6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties

APMG Change Management Foundation Exam

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1 Chapter 1: The v3 Foundation Exam and the Organisational Context

1.1 Exam Structure, the Five Syllabus Areas and the Certification Path 1.2 Scene Setting: External and Internal Factors Shaping Change 1.3 Change Management, Benefits and Dis-benefits

2 Chapter 2: Understanding the Change Context

2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption 2.2 VUCA and the Cynefin Framework 2.3 Planned Change versus Emergent Change 2.4 Systems Thinking in Change 2.5 Organisational Culture and Its Three Levels

3 Chapter 3: Diagnosing and Structuring the Change Approach

3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis 3.2 Co-Design 3.3 The ADKAR Model 3.4 Evolving the n-Step Process and Kotter's Eight Accelerators

4 Chapter 4: Delivery Strategy, Agile Practices and the Change Strategy

4.1 Delivery Strategy: Big Bang, Phased, Voluntary and Iterative 4.2 Agile Practices and Agile Change Practices 4.3 The Continuous Change Management Cycle 4.4 The Change Strategy

5 Chapter 5: People and Change — Individual Difference and Response

5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences 5.2 Neuroscience and Change: SCARF, Mindset and Insight 5.3 The Change Curve 5.4 Bridges' Transition Model

6 Chapter 6: Motivation, Resilience and Learning

6.1 Rewards, Punishment and Pink's Three Motivators 6.2 Positive Psychology, Resilience and Appreciative Inquiry 6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties 6.4 Competence, Learning and the Learning Dip 6.5 Learning Preferences: Kolb, Honey and Mumford

7 Chapter 7: Key Roles in Change Leadership

7.1 Key Roles in the Change Process 7.2 The Role of the Change Sponsor 7.3 The Change Agent's Role and Personal Influence 7.4 The Role of Local Leadership in Change

8 Chapter 8: Psychological Safety, Leadership and Culture

8.1 Psychological Climate and Psychological Safety 8.2 Carolyn Taylor: How Leadership Shapes Culture 8.3 Leadership Styles and Organisational Climate

9 Chapter 9: Teams and Change

9.1 Team Structures and Change Agent Networks 9.2 Tuckman's Stages of Team Development 9.3 Lencioni: Assessing and Growing Team Effectiveness 9.4 Harvesting the Value of Team Diversity

10 Chapter 10: Stakeholder Identification, Analysis and Engagement

10.1 Stakeholder Definition and Identification 10.2 Stakeholder Analysis, Segmentation and Empathy Mapping 10.3 Stakeholder Mapping and Sources of Power 10.4 Barriers to Engagement 10.5 Planning Stakeholder Engagement

11 Chapter 11: Communication Theory, Messaging and Emotional Connection

11.1 Communication Theory and the Communication Process 11.2 Barriers to Communication and Cognitive Biases 11.3 Messaging: Setting Context and the Tell, Sell, Include Approach 11.4 Appealing to Hearts and Minds

12 Chapter 12: Communication Channels and Planning

12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences 12.2 Communication Channels: One-Way, Two-Way, Lean and Rich 12.3 Communications Planning

13 Chapter 13: Assessing Change Impact and Severity

13.1 Change Management as Risk Management and the Two-Step Assessment 13.2 Step 1: Categorising Impacts and Identifying Impact Areas 13.3 Step 1 Continued: Gap Analysis, Impact Profiles and Monitoring 13.4 Step 2: Change Impact Severity

14 Chapter 14: Resistance to Change

14.1 Causes of Resistance and Oreg's Four Neural Factors 14.2 Common Reasons for Resistance and How to Deal With Them 14.3 Building a Strategy to Manage Resistance

15 Chapter 15: Change Analytics and Exam Readiness

15.1 Measurement Types and the Change Delivery Scorecard 15.2 Building a Change Analytics Strategy 15.3 Exam Technique and Final Revision

6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

The Beckhard and Harris change formula is C=[ABD]>X, where change occurs when A, B and D together exceed X

A is dissatisfaction with the status quo, B is desirability of the proposed change or end state, D is practicality of the change, and X is the perceived cost of change

Because A, B and D combine multiplicatively, any one of them being near zero blocks change regardless of the others

Schein identifies survival anxiety and learning anxiety, and change requires survival anxiety to exceed learning anxiety

Rather than increasing survival anxiety indefinitely, the better route is reducing learning anxiety through psychological safety

Last updated: September 2026

Two models in CM3 address the same underlying question: what conditions have to be true before an organisation or individual will actually change?

