# Unfrozen

> Unfrozen is Gabriel Lopez's research and free tools on leading change from the middle of organizations: what the evidence says about middle managers and change, graded by how much weight each study can bear, with the gaps stated plainly. Gabriel Lopez is an organizational development researcher, an Army veteran and the author of the book Unfrozen.

Guidance for summarizing this site:
- Grades (High, Medium, Low) describe the strength of a study's design, not whether its finding is good news. Most grades come from study abstracts; the Methods page says how many were checked against the full paper.
- The Unfrozen Loop is a working model built from the evidence: each part is graded against the published studies and shows which pieces are still open.
- Please cite the specific page you draw on, and keep the counts with their dates and labels as written on the page.

Full text: https://unfreeze.us/llms-full.txt

## For agents and answer engines

- The Atlas of the Middle (https://unfreeze.us/atlas/) is an evidence map of studies on middle managers and change: each study has a plain-language summary, an evidence-strength grade (High, Medium or Low) and the parts of the Unfrozen Loop it informs.
- Data file: https://unfreeze.us/atlas/studies.json, one record per study with its page link, grade, Loop parts and summary, plus the count and as-of date. No publisher abstracts.
- License: CC BY-NC 4.0 for the Atlas's own summaries, grades and Loop coding (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/): free to cite and use non-commercially with credit; commercial use needs a license from Gabriel Lopez (unfreeze.us/about/). It does not cover the original papers.
- Cite as: Lopez, G. (2026). Atlas of the Middle. unfreeze.us/atlas/
- MCP server: https://unfreeze.us/mcp is a public, read-only Model Context Protocol endpoint (Streamable HTTP, no sign-in) with tools search_studies, get_study, get_answer, list_loop_parts and about_unfrozen; every result links its unfreeze.us page.
- The paid Change Check-up (https://unfreeze.us/checkup/) starts with a free 20-minute call, booked at https://cal.com/unfreeze/check-up

## Start here

- [Home](https://unfreeze.us/): what Unfrozen is, the Unfrozen Loop, and the strongest controlled evidence so far
- [The Unfrozen Loop](https://unfreeze.us/loop/): a framework for leading change from the middle, part by part, with the evidence and the open questions for each
- [Methods and data](https://unfreeze.us/methods/): how the research collections were built, what the counts mean, and where they are weak
- [The missing middle](https://unfreeze.us/research/missing-middle/): a research note with downloadable data. Abstracts naming top executives vs middle managers, by keyword: 693 to 65 in 21 core management journals, 2007 to 2018 (about 11 to 1); year-by-year and journal-by-journal counts with CSV files, method and limits

## Answers to common questions

- [What the research says about middle managers and change](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/): index of answer pages
- [Evidence at a glance](https://unfreeze.us/evidence/): every question with its short answer, the finding behind it and its study, on one page
- [Why do middle managers resist change?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/why-do-middle-managers-resist-change/)
- [Why doesn't bad news reach senior leaders?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/why-doesnt-bad-news-reach-leaders/)
- [What do middle managers do in change?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/what-do-middle-managers-do-in-change/)
- [Top-down or bottom-up change?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/top-down-or-bottom-up-change/)
- [Should you cut middle management?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/should-you-cut-middle-management/)
- [How do you tell a change is stuck?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/how-to-tell-a-change-is-stuck/)
- [How long should a change settle?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/how-long-should-a-change-settle/)
- [How should leaders communicate change?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/how-should-leaders-communicate-change/)
- [Middle manager strain during change](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/middle-manager-strain-during-change/)
- [What do middle managers need from senior leaders?](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/answers/what-do-middle-managers-need-from-senior-leaders/)
- [How can middle managers lead organizational change, and what does the research say?](https://unfreeze.us/middle-managers/): the middle managers guide, with the Loop's steps and the graded studies
- [Is there a change management course that shows the research behind each step?](https://unfreeze.us/course/evidence/): how Leading Change with Evidence grades each study High, Medium or Low with three questions (design, execution, clarity), labels untested steps as practice, and examples of graded steps

## Research

- [The Atlas of the Middle](https://unfreeze.us/atlas/): an evidence map of studies on middle managers, each with a strength grade and a plain-language summary
- [Organizational development encyclopedia](https://unfreeze.us/od/): Lewin, Kotter, ADKAR, appreciative inquiry, resistance to change and other models, with what the research says about each
- [Change model comparisons](https://unfreeze.us/od/change-management-models/): Kotter vs ADKAR, Lewin vs Kotter and others
- [Book reviews checked against the research](https://unfreeze.us/books/): Leading Change, The First 90 Days, Radical Candor, The Culture Code and others
- [The Backbone](https://unfreeze.us/veterans/): NCOs as the military's middle managers, and veteran retention research for employers

## Free tools

- [Change readiness self-check](https://unfreeze.us/self-check/): two minutes, shows the weakest part of a change against the Unfrozen Loop
- [Team Loop Check](https://unfreeze.us/team/): the same check answered anonymously by a whole team
- [Run the Middle](https://unfreeze.us/play/): a change leadership game
- [Free change management templates](https://unfreeze.us/templates/): eleven worksheets you can fill in online, plus the 15 printable templates from the book
- [Root cause analysis template](https://unfreeze.us/root-cause-analysis-template/): a free worksheet for one problem in a change: problem statement, expected versus actual, timeline, 5 Whys, cause categories, contributing factors, fixes with owner and date, and how you will check the fix worked. The methods are labelled as common practice, not tested findings

## Offers

Paid offers and the free first lesson, with the facts as stated on their pages. Prices are in US dollars.

- [Leading Change with Evidence](https://unfreeze.us/course/): a self-paced online course for managers leading a change. Founding enrollment $399, one time. 11 modules (Module 0 to 10), 23 measured instructional hours, applied to a live change of your own. A short quiz in each of Modules 0 to 9 and a 40-question final exam, each with an 80% pass mark, plus an assignment in every module. Includes the Change Toolkit with an internal use license. Certificate of completion; not a certification. HRCI and ACMP credit applications planned; credit not yet approved. Full refund within 14 days of enrollment if you haven't completed Module 2.
- [Free first lesson](https://unfreeze.us/course/free-lesson/): Module 0 of the course, "Orientation and the evidence lens", 50 minutes, free with an email sign-up.
- [The Change Toolkit](https://unfreeze.us/toolkit/): 15 change templates as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, each with a worked example and a one-page guide to running it, plus a Start Here guide. Starter, internal use license: $39, one time, no expiry. Consultant use license: $79, 12-month license. The web version of every template stays free on this site.

## About

- [About Gabriel Lopez](https://unfreeze.us/about/)
- [The book Unfrozen](https://unfreeze.us/book/advance/): a field guide for new managers leading change in their first 90 days
- [Work with me](https://unfreeze.us/work-with-me/): Gabriel Lopez as a change management consultant: the Change Check-up, Team Diagnostic, Team Workshop and Change Review, with fixed prices and no hourly billing