A perspective on a Change Management Model : ADKAR

Change management is a discipline with its practices, processes, and tools known to facilitate and increase the success rates of organizational change in general. It is “the application of a structured process and set of tools for leading the people side of change to achieve the desired business outcome; it is both a process and a competency” (Creasy, 2018).

As a customer success professional, it is striking to observe how much this intersects with the definition of Customer Success Management (see N. Mehta, L. Murphy, etc.).

Why should we care about Change Management?

Because at some stage in our career, each of us may be among people driving change, people living the change from within, or both.

According to an HEC Montreal management professor, Céline Bareil, 75% of large organizations in France have a transformation department. Chances are, those transformation departments are using change management models and methodologies. Even as a citizen, your community or political leaders may use the same intellectual toolbox to drive change.

Change can take different forms. It looks like a new strategy you're asked to implement, a new sales methodology you want your sales force to use (and ultimately need to have them use), or a new technology you are asked to carry out – or as a seller, to make your customers use.

Post-sale professionals – including Customer Success Managers, aka CSMs – are asked and incentivized to make their customers adopt new technologies. I must confess that for a long time, I have heard several pre-conceived ideas about tech adoption:

●?????If the product is excellent, and if it was sold to the right teams at the right moment (i.e., the people who need it, at the time they need it), then adoption shouldn't be a big deal.

●?????When the product is complex, change management is often summarized as "we need to train people.” A few training sessions, and voilà, you guys are ready to hit the ground! Still too complex? We've got a (n expensive) solution for you: consulting.

●?????Change management is “black magic” that ethical people should avoid.

-Pooh, how ever did you recognize me? After all these years.

-Well... You haven't changed a bit.

-But I've changed tremendously.

- Not right here.

A quick review of the ADKAR Change Management Model

In this article, I'm sharing some fresh thoughts on a change management methodology that is standard practice in many organizations: the ADKAR model.

ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government, and Our Community, published by Jeffrey M. Hiatt in 2006, is the first complete text on the ADKAR model and serves as the basis for my review.

The ADKAR methodology focuses on the “people side” of change. ADKAR is an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement – the five outcomes needed for change to be successful. To examine each:

A – Building Awareness: The initial communications and campaigns are necessary to make people realize why the change is needed. Who is communicating (credibility, etc.) is as essential as To Who you're sharing (initial view on the problem, etc.)

D – Creating Desire to support and participate in change: Explaining what’s in it for people individually and having all of the organization’s involvement (including executive sponsorship, among many other things).

K – Develop Knowledge necessary to perform the change: The usual education and training part.

A – Foster Ability that can turn the knowledge into action: Removing mental blocks, helping with coaching, performance monitoring, etc.

R – Reinforce change: Through various techniques such as rewards, celebration, accountability systems, etc.

The ADKAR model dates back to 2003, but change management models have been around since before Jeffrey M. Hiatt's book was published a few years later.

The modern change management process has been described by Kurt Lewin's study on group dynamics in the early 20th century (Lewin is considered as XXth century most prominent social psychologist). I would argue that we can go even further back.

I would refer to Ibn Khaldun, the 14th Century Arab historian and forerunner of modern sociology. Ibn Khaldun wrote a masterpiece on change, Al Muqaddimah. In it, he implies the constant process of change that affects all societies and individuals. His analysis includes the reasons for change and why we need change to keep nations thriving:

“The condition of the world and nations, their customs and sects, does not persist in the same form or a consistent manner. There are differences according to days and periods and changes from one condition to another. This is the case with individuals, times, and cities, and, in the same manner, it happens in connection with regions and districts, periods and dynasties.”

Ibn Khaldun’s work contains many conceptual building blocks that can be found in modern change management processes.

For example, most models stress the importance of involving executive sponsors in the change process and that the sponsors personally embrace, promote and lead by the example. This is found in ADKAR, the General Electric Change Acceleration Process Model, and John P. Kotter's 8-Step Change Model.

Yet, in the 14th Century, Ibn Khaldun wrote: “The widely accepted reason for changes in institutions and customs is that the customs of each race depend on the customs of its ruler.”

In his book Organization Change: Theory and Practice, Professor Warner Burke also reminds us how Frederick Taylor participated in shaping Change Management – yes, the Taylor we all know, who inspired Henry Ford and Lenin, among many others.

