Four Forces That Make or Break Your Change Initiative [Free Worksheet]

Beyond "Managing" Change

The JTBD methodology helps us understand why people "hire" specific solutions, and what causes them to switch to another. The Forces Diagram visualizes the competing pressures influencing any decision to change.

Unfortunately, many change efforts fail because they focus only on communication and training, neglecting four critical success factors:

1. Clearly defining the specific change causing resistance
2. Articulating why the change is necessary and who decided it
3. Describing the future state and its advantages
4. Understanding the true sources of resistance

The Forces Diagram addresses these gaps by revealing what's really holding change targets back, allowing for more targeted and effective interventions. There are more complex models for going "beneath the surface" of change resistance, but I find this one to be an easier start.

The Four Forces

The Forces Diagram (​downloadable here​) frames the energy required to switch from the current state to a new, future state. It describes four competing forces, which can be expressed functionally and emotionally:

1. Push of the Present: The pain points, frustrations, or limitations of the current situation that motivate change.

• Functional: "Our current system crashes daily"
• Emotional: "I'm embarrassed when I can't access critical information in front of clients"

2. Pull of the Future: The benefits, opportunities, or aspirations that make the proposed change attractive.

• Functional: "The new system will reduce processing time by 50%"
• Emotional: "I'll feel more confident and trusted with reliable tools"

3. Anxieties of the New: The fears, uncertainties, or concerns about what the change will entail.

• Functional: "Will I need to learn complex new processes?"
• Emotional: "I might look incompetent during the transition"

4. Habit (Inertia) of the Present: The comfortable routines, familiar processes, and psychological inertia keeping us doing things the same way.

• Functional: "My current workflow is automatic to me now"
• Emotional: "I built my reputation on mastering the current system"

Change happens when the combined strength of push and pull forces exceeds the combined strength of anxieties and habits. Depending on the change at hand, it may help to explore other factors in each quadrant, such as culture, technology, cost, and place. At the very least, this sub-classification can tease out a broader range of ideas during a workshop.

Real-World Example: HR Chatbot

Let's see how this works in practice with a common, current “future of work” scenario: an HR department wants to implement a new AI chatbot as the primary channel for employee inquiries.

Here's how a Forces Diagram exercise might break down the change resistance and opportunities:

Push of the Present:

• Functional: The HR team is overwhelmed with repetitive questions, provides inconsistent answers to similar questions, and regularly takes 2-3 days to respond.
• Emotional: Employees are frustrated waiting for basic information, and HR professionals feel underutilized on strategic initiatives.

Pull of the Future:

• Functional: The AI chatbot is available 24/7 across all time zones, offers immediate responses, and frees HR for more complex work.
• Emotional: HR adopts innovative technology to relieve repetitive question fatigue and improve employee experience.

Anxieties of the New:

• Functional: Concerns arise regarding the chatbot's ability to understand nuanced questions, the privacy of sensitive data, and technical implementation challenges.
• Emotional: HR employees fear losing their jobs and worry about losing personal connections with their internal clients.

Habit (Inertia) of the Present:

• Functional: Employees have established workflows for emailing specific HR contacts and are familiar with current systems.
• Emotional: Employees trust the expertise of their known HR team members due to the natural comfort of human interaction.

Looking at this diagram, we can see that this change faces significant emotional headwinds. While the functional case for change might be strong, the emotional anxieties and habits could easily derail adoption.

Rather than plowing ahead with implementation and communication, this analysis suggests the HR transformation team might need to:

1. Sell employees on the benefits of reduced speed to answer
2. Address job security concerns transparently before rollout
3. Clarify which types of interactions will remain human-supported
4. Demonstrate how the chatbot handles nuanced questions
5. Implement "office hours" to maintain some human connection

Without examining these forces, we might have blamed "resistance to technology" for low adoption when the real issues run much deeper.

Using Forces Diagrams in Your Team

When I use this exercise with clients, it nearly always reveals resistance factors the team hadn't previously considered. Here's how to run a Forces Diagram workshop in under 30 minutes:

1. Define the specific change clearly and precisely
2. Create a 2x2 grid with the four forces labeled
3. Independently add functional and emotional factors per quadrant
4. Group similar items, discuss patterns, and identify strongest forces
5. Design targeted interventions that address the key barriers

The real power comes from including the people affected by the change in this process. ​Download my one-page guide below​ to get started right away.

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The critical insight of the Forces methodology is that properly classifying resistance reveals the true barriers to adoption.

When you understand whether resistance is emotional or functional, individual or systemic, you can design targeted interventions instead of generic change management tactics. If employees aren't ready to "fire" the current state, they won't be ready to "hire" your vision of the future, no matter how compelling.

Why the Forces Diagram Works

The Forces Diagram transforms your change management approach by:

• Revealing barriers that traditional change management misses
• Distinguishing resistance types to guide effective interventions
• Creating shared understanding between leaders change targets
• Preventing wasted effort on generic, inffective change tactics

The Forces Diagram isn't meant to eliminate resistance; it's designed to help us understand and work with it. By acknowledging both the rational and emotional factors at play, we create change strategies that are more empathetic, precise, and ultimately more effective.

When combined with a clear ​“North Star”​ vision, these complementary tools help us navigate complexity with confidence, turning the Force(s) of change into a force for good.

If you don't have a change in mind to try this with immediately, pretend you are a CEO struggling to get people back into the office. I promise that exercise will be eye opening no matter which side of the debate you're on.

May the Forces be…err…you know the rest. Happy change leading!