force how quickly or slowly it can be changed. However, this is not
necessarily a simple process, because increasing the driving forces or
decreasing the restraining forces may increase or decrease other forces or even
create new ones.
In assessing how the forces can be changed it is obviously of the utmost
important to focus on the contenders. It is necessary to see how they might be
influenced to alter their own fields.
Step 6: Making the Decision
Step 6 is to make the decision. Decide if it is feasible to seek the goal or to
make the contemplated change. If change is possible, it is necessary to devise
a manageable course of action. This should aim to accomplish the desired goal
or change by accomplishing three things -
strengthening positive forces,
negative forces and creating new positive forces,
Force Field Diagram
The Force Field Diagram is a model built on this idea that forces are both
driving and restraining change. This diagram is set out in the Appendix.
These forces include: persons, habits, customs, and attitudes. A Force Field
Diagram can be used at any level: personal, project, organizational, network, to
visualize the forces that may work in favour and against change initiatives. The
diagram helps its user to picture the "war" between forces around a given
issue. Usually, a planned change issue is described at the top. Below this, there
are two columns. The driving forces are listed in the left column, and the
restraining forces in the right-hand column. Arrows are drawn towards the
middle. Longer arrows indicate stronger forces. The idea is to understand, and
to make explicit, all the forces acting on a given issue.
System Accidents
Introduction
System accident was a name devised by Charles Perrow a distinguished social
scientist, who studied among other things organisationational behaviour.
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Later he replaced the expression system accident with “normal accident.”
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His central argument runs as follows. System accidents occur in systems that
possess two characteristics. They are complex and they are tightly coupled. A
system accident
is an accident which involves the unanticipated interaction of
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His famous text on this is Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay (ISBN 0-
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Charles Perrow (1984) Normal Accidents: Living With High Risk Technologies
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