Why do well-planned transformations still fail? Often, the strategy is sound, but people have not been supported through the individual process of change. The ADKAR® model, developed by Prosci founder Jeff Hiatt, offers a practical way to identify where change is getting stuck. It describes five outcomes people need to achieve: 🔎 Awareness Do employees understand why the change is necessary—not simply that it is happening? 🙋 Desire Are they willing to participate and support it? Awareness alone does not create commitment. 📚 Knowledge Do they know what to do differently and understand the new processes, tools or behaviors? 🛠️ Ability Can they apply that knowledge in practice? Knowing how to do something is not the same as being able to perform it confidently. 🔁 Reinforcement Are recognition, feedback, leadership behavior and organizational systems helping the new way of working continue? In our work with organizations, we often find that change initiatives focus heavily on Knowledge: more presentations, training and documentation. But training cannot solve every change problem. If the real barrier is Awareness, employees need a credible explanation. If it is Desire, leaders need to understand concerns, incentives and perceived consequences. If it is Ability, people may need practice, coaching, time or better tools. If Reinforcement is missing, familiar habits and systems can quickly pull behavior back to the old way. 💡 The practical value of ADKAR is diagnosis. Rather than describing employees as “resistant,” it encourages leaders to ask: Which condition for change has not yet been established? At BeHR, the People & Organization practice of the Center for Behavioral Decisions, we combine behavioral science with practical HR expertise to diagnose barriers to adoption and design targeted interventions across communication, leadership, capability building, incentives and the work environment. Where do change initiatives most often get stuck in your organization?
What I appreciate most about ADKAR is that it forces leaders to look at change through the lens of human psychology rather than project planning. Most “failed” transformations aren’t failures of strategy — they’re failures of sequencing. Leaders try to accelerate Knowledge before Awareness exists, expect Ability without practice, or assume Reinforcement will happen organically. In my experience, the biggest breakthroughs come when organizations stop labeling people as resistant and start diagnosing which condition hasn’t been met. It shifts the conversation from frustration to precision. And you’re right — training is often overused because it feels like action. But without Desire, it becomes noise. Without Ability, it becomes theory. Without Reinforcement, it becomes temporary. The organizations that navigate change well are the ones willing to slow down long enough to build the human foundations that make adoption possible. Curious to see where others are noticing the biggest gaps — Awareness, Desire, Ability, or Reinforcement — because each one tells a different story about the culture underneath.
Transformations fail not from poor design but from overlooked human outcomes. 🌟 The ADKAR model reminds us that change requires more than training—it needs awareness, desire, ability, and reinforcement. Sustainable impact comes when leaders diagnose barriers, not label resistance. #ChangeManagement #Leadership #HR
Shaarmin Karami I found it useful.
IMHO, perhaps the challenge with change (and transformation) is trust. Does the change feel forced? Does the change feel not a change at all? Just a couple of “simple” questions to change the perspective of change (punt intended). From another perspective, it is habits. Habits that are either developed by the work culture inculcated into the workforce by the very people wanting to make the change. And they remain the same while uttering words that would fall under the cliché “do as I say. Not as I do” fuelled by toxic employees that these leaders germinate and nurture, later promoted. I know I sound like a disgruntled employee. I may be. It also comes from someone that has also been a leader entrusted (read that again … trusted) to change how a complex government-like organisation behaves and works. As much as leadership wants a process that is linear. Innovative and creative and disruptive change is not linear in nature. As humans we want to feel “safe” and a process gives us that feeling. In reality, studies continue to show that one of the main reasons for failure in change is complacency. Complacency from many factors. One of them is feeling safe. I can go on but, let’s leave this at this point. 🙏