Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Change Management (as deduced by Prannoy Kankaria)

In the recently culminated course on Business Intelligence here at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Manamai, Prof. Balasubramaniam Ramesh held my attention (at the least) with the concept of how things which seem quite unrelated have an unrecognizable connection/pattern. I was reminded of my college days at Loyola where I learnt for the first time the concept of Change Management. It was a new concept to us and the buzz word around that time. It still remains the buzz word!! It was during one of our interactions post the class that I realized the potential genius of Sir Newton. He had made a statement which was not only true for physical sciences but also the art and science of management. Change Management (sounds like honey to an MBA grad) is a concept he speaks of in his laws of motion. Though not in intention, he has laid down the base for applying change management as done in these laws. Adding these two I decided to pen my ramblings.

Waiting for the proverbial apple to fall :D

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object will remain at rest or in perpetual motion until an unbalanced force acts upon it. Think about the ‘organizational change’ (change) you want to bring about as the force. The change will disrupt existing paradigms, processes, myths and methods of working while inculcating the change. So the first lesson in change management is to act upon it. Simple isn’t it!!!

Newton’s Second Law states that the rate of change in motion of an object is proportional to the force acting upon it and inversely proportional to its mass. For this case consider the people working in the old and new regime as the objects. It is easy to drive change in a small organization. Lesser the no. of employees, easier is the change. So the mass is equivalent of the employees of the organization. The force in this case can be seen as the methods, tools or strategies you use to drive organizations. The more aligned these strategies, the easier is the change management. So the second law is simple. In large organizations, many methods/ tools / strategies etc. Must be undertaken to have a successful change management program, while in smaller organizations a few of them should do the trick!!!

Newton’s Third Law seals the holy triangle. Newton’s Third Law states that every action is met with an equal and opposite reaction. This law can be interpreted in management terms of approach to the change management. If management resolves to pressurising employees, forcing things on them without proper explanation, they will receive severe resistance from the employees. On the other hand if the reasons for change are explained in an optimal efficient manner then the resistance is diminished to a level as low as possible. To keep it simple, the ways in which the change agent deals with resisters will be reciprocated by the resisters.

Note:

1. I know this post sounds too simplistic and there are complications which may arise out of any of the above laws. One for example would be top executives leaving as a result of change. But like any law these laws are not full proof. The intention was to develop a simple framework which can be tweaked by anyone to suit their situation.
2. Since I’m not an Engineer like most of my esteemed classmates/friends, forgive my ignorance of any in-depth matters left out from the adaption of the Laws of Motion to this piece.