Why Change Initiatives Stall, and the Five Questions That Restart Them

When an initiative stalls, the explanation offered in the leadership meeting is almost always the same word: resistance. It is a comfortable diagnosis because it locates the problem in other people. It is also, most of the time, wrong, or at least too vague to act on.

The Prosci ADKAR model is useful precisely because it refuses the vague answer. It says that an individual moves through five states in order, and that a change stalls at whichever one is missing. Find the letter, and you know what to do next.

The five states, and what a gap looks like

1. Awareness of why the change is needed. The gap sounds like: we got an announcement, not a reason. People can recite what is changing and cannot explain what problem it solves.
2. Desire to participate and support it. The gap sounds like: I understand why, and I can see what it costs me. Desire is not fixed by repeating the awareness message louder.
3. Knowledge of how to change. The gap sounds like: I am willing, I do not know what to do on Monday morning. This is training, job aids and worked examples.
4. Ability to apply the change in practice. The gap sounds like: I was trained, and under real pressure I revert. Knowing is not doing; ability needs practice, coaching and time.
5. Reinforcement to make it stick. The gap sounds like: we did this last year too. Nothing measured, nothing recognised, nothing changed in the measures that govern the work.

The questions to ask before the next push

Pick a change that is not landing and ask, of the specific group where it is not landing: can they state the problem it solves in their own words? What does the change cost them personally? Do they know what to do differently at the start of a shift? Have they practised it anywhere other than a slide? And does any measure, routine or piece of recognition reinforce it a month later?

The answers usually point at one letter. Treating a knowledge gap with a communications campaign, or a desire gap with another training session, is how organisations spend a year being busy without moving.

Michele supported my team of 100+ members in change exercises using the Prosci ADKAR model. The sessions, over a series of years and alignments, never missed the mark, and always aligned to the goals and values of the organization.Sheila Cook, Owner Operator, Gasconade Hills Resort

Where leaders get this wrong

1. Announcing instead of explaining. A memo creates compliance at best. Awareness requires the problem, not the plan.
2. Skipping the cost conversation. Every change takes something from someone. Naming it is what makes desire possible; pretending otherwise is what makes people quiet rather than convinced.
3. Mistaking a pilot for adoption. Early adopters volunteer. The real test is the group that did not.
4. Changing behaviour while leaving the measures alone. If the old metric still governs the performance review, the old behaviour is rational.
5. Running the next initiative before finishing this one. Capacity to absorb change is finite and nobody tracks it.

If a change in your organisation has stalled and nobody can say precisely where, that is the work: find the letter before spending another quarter on the wrong remedy.