Organization Development Primer: Change Management, Kurt Lewin and Beyond

While change theorists explore the process of planned change from various perspectives, most would acknowledge the intellectual roots of their work stem from Kurt Lewin’s laboratory. Scratch the surface of planned change theories and Lewin’s spirit and conceptual framework will not be far below. A German-born psychologist, Lewin was considered the “founder of social psychology.” What follows is an exploration of how Lewin’s work provided the deep root structure from which planned change theory has evolved.