Imagine a senior executive who holds back an objection in a leadership meeting, then explains it plainly to a colleague in the hallway. The CEO gave his view before asking for reactions. By then, she took the decision to be settled. Labeling her silence “resistance to change” sends the organization looking for an attitude problem. Kurt Lewin’s field theory directs attention to the meeting itself. When did she think she still had a chance to influence the decision?

Who was Kurt Lewin?

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) was born into a Jewish family in Prussia and trained in experimental psychology in Berlin (Patnoe, 2000). He left Germany for the United States in 1933, after the Nazis came to power (The Lewin Center). In 1945, he founded the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT. The center studied how groups shape individual behavior, how groups relate to one another, and what happens when people lead them in different ways (University of Michigan).

In his 1946 paper Action Research and Minority Problems, Lewin describes a predicament faced by people working to combat discrimination in Connecticut. An organizer comes home pleased with how a public meeting went. A few days later, another case of discrimination comes to light, and the organizer has little basis for judging what the meeting accomplished. Lewin wanted organizers to gather evidence about the conditions they were trying to change. He also argued that researchers bore responsibility for how the tools they developed were used.

What does B = f(P, E) mean?

Lewin (1939) described behavior (B) as a function of the person (P) and their environment (E). Together they make up what he called the “life space.” It includes the circumstances a person is dealing with and what those circumstances mean to them at the time. An invitation to speak up carries a different meaning when previous objections have been taken seriously than when they have been brushed aside.

Lewin, Ronald Lippitt, and Ralph White (1939) explored how a situation shapes behavior in clubs for boys around age ten. They varied how adults led the clubs and recorded how the boys interacted. In their second experiment, some groups responded to authoritarian leadership with aggression, while others grew quiet and passive. In those quieter groups, the researchers observed more aggression when the adult left the room.

How action research brings people into the inquiry

Lewin (1946) proposed a cycle of planning an action, carrying it out, and gathering evidence about what happened. What people learned from one cycle informed what they tried next. In Connecticut, he proposed documenting the obstacles community workers faced before a workshop and returning several months later to see what they were doing in their communities.

At the end of each workshop day, observers reported what they had seen in the groups. Facilitators described the same sessions from their perspective, and participants added what they had noticed. Lewin recalled that the facilitators openly discussed their own mistakes. People who had taken part in the workshop helped make sense of how it was going while there was still time to adjust it.

That blend of respect for the people involved and scientific rigor is part of how we work at UNREST. People who do the work help us understand where a proposed change fits into their day and where it runs into trouble. Their observations help shape what we test. When a team tries a new practice, what its members were able to do and where they got stuck help determine what we adjust.

What field theory changes about a workplace intervention

Back in the leadership meeting, the team has a specific behavior to work on. When executives spot a significant risk, they raise it before the team makes a decision. The team looks at when objections come up and what happens when someone raises one. The COM-B model helps the team examine whether members have the capability, opportunity, and motivation to speak up (Michie, van Stralen, & West, 2011). If the CEO’s initial view is routinely taken as the final word, the team can try asking for objections before the CEO weighs in.

In MEET, our four-step approach (Model, Engineer, Experiment, Transfer), we start with an observable behavior and examine the conditions that shape it. In this pilot, the team tracks whether objections come up before the decision and whether members discuss them. It can also track how often it has to reopen a decision. The first measure tells the team whether the discussion has changed. The second tells it whether decisions are holding up over time.

Question What to look at What it helps you decide
What are people doing now? What people do when they have an opportunity to act. Which behavior to focus on and where to observe it.
What shapes the behavior? What changes from one situation to another and how the people involved explain those differences. What to change and what effect to expect.
What happened when we tested the change? How often people act when the opportunity arises and what happens as a result. Whether to keep, adjust, or drop the change.

When people rarely use a new practice, the explanation matters because it determines who can fix the problem. If employees struggle with a step they have just learned, practice with feedback may help. If a rule gives them responsibility for a decision while reserving approval for someone else, leadership has a different job. It has to give employees the authority the new practice requires.

Frequently asked questions

Does B = f(P, E) predict what someone will do?

The formula tells you what to examine. A prediction requires a specific hypothesis about how a person will respond to a particular change in their situation. To test it, define what you expect them to do and observe what happens when the situation changes.

Does Lewin’s field theory account for past experience?

Yes, through the effect it has on the present. Someone whose objection was dismissed last week may see speaking up as riskier at the next meeting. That expectation is part of the person’s life space when they decide whether to speak.

How does field theory relate to group dynamics?

Field theory helps explain behavior in context. Group dynamics looks at processes such as how people establish and maintain norms. A team’s habit of taking disagreements offline can outlast a change in leadership if its members keep directing those conversations out of the meeting.

About the author

Maxime Rabéchault is the founder and president of UNREST, a change enablement consulting firm. He applies behavioral science to help organizations understand how people work and change the practices that matter to a transformation.

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