[Free Template] How To Conduct a Force Field Analysis
“Everyone agrees that change management is important. Making it happen effectively, however, needs to be a core competence of managers.” – Ron Ashkenas
Change is fundamental to innovation and improvement in business, yet only 30% of change initiatives succeed. Even after social psychologist Kurt Lewin attempted to tackle this issue by developing his Force Field Analysis framework in the 1940s, the problem remains prevalent.
This article discusses how to use force field analysis to drive successful change initiatives at your organization and features a free customizable template you can download to support your efforts.
Contents
What is force field analysis?
When to use force field analysis
Why use a force field analysis template?
Key benefits of force field analysis
6 steps to conduct force field analysis
5 key elements of a good force field analysis template
Free force field analysis template
5 examples of force field analysis in HR
What is force field analysis?
Force field analysis (FFA) is a systematic approach companies (and HR can) use to evaluate the potential outcomes of initiatives by identifying, assessing, and comparing the likely forces for and against any proposed change. It’s a visual and analytical framework that can help you map out the driving and restraining forces affecting change initiatives.
Kurt Lewin developed his force field analysis theory to help organizations navigate the following three stages of change:
- Unfreeze: Use FFA to identify and address restraining forces hindering change through targeted communication and reassurance.
- Change: Identify driving forces motivating employees and use them to increase buy-in through tailored training and recognition.
- Refreeze: Continuously assess progress and address remaining restraining forces. Celebrate successes and provide ongoing support to reinforce new behaviors until they become ‘business as usual’ practices.
This method helps align teams on shared objectives and fosters a deeper organizational understanding of the change process. For HR leaders, mastering Lewin’s FFA isn’t just about managing change—it’s about leading it with foresight to ensure your approach to change is calculated and collaborative.
Why use a force field analysis template?
Using a structured force field analysis template can help you simplify your FFA process, making it easier to identify, assess, and prioritize driving and restraining forces for improvement at scale. Good reasons to use an FFA template include:
- Simplified analysis process: A template provides a structured format with clear prompts, creating a system for identifying driving and restraining forces you can easily replicate. This ensures simple yet comprehensive and systematic FFA.
- Time-saving: Using an FFA template can streamline the process, saving both time and effort. This will allow you to concentrate more fully on important driving and resisting factors and develop effective strategies to handle them.
- Standardized change management and decision-making: A template helps standardize the FFA process across departments in the organization, enabling informed decisions and effective change management.
- Visualization of driving and restraining forces: An FFA template typically includes a visual diagram to support a clearer understanding of the forces at play. This visual representation can effectively communicate complex ideas to stakeholders.
When to use force field analysis
FFA is useful when you need to understand and proactively influence organizational dynamics. You can make informed decisions about when and how to invest effort in sustainable outcomes by identifying the driving forces that support change and the restraining forces that hinder it.
Here are some scenarios where FFA can be especially useful:
- Change management initiatives: FFA can help you assess the practicality of proposed changes and identify potential resistance to them. This facilitates targeted communication and training strategies to effectively address concerns.
- Decision-making: If you have multiple options, FFA makes it easier to weigh the pros and cons of each choice. This allows you to confidently make decisions aligned with organizational goals and minimize potential risks.
- Addressing workplace challenges: FFA can help diagnose issues like low engagement or high turnover. By identifying the root causes of such problems, you can develop targeted interventions to address them.
- Seeking stakeholder alignment: FFA can help you gain consensus among leadership and promote transparent decision-making. You can address concerns and gather support for change initiatives by mapping out the relevant factors.
- Strategic planning: You can also use FFA to assess the feasibility and impact of long-term HR initiatives. This allows you to develop strategies to maximize adoption and impact while minimizing potential obstacles.
FFA is a valuable approach to proactively manage resistance during change initiatives. By helping stakeholders understand the intended outcomes, as well as the possible hindering and inhibiting forces, we can proactively put interventions in place to manage possible resistance.
Key benefits of force field analysis
Here are the main advantages of FFA:
Structured decision-making
Force field analysis provides a systematic approach to evaluating the potential impact of proposed changes. By mapping relevant driving and restraining forces, you can weigh the pros and cons of each situation to make more informed decisions. This structure also helps prevent bias and ensures decisions are based on a comprehensive understanding of all relevant factors.
Team alignment
Force field analysis can encourage collaboration and alignment among your team members and the organization. By involving stakeholders in identifying and evaluating driving and resisting forces, you can facilitate consensus and gain support for change initiatives. Early-stage stakeholder involvement can also reduce resistance to change, as people feel heard.
Improved clarity
Visualizing complex scenarios with an FFA diagram can help clarify the root causes of resistance to change. This allows you to develop targeted strategies to address the core problems instead of just the symptoms. You can also facilitate clearer communication of ideas and strategies among stakeholders and ensure everyone is on the same page.
