We most honor those who come before us by continuing their work.
I was honored to join the Lewin Center’s inaugural dialogue celebrating its 20th anniversary. I’m Kurt Lewin’s grandson, but I don’t claim any special expertise by inheritance. My connection to his work has been personal, mostly through my mother, and my path into it was indirect: I began in systems engineering and IT, thinking mostly about technology and how to make systems work.
Over time, I came to see that the hardest part of change is rarely the technology itself. It is how people influence change: whether they are heard, whether they can shape what affects them, and whether the surrounding culture (Lewin’s “field”) supports the behavior we hope to see. In that sense, I found my way to Lewin’s work through necessity.
My mother, Dr. Miriam Lewin, shaped my understanding of this legacy. She was a feminist, a psychologist and a scholar whose work included political psychology. Through her life and our conversations, I learned that ideas do not have value locked in books. Great ideas only matter as far as they impact real people in real life: they are expressed in the choices we make, the questions we ask, and the way we treat people.
Our family history (both Lewin and Papanek), including the persecution and loss experienced during the Holocaust, made questions of prejudice, belonging, and responsibility deeply personal in my household growing up.
I saw the lifelong pain they went through, and the incredible humor they still had.
At today’s dialogue, I was struck by how many people are carrying Kurt Lewin’s ideas and values forward in their own work: in social justice, community building, organizational change, action research, and the everyday practice of democracy. A few reflections stayed with me:
- Democracy requires practice. It is more than a value we affirm or a vote we cast. It asks us to participate, listen, and keep working across differences.
- People should help shape the changes they will live with. When the people affected by a decision are involved in designing it, we have a stronger chance of building understanding, ownership, and lasting change.
- Context matters. The same person can behave differently in different environments. In organizations, we often call that environment “culture,” Lewin called it the “field.” In the end, it is the leadership that is responsible for that field or culture. That is why Lewin was so focused on leadership – because of the out-sized impact leaders can have.
- Our work today must be practical, deeply human and based on love. We need to care about results, and we also need to care about how we reach them: whether people are respected, included, and treated with humanity. Lewin’s deepest belief was in the value of every person.
I am grateful, on behalf of the Lewin family, to the Lewin Center and to the many young and old(er) people who continue to make Kurt Lewin’s work relevant, not as history to preserve, but as a resource for meeting the challenges of the present. Thank you for the welcome, the thoughtful dialogue, and the commitment to carrying this work forward.
We most honor those who come before us by continuing their work. I left the gathering today so positive and encouraged by the people already doing that, and mindful that the next part of the legacy belongs to all of us. I am sure my mother and grandfather would be honored by today’s Lewinians and they work they are doing.