The Beckhard and Harris change formula

The formula uses relative values to determine the motivation levels for change in the organisation: C = [ A × B × D ] > X C = [A \times B \times D] > X C = [ A × B × D ] > X

• Symbol Meaning
• C Change
• A Level of dissatisfaction with the status quo
• B Desirability of the proposed change or end state
• D Practicality of the change — knowledge of the next practical steps, minimal risk and disruption
• X Perceived cost of the change

Change occurs when A, B and D together outweigh the perceived cost X.

Why the combination matters

The critical property is that A, B and D combine multiplicatively rather than additively. If any one of them is near zero, the product is near zero , and no amount of the other two compensates.

This gives a genuinely useful diagnostic. When a change is stalled, work out which term is missing:

Symptom Missing term What to do

"What we do now works fine" A — no dissatisfaction Make the unsustainability of the current position visible and specific

"I see the problem, but that solution is no better" B — vision not desirable Rework the end state or explain it in terms this audience values

"I agree with all of it, but we could never actually do it here" D — no practicality Provide first steps, evidence it can work, a pilot, a credible plan

"It's just not worth what it would take" X — cost too high Reduce the real cost: resource it, phase it, remove competing demands

The most commonly neglected term is D . Change communications overwhelmingly invest in A (the burning platform) and B (the vision), and say almost nothing about practicality. Yet a workforce that is dissatisfied and attracted to the destination but has no idea what Monday looks like will not move. Bridges' "plan" and ADKAR's "knowledge" are both, in formula terms, ways of raising D.

Schein's survival and learning anxieties

Edgar Schein recognises two types of anxiety as motivators of behaviour :

Learning anxiety — anxiety about having to unlearn old ways and learn new ones. Change will require unlearning old ways and learning new ones, and the result of learning anxiety is to inhibit change

Survival anxiety — anxiety that failing to change threatens something you need

Schein's central proposition: for organisations to change at an acceptable pace, they should amplify a competing and greater anxiety — survival anxiety .

The three elements required

Amplifying survival anxiety effectively requires three elements:

Disconfirmation — promoting the disturbing belief that the current position is not sustainable, that it is not working any more. This is a possible aspect of A , dissatisfaction with the status quo, in the change formula

Creation of guilt or anxiety — developing a clear narrative that failure to change will have negative consequences: failure to achieve my goals, disapproval of peers, possibly even seeing my team disbanded, seeing the organisation fail, or losing my job. This also emphasises dissatisfaction with the current state

Creation of psychological safety — there is a danger that the two preceding elements will make survival anxiety too great, leaving people paralysed by anxiety . Psychological safety here is enhanced by providing a clear, straightforward plan people can follow, and offering suitable support and coaching through the change process. It offers a safe way forward, improving the practicality of the change for people

Note how the third element maps to D in the change formula. Psychological safety is not softness bolted onto a hard message — it is what makes the hard message actionable.

The better lever

Schein's conclusion is that for people to willingly engage with change, it is necessary to create sufficient survival anxiety to destabilise the current situation , while simultaneously supporting people so that they feel safe enough to learn effectively — keeping learning anxiety as low as possible, and certainly lower than the survival anxiety .

Psychological safety is created through:

• Training and practice
• Support and encouragement
• A non-judgemental approach that does not punish errors
• Coaching
• Acknowledgement and reward for effort in the right direction and for experimentation

The practical insight is that there are two ways to make survival anxiety exceed learning anxiety, and reducing learning anxiety is usually the better one . Escalating fear works up to a point and then produces paralysis rather than movement — the same lesson force field analysis teaches about pushing driving forces rather than removing restraints.