A Tool for Creating a More Productive Environment

This can be used to focus on a specific area in your organisation, or as a tool for getting an overview of the environment as a whole and identifying where change is required to move towards creating a more ideal environment.

You can use a Force Field Analysis to identify current driving and restraining forces that influence the success of solving a problem or reaching a goal when trying to create change.

Creating the right environment doesn’t necessarily imply a mass alteration of all existing conditions. Although this may seem like what’s needed, it’s very seldom that one’s environment in all its elements is undesirable.

Often after an objective appraisal, an individual or team that would like a transformation of environment can reduce it to one or two primary things that stand out. Change these one or two primary things and the environment becomes satisfactory.

Guiding Principles

1. Acknowledge what’s working in the current environment
2. Identify the primary stand out things that would create the most beneficial change
3. Be prepared to identify and take ownership of old limiting patterns (habits) that perpetuate undesirable circumstances
4. Focus only on the aspects that you have the power (resources and ability) to influence
5. Accept limitations – there’s no point battling away at an obstacle that’s so great that efforts to bring about change would be futile (refer guiding principle 4)
6. The best results are often obtained by turning a restrainer into a driver

How to Proceed

• Identify the problem or the goal to be achieved – define the desired outcome
• Take stock of your current reality – describe this in one sentence.
• Clearly define the required change
• Brainstorm all the elements that act as driving or restraining forces in progressing toward the desired outcome
• Create a T-bar and list all the forces involved. Place the driving forces to the left of the vertical line, and the restraining forces to the right. The vertical line represents the ‘as is’ situation.
• Prioritise the forces in each list according to their relative influence on the change process.

Once you have analysed the information, create an action plan to:

1. Increase drivers
2. Reduce restrainers
3. Best of all, turn restrainers into drivers, in other words change a block into a stepping stone

If you’d like more information on using a Force Field Analysis, contact us at Business Coach Auckland and put FFA in the inquiry text.

Vaughan