Study guide
3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis
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
3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis
Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI
Force field analysis identifies the driving forces pushing a change forward and the restraining forces working against it
Driving forces can be both internal and external to the organisation
Reducing restraining forces is usually more effective than increasing driving forces, which tends to raise tension
The technique is typically developed collaboratively in a workshop setting rather than desk-produced
- CM3 also uses force field analysis as a tool for mapping the causes of resistance visually
- Last updated: September 2026
Force field analysis , developed by Kurt Lewin, is the diagnostic tool CM3 places at the end of the context-setting section. It provides an analysis tool which helps identify the driving forces , both internal and external, for the change and the restraining forces that will work against it.
The basic structure
Picture the current situation as held in place between two sets of opposing pressures:
- Driving forces (push towards change) Restraining forces (push back)
- Regulatory deadline in nine months Team already running three other changes
- Competitor launched a superior service Existing system works and staff are expert in it
- Rising cost of the current process Retraining cost and the learning dip
- Executive sponsor is personally committed Previous initiative was abandoned; trust is low
- Staff frustration with manual rework Middle managers fear loss of control
The situation stays put while the two sets balance. Change requires the balance to shift.
The key insight: reduce restraint before adding drive
The most examinable and most practically useful point is that there are two ways to shift the balance, and they are not equally good .
You can increase the driving forces — more executive pressure, a harder deadline, a bigger burning-platform message. This works, but it raises tension in the system. People pushed harder against unchanged obstacles become more stressed, more resistant and more likely to comply superficially while quietly working around the change.
Or you can reduce the restraining forces — remove the obstacle, resource the retraining, resolve the competing priority, address the fear. This shifts the balance without increasing tension, and the change moves more easily.
Most organisations instinctively reach for the first option because it is faster and requires no investment. The change manager's professional contribution is often to redirect that energy: rather than asking the sponsor to push harder, ask which two restraining forces could be removed with the same effort.
Building one properly
Force field analysis is typically developed in a workshop setting rather than produced at a desk, and that is not incidental. The value comes from three sources that a solo analysis cannot supply:
Surfacing restraining forces honestly. People will name obstacles in a facilitated group that they would never put in an email — competing priorities, a manager who has quietly decided not to cooperate, a system dependency nobody owns.
Shared understanding. When a leadership team builds the picture together, they own the conclusion. A restraining force presented to them in a slide is an assertion; a restraining force they identified themselves is a fact they will act on.
Weighting. Not all forces are equal, and the group's judgement about which restraints actually matter is usually better than any individual's.
A workable sequence: define the change precisely, then brainstorm driving forces, then brainstorm restraining forces, then weight each for strength, then identify the two or three restraints whose removal would most change the picture.
Where CM3 reuses the tool
Force field analysis appears twice in the syllabus, and the second appearance is easy to miss. In the Work of the change manager area, building a strategy to manage resistance advises making time early to consider the opportunities (driving forces) and risks (restraining forces) the change presents, and states that force field analysis can be a useful tool to help change teams map causes of resistance visually .
So the same tool serves two purposes: an up-front approach-shaping diagnostic, and an ongoing instrument for understanding where resistance is coming from. In the resistance context, restraining forces and causes of resistance are largely the same list.
Practical cautions
Two failure modes are worth naming.
The tidy diagram. A force field produced to look balanced and reassuring for a steering group is worthless. If every driving force is strong and every restraining force is minor, the analysis was not honest, and the value of the technique is precisely its honesty about obstacles.
The one-off. Forces change. A restraining force you removed in month two can return in month six when a reorganisation gives someone new the same objection. Revisiting the force field at intervals, particularly after a significant event, keeps it useful rather than decorative.
Weighting the forces
A force field that lists forces without weighting them is only half finished. The usual method is to score each force for strength — commonly on a simple three- or five-point scale — and to draw the arrows proportionally, so the picture shows not just what exists but what matters.
Weighting changes decisions. A list of eight restraining forces looks daunting; a weighted list often shows that two of them account for most of the resistance and the other six are noise. Effort then concentrates where it moves the balance.
Two weighting judgements repay care. Strength is not the same as visibility — the loudest objection is frequently not the strongest restraint, and a quiet structural constraint such as a competing priority in another department can outweigh it. And strength is not the same as legitimacy — a restraining force based on a misunderstanding is still a real force until the misunderstanding is corrected, and it should be weighted as it actually operates rather than as it ought to.
When the same exercise is repeated later in the change, the movement between the two pictures is itself useful evidence: forces you have successfully reduced, forces that have grown, and forces you did not previously see.