Most change frameworks describe what the organisation has to do – communicate a vision, redesign a process, launch a new system. ADKAR asks a narrower, more useful question: what does each individual actually need, in order, before they will change their own behaviour?

Five building blocks, not five boxes to tick

Developed by Jeff Hiatt at Prosci from research across hundreds of change efforts, ADKAR breaks individual change into Awareness of the need for change, Desire to participate in it, Knowledge of how to change, Ability to implement new skills, and Reinforcement to make it stick. The order matters: each element is a prerequisite for the next. Training someone before they have Desire is wasted effort, and Reinforcement means nothing if Ability was never built.

Where change efforts actually break down

Most change plans put enormous effort into Awareness – town halls, emails, slide decks explaining what is changing and why – then assume Desire follows automatically. It rarely does. Understanding that a change is happening is not the same as being personally motivated to make it happen, and that gap between Awareness and Desire is where a surprising number of well-communicated changes quietly stall.

The practical takeaway

When a change effort loses momentum, resist the urge to label it “resistance” in general terms. Diagnose which specific building block is missing for which specific group – it is rarely the same answer for every team, and the fix is different for each gap.

We use this kind of diagnosis with leadership teams before recommending where to invest change effort. Talk to us if a change of yours has stalled and you are not sure why.

References

Hiatt, J.M. (2006) ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and Our Community. Loveland, CO: Prosci Learning Center Publications.