As a matter of fact, there are three insights about organizational change management that are somewhat related because I can see three distinct phases in each of them. Have a look at the drawing below:

First, Elisabeth Kübler Ross, in her research on death and dying distilled the five stages of grief. Ever since its publication in 1973 it has been commonly regarded as the "cycle of change".

Second, about 25 years earlier, Kurt Lewin published his thoughts on overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing mindsets in a model commonly referred to as the "unfreezing – changing – refreezing" model.

Third, Arthur Schopenhauer, who produced most of his writings even 100 years earlier than Lewin, made this remarkable statement about three stages of "truth".

I find some "truth" in all of them, but most of all I find the combination inspiring:

1. As ‘unfreezing’ actions and initiatives are being set up you are likely to receive responses that ridicule your initiatives. Most people react from a position of denial and anger.

2. In ‘changing’ times opposition takes all kinds of faces and you should prepare for a drop in performance and self esteem. People hit the bottom of desperation once they realize that the world as they know it will never return.

3. Finally, once the transition stage is accomplished and people start to accept the aspects of their new reality, most of the things they ridiculed in he first stage are regarded as self-evident. That’s when you know refreezing actions can start, anchoring the new reality.

However, avoiding conflicts altogether is the best recipe for a failed change program. Molecules need to be unfrozen, moved towards a new shape and then refrozen in that exact new shape. Like it or not: unfreezing involves conflict: shaking up a status quo, questioning obvious beliefs, letting go of certainties. In fact, change is hardly even possible without conflict.

In 1942, Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter introduced the term ‘creative destruction’ to describe the innovative entry by entrepreneurs as a source of long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed established companies who were guaranteeing stability in terms of employment. In his words: "the process of industrial mutation —if I may use that biological term—that incessantly revolutionizes the economic system  from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in." 

As Schumpeter elaborates this thought, it gets even more interesting for organizational change managers: "the problem that is usually being visualized is how capitalism administers existing structures, whereas the relevant problem is how it creates and destroys them. As long as this is not recognized, the investigator does a meaningless job."

The point for us is to focus on the emotional process of unfreezing-changing-refreezing rather than (solely) on the project methodology or project plan at hand. An organizational change program is more than a set of project actions – it is a disruptive experience full of conflicts between the current state and the future state.

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Sources:
Schumpeter, J. A. (1950), Capitalism, socialism and democracy, 3rd enlarged edn, New York: Harper.