ABSTRACT
As Kurt Lewin put it, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” Lewin rigorously applied scientific method to planned change. Most important to addressing the immediate situation is participant action research; action research by the people facing the problem: The laws don't do the job of diagnosis which has to be done locally. Lewin was clear that understanding, influencing, and working with authority relationships is critical to planned change. The unfreeze, move, freeze model, referred to by many (but notably not by Lewin) as Change as Three Steps (CATS), intentionally simplifies phenomenon it is describing, as any good theory will. Lewin's action research is full of references to unfreezing the current homeostasis, moving the field, and freezing in place a new configuration of forces. To only focus on CATS as some have done, to critique it as too simple, and to miss how it is woven into his universal model of social science and planned change is a mistake.
