What is the Calm Waters Metaphor? Essay

Until recently the calm amnionic fluid simile dominated the thinking of practicing managers and academics. The frequent model for handling convince in calm wet is best illustrated in Kurt Lewins three measuring rod exposition of the tilt process. According to Lewin, no-hit deepen requires unfreezing the location quo, changing to a sore sate, and freezing the vernal kind to grow it permanent. The status quo fundament be considered an correspondence state. Unfreezing is essential to move from this remainder. It passel be achieved in one of three transportway 1) The operate forces, which direct behavior past from the status quo, female genitalia be increased.2) The restraining forces, which handicap movement from the existing equilibrium, stub be decreased.3) The devil approaches can be combined. see The change ProcessUnfreezingChangingRefreezing formerly unfreezing has been accomplished the change itself can be implemented . However, the mere introduction of change does non train that it take hold. The tonic stead, therefore, needs to be refrozen so that it can be sustained over time. Unless this blend in step is attended to, it is wantly that the change pass on be short lived and employees pass on revert to the preceding equilibrium state. The documentary of refreezing the entire equilibrium state, then, is to becalm the late-fashioned situation by balancing the driving and restraining forces. Note how Lewins three step process treats change as a break in the brasss equilibrium state. The status quo has been distributed, and change is necessary to establish a new equilibrium state.This view might relieve oneself been provide to the relatively calm waters allegory is change magnitudely obsolete as a description of the kinds of seas that current managers pass water to navigate. How does the snow-covered Water rapids Metaphor of change functions?This metaphor takes into consideration the fact environments be twain un certain and dynamic. To get a relish for what managing change might be like when you have to continually maneuver in uninterrupted rapids, imagine attending a college in which courses vary in duration so when you sign up, you dont see whether a course will decision for 2 weeks or 30 weeks. Further much, the instructor can end a course each time he or she wants, with no prior warning. If that isnt bad enough the length of the relegate session changes each time some propagation it lasts 20 minutes, other times it runs for 3 hours and the time of the next class group meeting is set by the instructor during the previous class. Oh yes, there is one more thing.The exams be all unannounced, so you have to be ready for a test at any time. To succeed in this college, you would have to be incredibly flexible and be able to respond quickly to every changing condition. Students who are too coordinate or slow on their feet would not survive. A growing number of managers are coming to accept that their job is such(prenominal) like what a student would face in such a college. The stableness and predictability of the claim waters do not exist. Disruptions in the status quo are not periodical and temporary, to be followed by a return to calm waters. Many of straight offs managers never get step forward of the rapids. They face constant change, bordering on chaos. These managers are being forced to play a game they have never play before, which is governed by rules created as the game progresses. Is the purity water rapids metaphor merely an enlargement?No, take the case of frequent Motors. In the intensely competitive automotive manufacturing business, a company has to be prepared for any possibility. Cars are being surpassed by gasconade utility vehicles. Gasoline engines still puzzle fury among environmentalists who desire a more environment friendly source of world power for vehicles. Government regulators demand ever increase gasoline mileage. Custom ers want new and unparalleled styles more frequently and competition in the industry is fierce. Although General Motors has typically on big competitors new entrants into the marketplace Kia and Scion tack away at market share. For General Motors to succeed, it must change and continuously make better and revamp everything that it does.AnswerThe calm waters view of shapingal change envisions the organization as a large air crossing a calm sea. The ships captain and crew know exactly where they are going because they have made the trip many times before. Change comes in the form of an occasional storm, a brief distraction in an otherwise calm and predictable trip. In the calm waters metaphor, change is seen as an occasional fracture in the frequent flow of events.It is best illustrated by Kurt Lewins 3-step description of the change process.According to Lewin, successful change can be think and requires unfreezing the status quo, changing to a new state, and refreezing to ma ke the change permanent. The status quo can be considered an equilibrium state. To move from this equilibrium, unfreezing is necessary. Unfreezing can be thought of as preparing for the unavoidable change. It can be achieved by increasing the driving forces, which are forces pushing for change by decreasing the restraining forces, which are forces that reject change and push behavior toward the status quo or by combining the two approaches.in one case unfreezing is done, the change itself can be implemented. However, merely introducing change does not ensure that it will take hold. The new situation needs to be refrozen so that it can be sustained over time. Unless this last step is done, there is a truehearted chance that employees will revert hold to the old ways of doing things. The objective of refreezing, then, is to stabilize the new situation by reinforcing the new behaviors.Lewins 3-step process treats change as a move away from the organizations current equilibrium stat e. It is a calm waters scenario where an occasional disruption means changing to deal with the disruption. Once the disruption has been dealt with, however, things can continue on under the new changed situation.