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ADKAR — Individual Change
A specific person or team is stuck and you need to know at which step
Score the five questions and it finds the first blocked step — then checks your intended next action against it, because you cannot fix a Desire gap with more Knowledge.
From Prosci. Its value isn’t as a programme plan — it’s as a diagnostic for an individual. Change happens one person at a time, and each person is stuck at exactly one step. Identify that step and you know what to do.
The five sequential steps
| Step | The person’s internal state | Stuck here means | What actually helps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness | “I understand why this change is happening” | They’ve heard the announcement but not the reason | The business case, in their language; their manager, not a town hall |
| Desire | “I’ve decided to participate” | They get it and still won’t | WIIFM, involvement in design, addressing the personal cost honestly |
| Knowledge | “I know how to change” | Willing but doesn’t know how | Training, job aids, coaching |
| Ability | “I can actually do it in my job” | Knows in the classroom, fails at the desk | Practice, time, support at the moment of use, removing obstacles |
| Reinforcement | “It’s sticking” | Did it for three weeks, reverted | Recognition, measurement, consequences, system defaults |
The order is strict. You cannot fix a Desire gap with more Knowledge — but that’s exactly what organisations do. When people resist, we send more training. It never works, and it’s expensive.
The diagnostic question set
Ask any individual, in order. Stop at the first “no” — that’s your barrier.
- Can you tell me why we’re making this change? (Awareness)
- What’s your personal view on it — do you want it to happen? (Desire)
- Do you know how to do the new thing? (Knowledge)
- When you sat down to actually do it, what happened? (Ability)
- What would make you keep doing it in six months? (Reinforcement)
Score 1–5 per step. Anything ≤3 is the barrier. Don’t work on later steps until it’s cleared.
Rolled up to a group
Sample 10–15 people across roles and score each. The pattern tells you where the programme is failing:
| Pattern | Meaning | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Low A across the board | Comms failed or never reached the line | Managers cascade, not email — Manager Conversation Guide |
| High A, low D | They understand and object | You have a real design or trust problem — Resistance Decoder |
| High D, low K | Enthusiasm outrunning enablement | Training, job aids |
| High K, low A(bility) | Classic training-without-support | Floorwalkers, protected practice time, Nudge Library |
| Everything high, low R | You’re 90 days from full reversion | Embedding and Reinforcement urgently |
For senior leaders
ADKAR is the easiest framework to get an exec to actually use, because it’s five words and they can apply it to themselves. Ask a leadership team to privately score themselves on the change. The spread in the room is usually the most revealing data you’ll get all quarter — and it’s often a Desire gap at the top, which nobody has said aloud.
Where ADKAR is weak
- It’s linear and individual — it says little about systems, incentives, power or the physical environment. Pair with COM-B and the Behaviour Change Wheel.
- It can encourage a checkbox mentality (“Awareness — done, we sent the email”).
- It doesn’t tell you what intervention to use, only where the gap is.
Links
→ Sponsor Briefing Pack — sponsors own Awareness and Desire; managers own Knowledge and Ability → Manager Conversation Guide
← Back to the Behavioural Change Toolkit