The ADKAR model

In one paragraph

Change happens one person at a time, and each person needs five things in sequence. Miss one and the change fails, however good the plan.

Awareness — of the need to change. Why now, why at all.

Desire — to participate and support it. Understanding why is not the same as wanting to.

Knowledge — of how to change. What to do differently, specifically.

Ability — to implement the new skills and behaviours. Knowing is not doing.

Reinforcement — to sustain it. Without it, people revert within weeks.

Why the order matters

The sequence is diagnostic. If a change is not happening, work out which letter is missing rather than pushing harder on all five. Training a workforce that does not yet have Desire is expensive and useless; so is announcing Awareness for the fourth time to people who lack Ability.

Most failed changes in small businesses stall at Desire or Reinforcement. The middle three get budget; the outer two get neither.

How to actually use it

• Take a change that is not landing and ask each person which of the five they are missing. The answers are usually specific and cheap to fix.
• Plan Reinforcement before you launch. What will still be happening in three months that makes the new way normal?

Where it breaks down

• Individual-focused, so it says little about structural or political obstacles to change — [Lewin's force field] handles those better.
• Neat and linear on paper; in practice people move back and forth between the stages.

If you are being examined on it

Contrast with Kotter: ADKAR is what one person needs, Kotter is what the organisation does.

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