Life Coach Training Tool: Analyzing Force Fields for Decision Making

The Force Field analysis is a graphical tool or visualization tool for supporting decision making is one of my favorite parts of the life coach training program is the part where we are taught about the different tools we can use for our coachee’s future dilemmas.

Good news is, you don’t need to be familiar with Star Wars to understand this tool.

This is what I used when we were thinking about pushing through the wedding in the midst of the pandemic, I’ll show you what I did!

In This Article:
All about Force Field Analysis
How to use this tool
Life coach training example of application
How I used this Tool: Pushing through a wedding during the Pandemic

A certified coaching program will teach an individual how to become a life coach and arm them with several tools they may need for future coaching. Specifically, many tools that can be used for decision making— the Force Field Analysis is just one of them.

All about Force Field Analysis

This tool was developed by Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist and considered one of the pioneers of modern psychology. The Force Field Analysis looks at and weighs the pressures (or forces) that go for and against a particular decision. This is best used for having decisions that can affect a big group or in life-changing situations!
This tool is not too complicated. You can easily create a piece of paper or a simple whiteboard!
The analysis of pressure for and against change is convenient for people who struggle in making tough decisions. It’s as simple as going through the pros and cons but with additional insight to gauge the right call.
When I learned about this in my life coach training, I wished that I could have known it earlier because it is vital to have an effective, structured decision-making technique. Not only can it improve the quality of one’s decisions, but it also increases the chances of success
The concept of Force Field Analysis is that situations are preserved by an equilibrium between forces that drive change and others that resist change. For change to occur, driving forces must be fortified or the resisting forces must be weakened. Below is a representation of it.

How to Use this Tool

Our certified coaching program taught us to use this tool through simple steps as related below. Later in this article I can show you how it can be used in making real-life-decisions.

1. Define your plan or the change that you want to happen in the middle of a piece of paper or whiteboard.
2. List all the forces for change in a column on the left-side (pros), and all of the forces against change (cons) in a column, on the right-side.
3. Assign a specific score for each factor, then add up the scores for each column.
4. You can now then decide whether or not to move forward with the change.
5. On the other hand, you can use your analysis to think about how you can strengthen the forces that support the change (pros) and weaken the forces opposing it (cons), so that the change can beimplemented.

This tool is taught not only in life coaching schools but also in business courses and psychology.

Life coach training example of application

Step 1: Describe Your Plan Put the exact goal or vision for the change that you want to happen, and write it on the box in the middle of the page. Step 2: List all the forces for change Describe and think of all the forces that are driving change. In life coach training these forces are also known as the pros and cons; these can also be internal and external forces. Internal forces can be the following:

• Outdated processes and systems
• Lack of machinery or scarcity of product lines.
• Decreasing team morale.
• An urgent need to drive profitability .

Your external forces can include:

• An unpredictable, volatile operating environment.

• Presence of disruptive technologies.
• Changing demography

When you have identified the forces driving change (or pro-change), write them down on the left-hand side of the Force Field Analysis. Step 3: Identify Forces Against Change Now this time, think of all the the forces that resist or are unfavorable to change (cons). Internal forces against change (resistors and restrainers) could include:

• Fears of new technology or process.
• Existing traditional organizational structures.
• Attitudes that favor and are comfortable with the old process

External factors might be:

• Current commitments to partner companies and organizations.
• Government policies.
• Responsibilities toward your customers.

List them down on the right-hand side of your Force Field Analysis.

Step 4: Assign a Specific Scores The next thing that you will do will be to score each force. You can score them from one (weak) to five (strong), which is according to the degree of influence each force has on the plan (vision for a change). Add the scores for each column (for and against; pros and cons). You can draw arrows to visualize the influence that each force has. Make more prominent arrows for the forces with a more significant impact on the change and smaller arrows for forces with a weaker impact. Step 5: Analyze to Apply or Tweak With a done force field analysis, you can now use it to decide or tweak the force to align with your goal or vision.

• Deciding whether or not to move to the decision or change, you can just leave the analysis.

You can also opt to tweak the forces by strengthening supportive troops and/or weakening opposing or resisting forces.

How I used this Tool: Pushing through a wedding during the Pandemic

Here is the Force Field Analysis that I came up with as I was deciding whether I will push through our wedding or not. As you can see, the Cons were more prominent in the analysis. And you know what, I still decided to push on the wedding! Why? Because I tweaked the limited guests’ force to become just a tiny force by trimming down my guests into just 50 people, that way, we can push through our selected venue even when restrictions for venue capacity come up again. We’re also able to trim down the people’s anxiety of big crowds by having preventive protocols like wearing masks, masks’ availability for guests, social distancing, and organized crowd control. Although we paid a bit more for it was truly worth it. I bet I wouldn’t have a good overview of the situation if I haven’t learned about this tool from life coach training! A Professional Decision Making Coach will not make the decision for you. This Force Field Analysis is just one of the tools that you may learn from life coaching schools.