ADKAR Model
A goal-oriented change management framework developed by Prosci that breaks individual change into five sequential stages: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement, giving organizations a structured way to drive adoption one person at a time.
- What Is the ADKAR Model?
- What Are the Five Elements of ADKAR?
- How Do You Run an ADKAR Assessment?
- ADKAR vs Kotter's 8-Step Model vs Lewin's Change Model
- How Do You Apply ADKAR in Practice?
- Change Management Statistics [2026]
- Common Mistakes When Using the ADKAR Model
- Frequently Asked Questions About the ADKAR Model
What Is the ADKAR Model?
Key Takeaways
- ✓ADKAR is a change management model created by Jeff Hiatt, founder of Prosci, that focuses on individual transitions rather than organizational-level planning.
- ✓The five elements (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) must happen in sequence. Skipping stages is the primary reason change efforts stall.
- ✓Projects with excellent change management are 6 times more likely to meet their objectives than those with poor change management (Prosci, 2023).
- ✓Unlike Kotter's model (which focuses on organizational steps), ADKAR zooms in on what each person needs to successfully adopt a change.
- ✓HR teams use ADKAR to diagnose exactly where resistance is coming from and apply targeted interventions instead of blanket communication campaigns.
The ADKAR Model is a change management framework that treats organizational change as something that happens one person at a time. Developed by Jeff Hiatt at Prosci in the late 1990s, it breaks individual change into five sequential building blocks: Awareness of why the change is needed, Desire to participate and support it, Knowledge of how to change, Ability to implement the change day to day, and Reinforcement to sustain it over time. Here's why this matters for HR: most change programs focus on the organizational side. They create project plans, communication strategies, and training schedules. But they forget that organizations don't change. People do. If even one of those five building blocks is missing for an individual employee, they won't make the transition. ADKAR gives you a diagnostic tool to figure out exactly where each person (or group) is stuck. Is the sales team aware of the new CRM but doesn't want to use it? That's a Desire problem, not a Knowledge problem. Sending more training won't fix it. Prosci's 2023 benchmarking study found that 84% of organizations using structured change management met or exceeded their project objectives. That's not accidental. Structured models like ADKAR prevent teams from solving the wrong problem.
What Are the Five Elements of ADKAR?
Each element represents a milestone that an individual must reach before moving to the next. Think of them as gates: you can't skip ahead.
Awareness: Why is this change happening?
Awareness isn't just knowing that a change is coming. It's understanding the business reasons behind it, the risks of not changing, and how it connects to the organization's direction. Most companies rush past this stage. They announce the change in an email, check the "communication" box, and move on. But awareness requires repetition across multiple channels: town halls, manager conversations, written FAQs, and direct answers to "what does this mean for me?" Research from Prosci shows that the primary sender of awareness messages should be the employee's direct supervisor for personal impact and senior leadership for business reasons. One email from the CEO doesn't create awareness. It creates noise.
Desire: Do I want to participate?
This is where most change efforts hit their first wall. An employee can fully understand why a change is happening and still not want to do it. Desire is personal. It's driven by factors like "what's in it for me," fear of what they'll lose, trust in leadership, and peer influence. You can't mandate desire. Telling people they must adopt a new process creates compliance at best and sabotage at worst. Building desire requires showing personal benefits, addressing fears directly, involving people in shaping the implementation, and ensuring managers visibly support the change. Prosci's data shows that direct managers have the greatest influence on employee desire, which is why manager coaching is critical in any ADKAR implementation.
Knowledge: Do I know how to change?
Knowledge covers the information, training, and education needed to change. This includes understanding new processes, learning new tools, knowing new behaviors expected, and understanding new roles or reporting structures. Knowledge comes through formal training, job aids, coaching, and practice environments. A common mistake is delivering training too early (before awareness and desire are established) or too late (after go-live, when people are already frustrated). The timing of knowledge transfer matters as much as the quality.
Ability: Can I actually do it?
Knowledge and ability aren't the same thing. You can know how to use a new software platform and still struggle with it daily. Ability is the demonstrated capability to perform the change in the real work environment. It develops through practice, coaching, hands-on experience, and time. The gap between knowledge and ability is often underestimated. Training someone on a new system in a classroom setting doesn't mean they can use it effectively under time pressure with real data. Ability building requires ongoing support, accessible help resources, patience from managers, and a safe environment to make mistakes during the learning curve.
Reinforcement: Will this change stick?
Without reinforcement, people revert to old habits. Reinforcement includes celebrations of success, recognition of adoption, accountability mechanisms, feedback loops, and corrective action when people slip back. Prosci's research shows that 70% of organizations that neglect reinforcement experience significant regression within 6 months of go-live. Effective reinforcement is both positive (rewards and recognition for new behaviors) and structural (removing the option to use old systems, updating KPIs to reflect new processes). It's not a one-time event. It's an ongoing effort that typically takes 3 to 6 months after the change goes live.
How Do You Run an ADKAR Assessment?
The ADKAR assessment is a diagnostic tool that scores each employee (or group) on each of the five elements, revealing exactly where resistance or gaps exist.
Scoring methodology
Rate each element on a 1-to-5 scale through surveys, manager observations, or one-on-one conversations. A score of 3 or below on any element is a "barrier point," the stage where that person is stuck. The first barrier point is the one to address. There's no benefit in building knowledge for someone who doesn't have desire yet. Focus interventions on the lowest-scoring element that comes first in the sequence.
