, so a stalled change is balanced, not stuck (Lewin, 1947). Its practical corollary is the part worth keeping: adding pressure to the drivers tends to raise tension and provoke counterpressure, while weakening a restraining force shifts the balance at lower cost. As a tool it is an unproven heuristic. The corollary echoes better-supported research: resistance is usually reasoned ambivalence rather than obstruction (Piderit, 2000), participation changes responses (Coch & French, 1948), and the remedy should match the source of the resistance (Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979).

So every force below needs a named source, because an anonymous force can only be complained about. The balance step delivers one verdict honestly: equilibrium means the change stalls on its current energy. Most plans pile actions on the drivers; the cheaper and more durable moves usually sit with the barriers.

Strong answer: "From: each home-care team plans visits on paper by phone. To: all teams plan in one shared system. By: end of March." Not: "Modernize planning."

Illustrative example: the organization and the scores are made up.

A municipal home-care unit in Sweden moves visit planning from paper to a shared digital system by March. Drivers: audit findings on missed visits (strong, the quality manager), the regional funding condition (moderate, the board), staff frustration with last-minute phone changes (moderate, the field staff), and the planner's wish for one overview (weak). Total 7. Barriers: team leads fear the system exposes uneven workloads (strong, stakeholder), no spare time for training in the morning round (strong, process), older handsets that cannot run the app (moderate, technical), and a belief that "paper is more reliable" (moderate, cultural). Total 10.

Verdict: barriers higher. Three actions: weaken the workload fear by letting team leads decide what the view shows (owner: program lead); weaken the time barrier by paying for two paid training hours per person in February (owner: unit manager); strengthen the driver by showing the audit result at each team meeting (owner: quality manager). Review: every second Friday.