Newton’s 3rd Law of Change
Close your eyes, and think back to your High School physics class. Think back to the lectures on Isaac Newton, specifically his three laws of motion.
Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Force = Mass x Acceleration
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I want to focus on his third law, specifically from the perspective of change management.
Newton’s third law isn’t really about motion, it’s more about force. Change is a force. If you have ever been involved in any sizeable change project, then you will know that it truly is a force, one that will cause ripple effects of change and resistance throughout the entire organization. Possibly even beyond just the organization.
Newton’s third law states that for every force that is applied, there will be an equal and opposite reaction.
Let’s go ahead and replace the word force with change, and the word reaction with resistance.
For every change, there will be an equal and opposite resistance.
No matter how much planning, or how much pre-work you put in, there will always be resistance to change. And the greater the scope of change, the greater the resistance.
It’s part of the nature of change management. The sooner one accepts this, the sooner you can plan an effective strategy for successfully implementing the change.