21926 Chap.8 ADKAR and Change at the Individual Level
ADKAR and Change at the Individual Level
Change one person at a time
ADKAR, from Jeff Hiatt of the consulting firm Prosci, starts from the view that organisations change only when the people in them do.
It treats organisational change as the sum of individual changes and asks what each person needs to adopt the new way of working.
Five outcomes in sequence
A person needs awareness of why the change is needed, the desire to take part, knowledge of how to change, the ability to do it day to day, and reinforcement so the change lasts.
The order matters: failure at one stage blocks progress to the next, so the model works best as a diagnostic.
Find the first weak element and match the intervention to it, communication for awareness and training for knowledge, rather than defaulting to training for everyone.
Assumptions and limits
The Week 4 tutorial spells out what ADKAR assumes, including that people must want to change and that individual changes add up to organisational change.
The lecture lists its limits: it ignores broader organisational issues, it is linear, it gives little guidance on sustaining change and it suits planned, incremental change. Scaling it to a whole organisation is the hard question, so pair it with an organisation-level model.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Awareness and desire
- 02
Knowledge and ability
- 03
Reinforcement after go-live
- 04
Diagnosing the first weak gate
- 05
What ADKAR assumes
- 06
Scaling individual change
Worked example · free
Find the first weak ADKAR gate for three staff
- 1Shift lead: the first gate, awareness, is weak, so nothing later will hold. Explain the reason, for example fewer wrong deliveries, before any training.
- 1Baker: awareness and desire are in place, but knowledge is missing. Show the ordering steps, then let her practise an order under supervision to build ability.
- 1Assistant manager: awareness and desire show in how she promotes the tablet, knowledge and ability in two months of confident use. The slide began when the weekly check stopped, so reinforcement is the weak gate: restore the check and recognise consistent use.
Key terms
- Desire to Change
- The ADKAR outcome in which a person becomes motivated to take part in and support a change, often by seeing what is in it for them.
- Knowledge of Change
- Understanding how to make a change happen and what it will look like, the third ADKAR outcome.
- Ability to Change
- Being able to carry out a change in daily work, which needs practice, coaching, resources and the removal of obstacles as well as training.
- Reinforcement
- Recognition, feedback, measurement and rewards that keep a new behaviour in place so people do not revert to the old one.
- Change Aggregation
- ADKAR’s assumption that enough individual changes add up to organisational change, which the tutorial questions.
ADKAR and Change at the Individual Level FAQ
What does ADKAR stand for?
Awareness of the need for change, desire to take part, knowledge of how to change, ability to carry the change out day to day, and reinforcement to sustain it. The lecture presents these as the essential outcomes for achieving and keeping change at the level of the individual, developed by Prosci.
Why does the order of ADKAR matter?
The model assumes change is sequential for each person: failure at one stage blocks the later ones. Training someone who does not see the need or does not want the change wastes effort. That is why the tutorial treats ADKAR as a diagnostic: find the first weak element and intervene there.
How is ADKAR different from Kotter's model?
ADKAR looks at change from the individual employee’s point of view, asking what each person needs to adopt it. Kotter looks at it from the leader’s point of view, setting out steps for mobilising the whole organisation. The tutorial treats them as complementary rather than competing.
What are the limitations of ADKAR?
The lecture lists a focus on individuals that ignores broader organisational issues, a linear approach, limited guidance on sustaining change, a fit with planned and incremental change, and a character closer to motivation theory. The tutorial adds the scalability question: how individual change adds up to organisational change.
Can ADKAR be used for a whole organisation?
Only with care. It works well when a change agent can work with individuals, but people differ in readiness and timelines are tight, so moving everyone through five gates is hard to scale. The tutorial advises against using ADKAR as the only framework when power, structure and culture are also changing.
Assessment move
For each ADKAR element, write one question you would ask a person to test whether they have reached it, and one intervention that fits a gap there. Keep the card beside you while you read cases, and practise finding the first weak gate for two or three named individuals in the same situation, since the model works person by person.
Then rehearse the critique: write two sentences on the scalability problem and two on what ADKAR leaves out, such as power and structure, and name an organisation-level model you would pair it with and why. That pairing gives your critique a concrete point to argue. Revisit the cards after Week 9, when ADKAR returns as a tool for individual resistance.
Working through ADKAR and Change at the Individual Level in 21926? Sia is AskSia’s AI Management tutor — ask any 21926 ADKAR and Change at the Individual Level question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how 21926 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.