Group-level patterns
When you aggregate ADKAR scores across a team or department, patterns emerge. If 80% of the engineering team scores low on Awareness, your communication hasn't reached them. If the sales team scores high on Awareness and Knowledge but low on Desire, they understand the change but don't want it. Each pattern requires a different intervention. This diagnostic precision is what makes ADKAR more actionable than generic resistance management.
| ADKAR Element | Common Barrier Point Symptoms | Recommended Interventions |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | "I didn't know this was happening" or "Why are we doing this?" | Executive communication, business case sharing, manager talking points, town halls |
| Desire | "I don't want to change" or "What's in it for me?" | Manager coaching, personal impact discussions, involving employees in design, addressing fears |
| Knowledge | "I don't know how to do this" or "The training was unclear" | Role-specific training, job aids, demos, peer learning sessions, FAQ documents |
| Ability | "I know how but I keep making mistakes" or "It's too hard in practice" | Hands-on coaching, practice time, help desk support, buddy systems, reduced workload during transition |
| Reinforcement | "We used to do it better" or reverting to old processes | Recognition programs, performance metrics tied to new behaviors, removing old systems, celebrating milestones |
ADKAR vs Kotter's 8-Step Model vs Lewin's Change Model
Each model addresses change from a different angle. They're not competing frameworks. Many organizations use them together.
| Dimension | ADKAR (Prosci) | Kotter's 8-Step Model | Lewin's Change Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | Individual change (person-by-person adoption) | Organizational change (leadership-driven steps) | Group dynamics (unfreezing and refreezing behavior) |
| Structure | 5 sequential elements | 8 sequential steps | 3 phases (Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze) |
| Best for | Diagnosing and addressing individual resistance | Building momentum and organizational coalition | Understanding psychological barriers to change |
| Weakness | Doesn't address organizational politics or power dynamics | Can feel top-down and doesn't address individual needs | Oversimplifies complex, multi-phase transformations |
| Time horizon | Applied throughout the change lifecycle per person | Applied sequentially from vision to anchoring | Applied as three macro-phases of any change |
| Diagnostic tool | ADKAR assessment (1-5 scoring per element) | No formal diagnostic (progress based on step completion) | Force field analysis (driving vs restraining forces) |
| Created | Jeff Hiatt, Prosci (1998) | John Kotter, Harvard (1996) | Kurt Lewin (1947) |
How Do You Apply ADKAR in Practice?
Theory without application is useless. Here's how HR teams actually use ADKAR in real change scenarios.
HRIS implementation example
A mid-size company rolling out Workday to replace spreadsheets and legacy systems. Awareness phase: the CHRO presents the business case (manual processes causing payroll errors costing $200K/year). Desire phase: managers hold one-on-ones explaining how the new system saves each employee 3 hours per week on self-service tasks. Knowledge phase: role-specific training for HR admins, managers, and employees (not one generic session for everyone). Ability phase: a 4-week parallel-run period where both old and new systems operate. Reinforcement phase: the old system is decommissioned after 90 days, and adoption dashboards are shared weekly.
Return-to-office mandate example
Awareness: leadership explains the data behind the decision (collaboration metrics, mentorship gaps, client feedback). Desire: rather than mandating five days, the company offers three in-office days with flexibility on which three. They address fears about commute costs with a transit subsidy. Knowledge: clear guidelines on booking desks, meeting room protocols, and hybrid meeting etiquette. Ability: managers receive coaching on leading hybrid teams. IT sets up seamless video conferencing in every room. Reinforcement: monthly pulse surveys track satisfaction, and leadership publicly adjusts the policy based on feedback after 90 days.
Merger integration example
During a merger, ADKAR helps HR address the fact that employees from both companies are going through change, but their barrier points differ. The acquiring company's employees might score high on Awareness but low on Desire (they didn't ask for this). The acquired company's employees might score low on everything because they feel powerless. ADKAR assessments run separately for each population, and tailored interventions address each group's specific gaps. This precision is why ADKAR is popular in M&A playbooks.
Change Management Statistics [2026]
Data supporting the case for structured change management and the ADKAR framework specifically.
Common Mistakes When Using the ADKAR Model
ADKAR is simple to understand but easy to misapply. These mistakes undermine even well-resourced change programs.
- Treating ADKAR as a communication plan. Awareness is only one of five elements. Teams that create beautiful slide decks but don't address Desire, Knowledge, Ability, or Reinforcement are doing 20% of the work.
- Skipping Desire and jumping to training. You'll see this constantly: a company announces a change, immediately schedules training, and then wonders why attendance is low and adoption is poor. People who don't want to change won't learn how to change.
- Running a single ADKAR assessment and never revisiting. People's barrier points shift as the change progresses. Someone stuck on Desire in month one might move to a Knowledge gap by month three. Reassess quarterly at minimum.
- Applying ADKAR only to the "end users" of a change. Managers, executives, and HR team members go through ADKAR too. A manager who hasn't reached Desire will never coach their team through the same stage.
- Confusing Knowledge with Ability. Sitting through a training session creates Knowledge. Being able to perform the new process under real conditions, with real time pressure, creates Ability. They require different interventions.
- Stopping at go-live and neglecting Reinforcement. This is the most commonly skipped element. Without it, adoption rates typically drop 30 to 50% within 6 months (Prosci).
Frequently Asked Questions
Who created the ADKAR Model?
Is ADKAR only for large organizations?
Can you use ADKAR alongside Kotter's model?
How long does it take to move someone through all five ADKAR elements?
What's the biggest weakness of the ADKAR Model?
Is ADKAR certification worth it for HR professionals?
Written by Adithyan RK