Prioritizing actionable changes
FFA enables teams to identify and prioritize the most significant driving and restraining forces. By concentrating on these key areas, your team can maximize positive results and support more effective resource allocation. Additionally, you can revisit your FFA to assess progress and adjust strategies to ensure efforts remain aligned with desired outcomes.
6 steps to conduct force field analysis
Following this step-by-step guide, you can use the force field analysis technique to strategically plan organizational change and help your HR change initiatives succeed.
Step 1: Define the change or decision
Begin by defining the specific change or decision you need to analyze (e.g., implementing a new HR policy or introducing new HR technology). Consider it from the perspective of all your various stakeholders, including employees, managers, and external partners.
Getting clear at this stage is essential to aligning all subsequent steps with your primary objectives and increasing your chances of driving successful change.
Step 2: Identify driving forces (the factors supporting the change)
List all the factors you believe will drive or support the change. These could include internal motivators like employee morale, external pressures like market demands, or regulatory compliance. Assess each factor thoroughly to understand what’s most likely to further your initiative.
After doing the above, brainstorm these forces with your broader team to keep them informed, gather feedback, gain support, and incorporate multiple valuable perspectives.
Step 3: Identify restraining forces (the factors opposing the change):
Next, compile a list of all the forces that might resist or challenge implementing the proposed change. These may include employee resistance, financial constraints, or technological limitations.
Conduct a detailed analysis of each obstacle to understand its significance and how to tackle it to increase the likelihood of the change initiative’s success.
Step 4: Assign a score or weight to each force based on its impact
Evaluate each driving and restraining force by assigning a score or weight to determine its influence on the change initiative. You could use a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 refers to minimum impact, and 5 represents maximum impact.
Prioritize each force based on its score or weight to identify the most critical driving and restraining factors. This will give you a clear idea of which to prioritize and focus first.
Step 5: Create a visual diagram to compare forces
Create a visual representation of the factors using a force field analysis diagram. This diagram should provide an overview of the situation, depicting the driving forces on one side and the restraining forces on the other.
In your diagram, you would use arrows pointing toward the change on the left (driving forces) and on the right (restraining forces). The length or thickness of each arrow corresponds to its score, allowing for a quick visual assessment of the forces.
Step 6: Develop strategies to handle different forces
Finally, with the diagram as your guide, you can build your action plan to support the driving forces and reduce or eliminate the restraining ones. For example, if lack of information is a restraining force, your strategy could include a staff education or communications campaign.
On the other hand, if awareness is a strong driving force, your strategy could involve extensive, all-rounded internal or external marketing to capitalize on this factor.
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5 key elements of a good force field analysis template
A well-structured template makes it easier to conduct a thorough force field analysis. Here are a few of the essential elements to include in your template:
- Clear definition of the issue, change, or decision: The template should start with a clear, concise statement of the problem or change initiative you want to analyze. This serves as the focal point for your entire analysis.
- Sections for listing driving and restraining forces: Include dedicated sections to list both the driving and restraining forces. For each force, identify and categorize its likely root causes to better understand how to deal with them
- A scoring mechanism to evaluate forces: Use a standardized system to assign numerical values or weights to each force to indicate their relative strength or impact. Indicate positive scores with a ‘plus’ sign and negative scores with a ‘minus’ sign. This enables a quantitative assessment of the forces and helps prioritize strategies.
- Space for action plans or strategies: Include a section to outline specific actions you’ll take to strengthen driving forces and weaken restraining forces. This will ensure efficient foresight in your strategic analysis, helping it yield actionable plans.
- Visual components like diagrams to summarize findings: Finally, include a visual representation of the driving and restraining forces using an FFA diagram to help you communicate the analysis findings quickly and effectively.
Free force field analysis template
AIHR has developed its own fully customizable force field analysis template, which you can download for free.
5 examples of force field analysis in HR
Here are five force field analysis examples, including concise issue statements to help guide you in your planning:
Example 1: Introducing a new HR software
Scenario: An organization plans to implement a new HR software system to improve the efficiency of its HR processes.
Driving forces
- Improved employee self-service options (+3): Can reduce HR workload and enhance the employee experience.
- Centralized data for better analytics (+4): A centralized data repository can aid data-driven decision-making, reporting, and compliance.
- Streamlined payroll processing (+5): Improved management of payroll, leave, and benefits and reduced errors.
- Reduced paperwork (+2): Digitalizing processes can eliminate paper documents, improve efficiency, and enhance security.
Restraining forces
- Resistance from employees due to change (-4): Employee adoption of the new system will require significant time and effort.
- High initial implementation cost (-3): Initial cost outlay is high and will require a significant budget.
- Learning curve for the HR team (-3): There may be lower productivity and more errors in the short term.
