Respond to at least 2 of your peers’ submissions. In your participation responses to your peers, comments must demonstrate thorough analysis of postings and extend meaningful discussion by building on previous postings.

Peer 1

A man by the name of Kurt Lewin composed a theory about change using a force field model (Butts, 2018). The model uses several stages to describe the process of change. The first stage being “unfreezing”, which refers to the current state (Burnes & Bargal, 2017). The second and three stage happen almost simultaneously. The second stage is when the change happens (called “moving”), and the third stage known as “refreezing” refers to the habit becoming the new norm (Burnes & Bargal, 2017). In order for these changes to happen though Lewin noted certain events must occur. For these changes to happen the person must first want to change and break away from what has become custom to them (Burnes & Bargal, 2017).

A few years ago at my job in the intensive care unit we changed the way we did our shift report. Before the change when we did shift report we would go in check our drips, vent settings, tube measurements, and do a quick patient turn. We began experiencing an increase in skin breakdown in our patients, so we implemented a full skin assessment during shift report. If any skin abnormalities were noticed we were to document them, and place a wound care consult. 

The change did follow the steps presented in Lewin’s theory. The freezing stage was realizing there was a problem in early assessment of skin breakdown. The moving part was the implementation of the full skin assessment during shift change with both nurses present. Finally, the refreezing was the continuation of this every shift to current day. Since this change was made we had seen a dramatic decrease in skin breakdown in most of our critically ill patient. The process of this change went smoothly on all units.

References

Burnes, B., & Bargal, D. (2017). Kurt lewin: 70 years on. Journal of Change Management, 17(2), 91–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2017.1299371

Butts, J. B. (2018). Philosophies and theories for advanced nursing practice (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Peer 2

Lewin’s Theory of Change was a process that should make implementing new processes easier in the workplace. According to Bakari, Hunira, and Niazi (2017), Lewin had multiple change theories but the three-step model focused on getting behaviors changed to better suit the needs of the organization. It consists of unfreezing, moving, and refreezing. The unfreezing process is when the leadership stops the original way of performing a task. It is important for the employees to see that the original way is no longer the best way and leadership should be ready to resistance in some form. The driving forces of what makes the new way better must outweigh the resistance. Once the awareness has been made, the movement into the new way can be made. This is where the actual change takes place and should be an easier process since the driving forces have already overcome the resistance (Bredow & Peterson, 2017). After the moving process, the group must move towards the refreezing step. This is when the new way is fully implemented and accepted by all parts of the organization. A recent change at my work place is the method in which we contact our physicians. We originally would use a text style page that could be done directly from the chart. The new way was more of an instant messenger that could be directly attached to a patient chart. As with any change, there were some nay-sayers in the beginning, but as it was used a few times the staff realized that you could enter more information and get an instant response because the physician didn’t have to stop and call. The physicians liked it better because they were able to access this feature on their cell phones and send a reply without calling. It is now fully implemented and works so much better than the original messaging.

Bakari, H., Hunjra, A. I., & Niazi, G. S. K. (2017). How Does Authentic Leadership Influence Planned             Organizational Change? The Role of Employees’ Perceptions: Integration of Theory of Planned    Behavior and Lewin’s Three Step Model. Journal of Change Management, 17(2), 155–187.       https://doi-org.su.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/14697017.2017.1299370