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Unfreezing Techniques

Disciplines > Change Management > Lewin's Freeze Phases > Unfreezing Techniques

Unfreezing is the first of Lewin's change transition stages, where people are taken from a state of being unready to change to being ready and willing to make the first step.

Here are some ways to make it happen:

• Burning Platform: Expose or create a crisis.
• Challenge: Inspire them to achieve remarkable things.
• Command: Just tell them to move!
• Evidence: Cold, hard data is difficult to ignore.
• Destabilizing: Shaking people of their comfort zone.
• Education: Learn them to change.
• Management by Objectives (MBO): Tell people what to do, but not how.
• Restructuring: Redesign the organization to force behavior change.
• Rites of Passage: Hold a wake to help let go of the past.
• Setting Goals: Give them a formal objective.
• Visioning: Done well, visions work to create change.
• Whole-System Planning: Everyone planning together.

See also

Conversion techniques, Transitioning techniques, Refreezing Techniques

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