9.4 Prosci’s ADKAR change model
The ADKAR change model was developed nearly two decades ago by Prosci founder Jeff Hiatt after studying the change patterns of more than 700 organisations. It looks at change from the viewpoint of the individual rather than at an organisation level. Figure 17 provides an overview.
‘ADKAR’ is an acronym for the five outcomes an individual needs to achieve for a change to be successful:
- Awareness – of the need for change.
Read the brief ‘Awareness - The Prosci ADKAR model' [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] (Prosci, n.d) and watch the short video taken from the article below.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 9
Transcript: Video 9 Awareness - The Prosci ADKAR model
SPEAKER:
The first A in ADKAR is awareness, awareness of the need for change. And it's because change begins with understanding why. This is a question we began asking when we turned about two years old as human beings – why, why, why?
We're seeing it show up all over the business literature, as well. You look at Simon Sinek's Golden Circle. You look at all the work around purpose-driven organisations. The notion of why as a central driving force is becoming more and more evident. Awareness has been the beginning building block of ADKAR since ADKAR was created.
What are the factors that influence awareness? They are things like your view of the current state, how you perceive problems and the credibility of the center. Do you think the current state is broken and needs to get fixed, or do you think the current state is doing great? Because you know what, you're the one that built the current state.
Are you hearing a lot of rumours about the current state, or are you not hearing much about the current state? Do you identify problems as soon as they start to creep up, or are you kind of oblivious until a problem is sort of blatantly right in front of you? Who's telling you this is a problem? Who's telling you that there's a need for change? Is that someone that you trust? Is it someone that is credible? Do you buy into the message?
So that's awareness of the need for change. It's what's the nature – why, why now, what if we don't. And I'm going to make one quick observation here. Notice that it is not awareness that the change is coming. It's awareness of the need for change. It is a subtle but incredibly important difference because I've heard even skilled change practitioners say, oh, we built awareness. We told them when it was coming. Awareness that it's coming is not awareness in the ADKAR model. We define awareness as awareness of the need for change. It's when I've internalised and understand why this is happening in the first place.
Grab your smartphone. We're going to do a couple – we're going to build a real quick word cloud here. That question why we begin asking from the very beginning – what I'm asking here is, what are some of the common reactions that a person is asked to change but they don't understand why? A person is asked to change, but they don't understand why.
This is stupid. Resistance – they resist. They panic – frustration. Sometimes we just ignore, you know? Reluctance, consolidation, apathy. Yeah, I will shut down. The why is so important to open up my receptivity to hear anything else that's about to come and to start to open up to the fact that I might need to take a step out of my current state how I do things today because there might be a need to change. If we don't create that compelling why, we see confusion, resistance, people ignore, we get fear and anger and all of those consequences.
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Video 9 Awareness - The Prosci ADKAR model
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- Desire – to participate and support the change.
Read the brief ‘Desire - The Prosci ADKAR model’ (Prosci, n.d) and watch the short video taken from the article below.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 10
Transcript: Video 10 Desire - The Prosci ADKAR model
SPEAKER:
After awareness, the second building block of the ADKAR model is desire, desire to participate and support the change. It is the personal decision to get on board. It's when you are standing still, and you put your left foot in front of the right foot. You took a step. You made the personal decision that I am going to engage in this change.
There's all kinds of factors that influence desire. It's a very personal component because it is that personal decision. It's an internalisation. It's an internal flip of the switch.
What are the things that influence desire? Well, what's in it for me? Certainly, there is a driver about, what is it actually going to mean for me or my team or us? But there is a, what is the payoff at the individual level?
Organisational context plays a role in influencing desire, too. What else is going on within the organisation? What else am I involved with? What else is hitting me? How do I see myself moving forward or out of or within this organisation?
My personal situation influences desire, absolutely. All of the things that go on in my life, inside and outside of the work walls will influence my personal decision around this particular initiative.
And then finally, what motivates me? Am I internally motivated, externally motivated? Do I need lots of appreciation and acknowledgment? Do I not need any of it? What is it that motivates me? And it's going to trigger that personal decision.
