Business Core · Organisation · Module
Adoption
The human side of change: who is affected and how much, how far each group has actually taken the change up, what resistance is saying, and what holds it in place.
The idea
How it works
The framework has no separate object for change management, because the steps of a change programme already have addresses: urgency belongs with the diagnosis, the coalition with stakeholders and ownership, the vision with the vision statement, its telling with the brand’s tellers, the resources with resourcing, early wins with quick wins, and anchoring with core values and culture. What those addresses do not hold is whether the people whose work changes actually take it up. That is this module.
Lewin’s model still frames the problem: an existing way of working has to be loosened before it can change, and the new one has to be fixed in place afterwards or it drifts back. ADKAR breaks the individual side into awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement, and its practical use is locating the first of those that is missing for a given group. Bridges adds that people go through a transition on their own timetable, which is seldom the programme’s. Resistance, read this way, is information about which of these is missing.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Assess impact per group
The same change is trivial for one team and rewrites the job of another. Measure how much each group’s daily work actually changes.
- 02
Find the first missing stage
Training a group that does not yet see why the change matters produces knowledge nobody uses. Work on the earliest gap first.
- 03
Log resistance, then read it
Write objections down as they arrive, and classify them afterwards. Some are about loss, some about capacity, and some are right about the substance.
- 04
Retire the old path
Where the old way remains available, people return to it under pressure. Removing it is one of the more dependable forms of reinforcement.
One level in
The components of adoption
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Change impact assessment
Which groups are affected, how much their work changes, and how many other changes they are carrying at the same time.
LearnAdoption tracker
Each group’s stage of adoption, with a usage measure that shows whether the new way is actually in use.
LearnResistance log
The objections raised, who raised them, and what each one turned out to be pointing at.
LearnReinforcement register
The measures, system changes and routines that hold the change in place, and the old paths that were retired.
Learn
A change is adopted when the old way is no longer available or no longer chosen. Until then it has only been announced.
The other modules in organisation
Structure
How work is divided into units and joined up again: the basis for grouping, the spans and layers of management, and what coordinates across units.
LearnDecision rights
Which recurring decisions exist, who makes each one, who must agree or give input, and what authority is delegated below the board.
LearnLeadership
What leadership is expected to do in this organisation, how that work changes from one layer to the next, and how leaders are judged against it.
Learn