Indeed, Taylor's vision of training workers and scientific management strongly resonates with the Knowledge, Ability & Reinforcement parts of the ADKAR model. He suggested many steps to implement change: training, coaching, feedback, giving "friendly help" to employees instead of being "coerced by a boss" (see his book, The Principles of Scientific Management), etc.

Also, the way Hiatt's ADKAR finger points managers (1st Ed., p. 83) is not much different from Taylor's view that “nine-tenths of our trouble comes with men on the management side in making them do their new duties” (Taylor, 1980, p. 21). This is consistent with John P. Kotter's view (“Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” Harvard Business Review, March 1995).

ADKAR and Change Management Models: The Good Side

ADKAR reminds us that change must be planned and include many vital steps beyond a simple communication campaign or training series. As in most change management models, the emphasis is on the change process and the people involved.

The strength of Hiatt’s book lies in its practical examples of how to implement the model, regardless of the qualities of the model itself. While seemingly based more on business experience than scientific evidence, Hiatt’s text carries both advantages and disadvantages of such an approach.

The Awareness phase is packed with examples and elements to consider. Coming back to tech adoption, I've been too often sent to the front to train users on a piece of software for which they had minimal context. No awareness, sense of urgency, or even discussion of the willingness to create a Desire for change was helping. People didn’t always understand the "why," which hindered the entire process.

In situations where you don’t know where or how to start, the ADKAR model provides many practical examples and tactics for implementing each phase. More than that, it gives a few simple but helpful tools: mapping stakeholders to involve in each phase and assessment cards to determine implementation risks.

What I Find Wrong with This Approach

The most commonly used change management models, including ADKAR, are at odds with a few contemporary “schools of thought”. Although those school of thoughts converge in the same direction, that direction has a different name depending on the domain. We can summarize them as “bottom-up approaches” to change. In political science, we call it democracy. In political science, we call it human-centered design. If you're convinced about the benefits of a democracy over a tyranny, the benefits of human-centered design over system-centred design, you may also be convinced by the virtues of participative decision making.

It obviously enhances job satisfaction [1][2]. More generally, democratic-style leadership has been studied extensively by Kurt Lewin, the same Change Management pioneer I mentioned earlier.

Kurt Lewin himself differentiated democratic-style leadership from authoritarian and laissez-faire styles. A major research and real world work he undertook on the subject is called the "Harcourt Experiment" (more on this here). One of his conclusions was that the democratic-style leadership lead to more efficiency than any other modes of organization. Lewin's considerations were not based on ethical grounds but purely from an efficiency standpoint [3].

Nowhere in Hiatt’s book do we find a right for the people involved in the change to challenge “why” the change is needed. They are barely authorised to think about how to change. Not “who” to change, nor “what” to change neither. And if they do challenge the “why,” they are seen as threats to the whole change process (especially in its Awareness phase). The apparent justification is that “employees are not typically exposed to the same information that caused business leaders to initiate a change.”

When it's time to implement the change, the model prescribes to “provide simple, clear choices and consequences.” An example in the book depicts an employee refusing to adopt cross-selling techniques. As a result, the employee “faces the consequences of a reduced role” compared to his colleagues. When the lack of information collides with a so-called choice made to someone, we can only deduce that what is proposed by the author has nothing to do with a will.

Aristotle taught a long time ago that both constrained choices and actions performed by ignorance invalidate consent, and thus, deliberation and choice (Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, Ch. 3, 2.3)

The idea of utilizing asymmetrical information to justify uniform top-bottom approaches to change and simultaneously patronizing employees, combined with advice on targeting managers “resistant” to change (“sacrificial lamb:) [p. 83] may pose clear ethical issues.

That, combined with the necessity to re-discover change management pioneers' work and spirit, reminds us that we should use our good judgment in our future change management challenges.

Walid Hajeri

Disclaimer : Views are my own , none of the ideas expressed in this post are shared, supported, or endorsed in any manner by my current or former employers.

[1] Participative Management and Job Satisfaction: Lessons for Management Leadership , Soonhee Kim, 2002,?Public Administration Review,?vol.?62,?n°2,?pp.?231-241?(Journal)

[2]Pacheco, G.?and?Webber, D.?(2016), "Job satisfaction: how crucial is participative decision making?",?Personnel Review, Vol. 45 No. 1, pp. 183-200

[3] See Desmond, J.?and?Wilson, F.??(2019) Democracy and worker representation in the management of change: lessons from Kurt Lewin and the Harwood studies.?Human Relations, 72(11), pp. 1805-1830.?