Can I Offer You Some Feedback? - Episode #113
Show Notes:
For this week’s Business Bite, Sara covers the popular ADKAR model framework, focusing on an individual’s experience during organizational change and using that experience to maximize effectiveness on both an individual and organizational level. Sara shares examples of how the ADKAR model can be used and provides tips for implementing it in your organization. Subscribe for new weekly episodes!
Below we are offering a transcript of the podcast for accessibility and reference.
Episode #113: Business Bites: ADKAR Model
Welcome to Business Bites. My name is Sara. This is the podcast for busy professionals who want the quick hits of business terminology, historical context, and strategies for integration. Today, we're diving into the ADKAR model, a framework for managing change in organizations. The ADKAR model was developed by Prosci and stands for awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement.
It outlines the stages individuals go through in the change process and provides a structured approach to facilitating successful change. When we think about this specific model of change, it focuses on getting individuals to understand first with awareness, want with desire, the ability to learn in knowledge, be able to with ability, and to reinforce or stick with the new way of doing things. Each of these areas is critical when we think about the change that we're trying to introduce. Developed in the early 2000s by Prosci, this model is based on research into change management and focuses on the individual's experience during organizational change. It aims to address the human side of change and ensure successful implementation and adoption. If you think about change in your own life,
You may have one or two of the aspects covered, not one of the critical ones to be able to be successful with that change. For example, awareness. You may know why you need to make the change. If we think about desire, you may want to make that change. For knowledge, you may know what you need to do to make that change. But when we get to ability, you may not have capacity to make this change.
There are only so many hours in the day. Maybe you only have so many resources. Maybe you don't have time, ability, money, whatever it might be. And so whether or not you want it or you understand it doesn't mean you're going to be able to be successful at it. The last one is reinforcement, right? This is one that we talk about when folks are implementing New Year's resolutions. Again, you may want to, you may know how, you may have bought the new gadget that's going to help you get that thing done.
But if you don't have reinforcement systems in place, you're only going to do it for the first couple of weeks of the year and not maintain that new habit over time. Let's talk about implementing these changes in an organizational setting. In our first example, let's think about implementing new software. When an organization is rolling out new software, the ADKAR model is used to ensure that employees are aware of the change, they want to use the new system,
They have the knowledge or the training to be able to operate it. They have the ability to use it effectively and they receive reinforcement to maintain its use. Installing new software is the easy part, right? Your IT team could go out there, install the new program and that's it. That's a project management perspective, right? The rollout is easy. Getting people to use the software is the hard part. That's what we call adoption.
And so when we're thinking about the change process, we talked about rolling out the new software and making sure that each of the five areas was taken care of. Let's talk about a second example. Let's say we're doing an organizational restructuring and we want to use the ADKAR model to guide employees through the change. This involves being aware of why the change is happening, not just telling people, but really explaining why we're making this change, fostering a desire for the new structure.
Is this new structure that we're going to be implementing better or desirable as compared to the last structure? Provide training for individuals who may need it. Let's say they're taking a new job or a new role. They need to understand the new terminology related to it. That training or building knowledge is really critical. We need to support the transition.
How are these individuals going to be supported through the transition along with their day-to-day job? There is such a thing as change saturation when we think about having too much change at a specific time. Your folks need the capacity to be able to make this change. Lastly, reinforcing the organizational setup. You're rolling out a new organizational chart and if folks don't understand it, don't know what it is, don't have the ability, and you're allowing them to go back to old pathways, go back through old chains of command, you aren't reinforcing that new structure.
Let's talk about some tips for implementing the ADKAR model. One of the most important things to do when you're starting out with ADKAR is to communicate effectively. Clear and consistent communication throughout each stage of the ADKAR model is essential.
Effective communication builds awareness and desire and supports individuals throughout the change process. The second tip that I can offer you is to provide support and training. Training is an obvious thing that a lot of organizations jump to. Well, we're doing something new, train everyone. Training is important. It gives folks the ability to learn new skills, the chance to talk about what they are going to be experiencing, but support is something different.
How are you going to give folks the capacity to do it, the time to learn these new skills? They're not going to learn this on their free time. You need to provide organizational time for individuals to adopt the knowledge and the skills for this change. This continuous support and reinforcement are a key success factor to change adoption in the long run.
This has been Sara with Business Bites. You can reach me at podcast@mod.network. We would love to hear from you on what other terminology you'd like bite-sized. As always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. We'll see you next time.