From Urgency to Understanding & ADKAR to DAKAR & an interview with John Kotter (nearly)

Where does change begin? With an awareness of the need to change or a sense of urgency?

Or neither?

It is a complex problem. Should senior management start with the solution to give people a sense that everything is under control? Or should it be more bottom-up where people are empowered to highlight opportunities for change?

It is important because the behaviours management need to exhibit are different. Top-down means good 'selling & telling' skills whereas a bottom-up approach is more listening & inquiring. It also takes a different decision-making process. For a bottom-up approach authority to make decisions needs to be well distributed and teams need to be self-managed.

Maybe one way to break down this complex problem is to use first principle thinking or reverse engineer the problem. We can break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up.

One common technique is the '5 whys' which allows us to dig deeper into a causal pathway. The ‘5 whys’ technique has its limitations and is ‘one component of what should be a far more comprehensive problem-solving process’. But hopefully, using this technique might help us understand that there is more depth and breadth in understanding where to start a change programme than popular models suggest.

An interview with John Kotter (nearly)

In his 2012 revision of his book 'Leading Change' John Kotter reiterates the need to start with urgency stating

'I truly believe it is impossible to overstate the severity of the challenges caused by an inadequate or unaligned sense of urgency.'

So, imagine we are interviewing John Kotter on why he thinks a 'sense of urgency' should be the start of all change programmes. Here we go...

Hi John - in the first chapter of your book on ‘Leading Change’ you state that it is critical to establish ‘a sense of urgency’ (p.37)

ME : Why do you think change starts with a ‘sense of urgency’?

JK : Because organisations are ‘canyons of complacency’ (p.38)

ME : Why do you think organisations are ‘canyons of complacency’?

JK - Because ‘we underestimate the enormity of the task’ (p.37)

ME : Why do ‘we underestimate the enormity of the task’ ?

JK : Because people will find ‘a thousand ingenious ways to withhold cooperation from a process that they sincerely think is unnecessary or wrongheaded’? (p.38)

ME : Why do you think people might feel the change is ‘unnecessary or wrongheaded’? (p.38)

JK : Because management are ‘committed to the status quo’ (p44)

ME : Why are management ‘committed to the status quo’

JK : Because they do not ‘muster up the courage to listen carefully’ (p52)

After asking the '5 Whys' the starting point of change is not creating a sense of urgency but listening to different opinions to 'counteract insider myopia with external data' (p52). So, there is a step before urgency which is understanding the context of the change.

From ADKAR to DAKAR

You can apply the same approach to Prosci's ADKAR model. This time I will interview Jeffery Hiatt who wrote ‘ADKAR - A model for business, government and our community.’  In the book Hiatt states

'Awareness is the first element of the ADKAR model and is achieved when a person is aware of and understands the nature of the change'

So here we go...

Hi Jeff - in the first chapter of your ADKAR book you state that awareness is 'The first step to enable a change' (p.5)

ME : Why does change always start with Awareness?

JH : Because 'Meeting the human need to know 'why' is critical factor in managing change' (p5)

ME: Why do think people need to know the 'why' of change?

JH: Because people want to know the 'business reasons for the change' (p6)

ME: Why do they want to know the 'business reasons for change'?

JH : Because they want to 'align themselves with the direction of the organisation' (p.6)

ME: Why do they want to 'align themselves with the direction of the organisation'

JH : The answer to this is in Chapter 3 entitled 'Desire'. People have different desires, as an example one could be the 'desire to help others and make a difference in our world' (p.20)

ME : Why do you think having Desire is important in organisational change?

JH : Because our Desires (personal motivators) are 'inherent attributes that make us individuals' (p20)

So, shouldn't change starts with understanding people's Desires or intrinsic motivations? Aren't their Desires their 'why'? So maybe its DAKAR rather than ADKAR?

Reassembling change

Great! We now know that one of the reasons organisations might find it difficult to start change is because they

do not muster up the courage to listen carefully (Kotter) and so don't really understand people's desires/motivations (Hiatt) to change. 

Now we need to take this 1st principle of change and rebuild it into a coherent evidence-based set of actions. This will help us understand what organisations really need to do to successfully manage ongoing change.

So here we go…

Q1 - How can we help managers have the courage to listen carefully and understand people's motivations?

A1 - The best available evidence suggests that to take interpersonal risks at work, i.e. mangers to listen & inquire and team members to talk about their motivators, people need to feel psychologically safe.

Q2 - How do we create a psychologically safe environment?

A2 - The evidence suggests that psychological safety can be created by giving people clear roles, receiving support from their peers and working in an accountable team where people understand how their tasks are interlinked.

Q3 – How do we create clear roles, peer support, an accountable team with an understanding of their interdependencies?

A3 – Ensuring the team understand how their roles contribute to the team’s purpose and how this impacts on the organisation’s purpose.

Q4 – How do I link the team’s purpose to the organisations purpose?

A4 - By setting clear goals and understanding what development people need to achieve those goals then linking those goals to the organisation’s goals.

Q5 – How do I set goals and ensure people meet those goals?

A5 – Evidence suggests that how you set goals depends on the person’s beliefs about how capable they are. Set ‘do your best’ targets for new skills and challenging specific goals when they have mastered a task. People’s reaction to your feedback will have a bigger impact on their performance than the actual feedback so ensure your feedback is fair and positive.

Focus on four areas of change

So, I would suggest that we look to start change by focussing on these 4 areas:

1. People's cognitive capability to change - Do people think they are capable of change and what would it take to make them feel that way? If they fail, do they think they can bounce back? Do they see change as an opportunity to grow & flourish? And would they feel they have some control over the change? This would measure how deep the individual’s commitment to change is and how sustainable it is.
2. People's behavioural capability to change - If people feel they can change will they take the decision to act? Are their goals aligned to the change? Do they have the right skill set & clarity of role? Will they be held accountable and do they have access to the necessary feedback to keep them motivated & focussed? This would measure whether people can clearly see their impact on the change creating momentum & direction.
3. Organisation's structure, systems & processes support the change - Do the talent & performance management processes support the change? Are the processes applied fairly? This would measure whether the change will have high impact on the organisation's performance.
4. Organisation's culture supports the change - Do managers have the skills to support people through the change? Are there people who can lead the change? Will the change build on working relationships? Do people feel they can express their views? And can the organisation form a clear purpose? This would measure whether the change will have a wide impact - will it be local or global?

When we start breaking down the root causes that create change capability, we find that Kotter and Hiatt's models start in the wrong place. One place to start building change capability is with understanding rather than urgency so that we can start with creating desire not just awareness.

If we start with understanding and desire, maybe we can implement change both top-down and bottom-up. When people understand their roles, how they connect to the organisation’s purpose and have ongoing conversations to align their goals then change becomes business as usual.

Maybe this way change becomes more engaging because it is a point at which possibilities are infinite not a prescribed programme; singularities of change where we create our own realities and where questions we ask determine everyone’s future. I would challenge you to find anyone who would resist that type of change.