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Change theory, action research, action learning.
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947), a German-Jewish psychologist who fled the Nazis in 1933, founded the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT and inspired the National Training Laboratories. In a single decade in America he invented action research, the three-step model of change, leadership climate experiments, and the T-group — the practical foundations of organization development.
Lewin founded organization development: field theory, the unfreeze–change–refreeze model, action research, and the T-group. His dictum — 'there is nothing so practical as a good theory' — defines the scholar-practitioner ideal.
The era: The Group Era — Leadership can be learned; leader–group relations. Not apart from the group but part of the group — any member can lead.
Change theory, action research, action learning.
Where this work feeds the Open Sky frameworks.
Fellow travelers on these threads:
Run change as action research: act, measure, adjust — with the people affected, not on them.
Unfreeze before you push: surface the forces holding the current state in place.