Result: The driving forces outweigh the restraining forces. As such, the action plan should focus on addressing resistance through training and communication campaigns.
Example 2: Flexible work policy adoption
Scenario: A company is considering adopting a flexible work policy to improve employee morale and reduce churn.
Driving forces
- Increased employee satisfaction (+4): Flexible work arrangements can boost morale and job satisfaction.
- Improved work-life balance (+3): Employees can better balance their personal and professional commitments, resulting in less stress and churn.
- Attracting top talent (+2): Offering flexible work options can make the organization more attractive to potential employees.
- Reduced overhead costs (+2): Flexible work arrangements can help lower costs associated with office rental and utility expenses.
Restraining forces
- Managerial resistance to change (-3): Some managers may be hesitant to adopt new work arrangements.
- Productivity concerns (-2): There may be concerns about how flexible work will impact productivity.
- Difficulty managing remote or hybrid teams (-2): It can be challenging to manage teams that are not physically together.
- Potential for increased communication challenges (-1): Remote or hybrid work can make communication more difficult.
Result: While flexible work has potential benefits, the restraining forces must be carefully considered and addressed. Successful implementation will require clear communication, practical management tools, and a supportive company culture.
HR top burning question
How does visualizing a force field analysis diagram help HR leaders communicate change management strategies?
AIHR’s Psychometrics Assessments Expert, Annelise Pretorius, says:
“Visualizing a force field analysis diagram enables HR leaders simplify complex initiatives into an accessible format. Through identifying key driving and restraining forces, stakeholders can easily spot areas that need attention.
They can also understand where efforts should directed to bolster support for change and overcome resistance. This helps HR teams prioritize actions, align all parties toward a common goal, and monitor progress throughout the change process.”
Example 3: Downsizing a department
Scenario: An organization must downsize a department as part of its strategic realignment.
Driving forces
- Cost reduction (+5): Reducing staff can result in significant cost savings.
- Increased efficiency (+5): Downsizing can streamline operations and provide an opportunity to automate certain tasks to improve productivity.
- Strategic alignment (+3): Downsizing can help the organization focus on its core competencies.
Restraining forces
- Employee morale (-5): Layoffs typically negatively impact the morale of remaining employees, leading to churn as they seek employment elsewhere to ensure job security.
- Loss of talent (-4): Downsizing can cause the loss of valuable skills and knowledge.
- Increased workload for remaining employees (-3): Remaining employees are likely to be burdened with additional responsibilities.
- Negative impact on company reputation (-2): Layoffs can damage the company’s reputation as an employer.
Result: Downsizing is a complex process that requires careful planning and delicate execution. To avoid fallout, balance the need to reduce costs with the expected negative impacts on employee morale and productivity.
Example 4: Changing benefits programs
Scenario: A company is considering modifying its compensation package to improve employee satisfaction and retention, as well as its employer brand.
Driving forces
- Increased employee satisfaction (+4): A competitive benefits package can boost employee morale.
- Improved employee retention (+3): Attractive benefits can help reduce turnover.
- Enhanced company reputation (+2): A strong benefits package can improve the company’s employer brand.
Restraining forces
- Increased costs (-4): Expanding benefits will likely increase the company’s expenditure.
- Administrative burden (-3): Managing complex benefits programs can be time-consuming.
Result: While a competitive benefits package can attract and retain talent, the company must balance the upsides with the costs. Successful implementation requires careful planning and communication.
Example 5: Merger or acquisition integration
Scenario: Two organizations are merging, and HR must help integrate the HR systems, policies, and cultures of both parties.
Driving forces
- Synergy and growth (+5): Merging can create access to new expertise and opportunities for growth and innovation.
- Increased market share (+4): Combining forces can lead to a larger market share.
- Cost savings (+3): Integration could support economies of scale and cost reductions.
Restraining forces
- Cultural clashes (-4): Differences in company culture can hinder integration.
- Resistance to change (-3): Employees may resist changes to their work routines and processes.
- Technical challenges (-2): Integrating HR systems and data can be a complex and time-consuming process.
- Legal and regulatory hurdles (-2): Mergers and acquisitions can be subject to legal and regulatory requirements that could further complicate the process.
Results: A successful merger or acquisition requires careful planning and execution. HR’s role is critical in managing the integration process. You must address cultural differences, communicate effectively, and support employees during the transition.
To sum up
Kurt Lewin’s force field analysis remains a powerful tool to help you handle the complexities of organizational change. By mapping out and prioritizing the driving and restraining forces that influence your company’s change initiatives, you can proactively address resistance, gain stakeholder buy-in, and increase the likelihood of successful outcomes.
Use the free customizable template we’ve created to help you plan your change initiatives in greater detail and better manage the factors that will either drive or hinder your progress.
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