Desire is tricky because it is that personal decision. We cannot make somebody have desire, but we can nudge and influence desire when we better understand these influencing factors.
And I'll give you a little bit of an extra tidbit here on the bottom right. This is a visual I used for many years. I hadn't used it for probably five years now, but I thought it was worth pulling forward because I think it's an interesting view of the same change but different desires.
The same change here is for you to buckle up your safety belt when you're driving. Notice the first sign, buckle up, it could save your life. The second sign, buckle up, it's the law. And then the third sign, click it or ticket, $142 minimum fine.
Fascinating. It's the exact same change getting you to buckle your safety belt, but we have three different appeals to desire – conformity to the law, personal safety, and avoiding that $140 ticket.
Interestingly, I was at the Prosci headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado just a couple of weeks ago. I was driving up from DIA along E-470, and they've got those big old signs that are up above the roadway that they can change out. And as I drove by one, it said, seat belt unbuckled? Seriously?!? Which found fascinating because now here, we are attempting to shame me into making the personal decision to click my seat belt.
After awareness of the need for change comes the desire, the personal decision to engage in the change.
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Video 10 Desire - The Prosci ADKAR model
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- Knowledge – on how to change.
Read the brief ‘Knowledge - The Prosci ADKAR model’(Prosci, n.d) and watch the short video taken from the article below.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 11
Transcript: Video 11 Knowledge - The Prosci ADKAR model’
SPEAKER:
Following desire comes knowledge, the knowledge on what to do. What do I need to know during the change? What do I need to know after the change? Knowledge is important, but it needs context.
Knowledge needs to come after awareness and desire. It's necessary but not sufficient. Now, there are factors that influence your knowledge. Your current knowledge base certainly plays a role. How big is the knowledge gap between what you know today and what you need to know to be successful after this change happens?
Certainly, your learning style and your capability and capacity to learn new things will be important here. Nobody's going to ever be able to teach me math. It's just kind of the way it is. And so there might be inhibitors around my style or capability to learn certain things.
And then resources, what time do I have available? What resources do I have available to help me learn?
Now interestingly, from an ad car observation perspective, knowledge is the knee-jerk default reaction. We have a change we need employees to make. What do we do? Send them to training.
And I use this analogy, the picture of the hammer. If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And before change management became matured to where it is today, before it really got the rigor and the process and structure and repeatability, the way we could try to bring about change was training. It was the hammer we had to swing around.
Training and communication, right? Those are the two hammers we had. And so I think that notion of, if we need somebody to do something differently, send them to training has perpetuated into our organizations today.
Without context, without awareness and desire, the attempt to build knowledge is going to be a miss. We're going to have people sitting at the back of their room with their arms crossed across their chest, wondering what it was they were going to make for dinner that night. Knowledge is critical and necessary, but insufficient when we don't have awareness and desire beforehand.
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Video 11 Knowledge - The Prosci ADKAR model’
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- Ability – to implement certain skills and behaviours.
Read the brief ‘Ability - The Prosci ADKAR model’(Prosci, n.d) and watch the short video taken from the article below.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 12
Transcript: Video 12 Ability – The Prosci ADKAR model
SPEAKER:
The next A is ability to implement the change. This is the notion that change requires action in the right direction. It takes a step forward.
So ability is where we are actually demonstrating the capability to do things the new way. Ability is where I am eating better, I am working out more, I am effectively logging into my payroll system, I am using all of the functionality of Office 365 that I'm supposed to be. Ability is where I'm doing my job the new way.
There are factors that influence ability, certainly, like psychological and physical capabilities and blocks. There are just certain things – I will never be able to run a four-minute mile, I won't be able to do it. So there might be true limiting capabilities or blocks or barriers. Habits can certainly influence my ability to adopt a new set of skills or behaviours or processes or mindsets.
And then availability of time and resources. Do I have coaching? Do I know where to go when I need help? Am I able to practice in a safe environment so that I can hone that ability? So that's ability.
