In Stage 1, Lewin suggests that people who are 'wedded' to the existing way of doing things will resist change. To enable them to move forward and engage with change, they need to experience a process which creates an anxiety about the old way of working. This makes them more open to new solutions, in effect 'unfreezing their status quo'.
Stage 2 of Lewin's model is about enabling people to seek and find new solutions that work. Key to success here is that people should be encouraged to experiment and explore. Mistakes should be expected rather than punished and ways to capture and capitalise on learning are needed. In effect, unless a safe environment for learning has been established in stage 1, stage 2 will not succeed. This includes anticipating operational drops in performance as people 'get their heads around' new systems and processes.
Stage 3, re-freezing, means ensuring that process, culture, role models and reward mechanisms all support the new ways of working, so enabling it to be embedded and become the new 'way we do things here'.