Most change initiatives fail not because the plan was wrong, but because no one built a structure for how individual people would actually move through the change. The ADKAR model — developed by Prosci — breaks change down into five sequential building blocks at the individual level, and Pediment Mindworks builds Change Management engagements around ADKAR/Prosci-based frameworks for exactly this reason: organizational change only happens when enough individuals change.
What does ADKAR stand for?
ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement — the five outcomes an individual needs to reach, in order, to successfully adopt a change.
Awareness
Before anything else, people need to understand why the change is happening. Without a clear business reason, communicated early and consistently, resistance starts before the change has even been announced in detail. This is why communication planning is one of the first things we scope in a Change Management engagement.
Desire
Awareness of a reason to change doesn't automatically create motivation to change. Desire is personal and depends heavily on what's in it for the individual, how the change affects their role, and whether they trust the people leading it — which is why stakeholder analysis and engagement planning has to happen before rollout, not after resistance shows up.
Knowledge
Once someone wants to change, they need to know how. This is the training and information layer — new processes, new systems, new expectations — and it's often where organizations over-invest relative to the earlier stages, building training for people who were never brought along on Awareness or Desire in the first place.
Ability
Knowing how to change and being able to actually do it under real working conditions are different things. Ability is demonstrated capability — which is why change management training for leaders and managers, plus practice time, matters more than a single announcement email or a one-time training session.
Reinforcement
The stage most change efforts skip. Without post-implementation reinforcement and sustainment planning, people drift back to old habits within weeks. Reinforcement includes recognition, accountability, and often sponsor coaching to keep leaders visibly modeling the change themselves.
Where change efforts typically stall
In our experience scoping Change Management engagements, the most common failure points map directly onto the first and last letters of the model: not enough Awareness/Desire work before rollout (people feel change happening to them), and no Reinforcement plan after go-live (the change fades once the project team moves on).
How Pediment Mindworks applies ADKAR
Our Change Management solution line is structured around this exact lifecycle: change readiness assessment and communication planning (Awareness/Desire), change management training and sponsor coaching (Knowledge/Ability), and post-implementation reinforcement and sustainment planning (Reinforcement). Advisory work in this area is scoped as an engagement by default; full-org culture change or M&A integration support — given the scale, timeline, and confidentiality involved — is quoted individually. Frontline managers also apply a lightweight version of this model directly with their teams in our New / Frontline Manager Foundations program. See the full breakdown on Change Management or request pricing for your change initiative.