My observation here on the bottom right is that knowledge does not equal ability. I have a lot of people say, Tim, aren't knowledge and ability the same thing? And I encourage them to go golfing with me one time to see the difference between knowledge and ability. And you don't even have to play 18 holes with me, one hole will do.
Because I know how to approach the ball, I know how far apart to keep my feet, I know how I'm supposed to bend my knees, I know I'm supposed to keep my head down. Like, I know that I'm supposed to keep my head down. I have the knowledge that I'm supposed to keep my head down. But I do not have the ability to keep my head down. So knowledge and ability are different. Knowing something and having the capability to do it are different.
Now the knowledge ability gap can be different, it can be wider or narrower, though. Sometimes I'll use the example, you take something like electronic health records rolling into a hospital. You have two doctors, one of them is nearing the end of his time. He's not a big fan of technology. And he still carries a flip phone. And the other one is six months out of medical school, has never not attended school without a tablet in front of them. The knowledge ability gap for using a new touch screen–based electronic health record will be different for those two people.
And for a particular person, different changes are going to have different knowledge ability gaps. When I had to move from Office '03 to Office '07, that was a huge knowledge ability gap for me because I'm a keystroke guy. And so that ribbon kind of ruined my world for a couple of months. But then when I jumped from '07 to '10, the ribbon stayed the same and I had a much smaller knowledge ability gap. Because I had assembled the base level knowledge I needed to interact with that ribbon and relearn all my keystrokes that I needed to get through.
Ability is when the change has happened. Ability is when left foot has gone in front of the right foot. I have demonstrated the capability that I can show up and do things the new way that I need to, that I'm trying to achieve in this change.
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Video 12 Ability – The Prosci ADKAR model
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- Reinforcement – to sustain the change.
Read the brief ‘Reinforcement - The Prosci ADKAR model’(Prosci, n.d) and watch the short video taken from the article below.
Download this video clip.Video player: Video 13
Transcript: Video 13 Reinforcement - The Prosci ADKAR model
SPEAKER:
And then the final building block of ADKARs are reinforcement to sustain the change, that we know we will slide back to what we used to know if we don't reinforce. There are certainly factors that help us make sure the change sticks – things like accountability, the removal or absence of negative consequences, and celebrations and recognition of progress, getting the pat on the back, the thank you. Those are the things that are important around reinforcement.
Now, my observation here is that it is our natural, physical and psychological tendency to revert back to what we know. Comfort is a very powerful thing. And there's actually research showing that it takes more glucose for the brain to do something different than to do things how it always has.
So it's our natural tendency to go back. Reinforcement, then, is critical to sustain the progress and to make sure the change sticks. But reinforcement must be meaningful.
And so my question to you that just popped up on the poll is, what attributes make reinforcement meaningful? Because in order for reinforcement to really ensure that the change sticks, it must be meaningful. It must be meaningful to the person who's receiving it. It must be meaningful relative to the, I think, accomplishment or the change that was made.
Ah, look at this word cloud here. It involves recognition. It is timely. It's sincere. It is credible. It is relevant. It is authentic. It's consistent. Yeah, look at all these things.
Don't give baseball tickets to somebody who doesn't like baseball. Don't applaud somebody for something that they didn't think they actually accomplished. We must be consistent and sincere and authentic and relevant.
That doesn't mean we don't celebrate small things. Don't get me wrong. Throw a humongous celebration for those very small steps that are going to start to build the momentum in the right direction. But let's be sure that we are reinforcing true performance, a true change that has been demonstrated, and that the reinforcement is meaningful to the person who's receiving it.
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Video 13 Reinforcement - The Prosci ADKAR model
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Activity 14 Exploring the Prosci methodology
Timing: 10 minutes
You have now been introduced to the ADKAR model and considered how change can be influenced at an individual level by guiding the change and addressing issues and barriers. Taking individuals on a change journey is critical for success.
The ADKAR model is part of the Prosci methodology, which considers change from the individual and organisational perspective in order to lead to success.
Take some time now to explore this methodology further on the Prosci methodology overview webpage (Prosci, 2022) and consider how individual influencers could enable organisations to implement successful change programmes.
Use the text box below to capture your reflections, if you wish.
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