Introduction
Welcome to the first lesson of our second module, "Diagnosing Readiness and Building the Coalition." In the previous module, we established a strong foundation by exploring the core change management frameworks of Lewin, Kotter, and ADKAR. In our last lesson, we took a critical look at failure, using Kotter's 8 common errors to perform a post-mortem analysis of why large-scale transformations often derail.
Today, we pivot from looking backward at failure to looking forward to success. The first step in preventing the pitfalls we just studied is to develop a clear, evidence-based understanding of your organization's starting point.
This lesson is designed to help you apply a selected change management framework to diagnose a real transformation scenario. We will move from analyzing what went wrong in the past to proactively assessing readiness and identifying potential barriers before they become critical problems. This diagnostic skill is the cornerstone of building a resilient and effective change strategy.
Why Diagnose First?
Before diving into creating a detailed transformation plan, you must first understand the landscape. A diagnostic assessment isn't about getting a simple "yes" or "no" on whether the organization is ready for change. It’s about understanding how ready it is, where the pockets of support and resistance are, and what the specific barriers to change might be.
To set the stage, let's watch a short segment that explains the importance of this initial diagnostic step.
The 5 Most Important Steps to An Organizational Change Management Strategy and Plan
This video from Digital Transformation expert Eric Kimberling explains the purpose of a Change Readiness Assessment. He makes a crucial distinction: the goal is not to determine whether you're ready, but how ready you are and where to anticipate resistance.
Watch the section from 01:36 to 04:11. Focus on the core questions a readiness assessment seeks to answer: How will people resist? How severe will it be? What are the root causes?
As the video highlights, resistance is a natural human reaction to change. A proper diagnosis allows you to anticipate it and address its root causes proactively, rather than being surprised by it later.
Choosing the Right Diagnostic Tool: ADKAR
In our last module, you learned about three frameworks: Lewin, Kotter, and ADKAR. While Kotter's model is excellent for structuring a change process and diagnosing process failures, the ADKAR model is uniquely suited for diagnosing change readiness at the individual and group levels.
ADKAR provides a sequential, behavioral model that allows you to pinpoint exactly where someone is on their personal change journey.
The power of ADKAR as a diagnostic tool lies in identifying the barrier point. The barrier point is the first element in the sequence that an individual or group has not yet achieved. For example, if employees lack the Desire to change, providing them with training (Knowledge) will be ineffective. You must first address the Desire barrier. Your diagnostic work, therefore, is to find that first stumbling block.
Let's explore how to use ADKAR as a formal assessment tool.
[PDF] ADKAR: A Model for Change
The book from which the ADKAR model originates provides a chapter on its applications. We will focus on the section that details how to use it as a diagnostic tool.
Please read the subsection titled 'ADKAR as an assessment tool for changes under way' within Chapter 14. You can find this by searching for that heading. This section explains how organization-wide ADKAR assessments can help identify barrier points and diagnose gaps in your change program.
Application Exercise: Diagnosing a Transformation Scenario
Now, let's put this into practice. You will act as a change management consultant for a fictional B2B software company. Your task is to use the ADKAR framework to diagnose the current state of a major transformation initiative.
The Scenario: AlphaTech's "Project Phoenix"
- Company: AlphaTech, a successful B2B company that sells "LoanSphere," a monolithic loan origination system.
- The Change: "Project Phoenix" is a company-wide initiative to re-architect LoanSphere into a modern microservices-based platform. A key new feature will be an AI-powered analytics module for risk assessment. The goal is to improve scalability, increase feature velocity, and create a new, higher-margin product tier.
- The People:
- Senior Engineers: A small group of highly respected "veteran" engineers are deeply familiar with the existing monolith. They have expressed concerns that microservices will add "unnecessary complexity" and are skeptical about the promised benefits of the AI module, which they see as a "black box." They are worried about the stability of the core product during the transition.
- Sales Team: The sales team is compensated based on the number of deals closed for the existing LoanSphere product. They are concerned that the new modular pricing will be confusing for customers and could slow down their sales cycle. They haven't received any clear information on how the new AI features will solve real customer problems or how they should sell this new value.
Your Task:
Using what you've learned, you will diagnose the situation for both the Senior Engineers and the Sales Team. The Prosci book provides a helpful worksheet for this kind of analysis.
[PDF] ADKAR: A Model for Change
To structure your diagnosis, we will use the 'ADKAR analysis worksheet' from the Prosci resource. This provides a set of guiding questions for each element of the model.
Review the 'ADKAR analysis worksheet' at the end of Chapter 14. This provides the structure for your analysis.
Now, based on the AlphaTech scenario and the questions in the ADKAR analysis worksheet, write a brief diagnostic summary for each group (Senior Engineers and Sales Team). For each group, answer the following:
- Briefly assess where the group stands on each of the five ADKAR elements.
- Identify the primary barrier point for that group.
- Justify your choice with specific evidence from the scenario.
(Take 15-20 minutes to complete this exercise.)
Click here to see a sample analysis after you've completed your own.
Sample Analysis:
-
Senior Engineers:
- Awareness: High. They understand the change is happening.
- Desire: Low. They are skeptical, see it as "unnecessary complexity," and worry about stability. They don't seem convinced by the "why."
- Knowledge: High (in current tech), but likely low for the new stack (microservices, AI). However, this is not the primary block.
- Ability: High (in general), but they can't apply it if they don't want to learn the new ways.
- Reinforcement: N/A yet.
- Barrier Point & Justification: The barrier point is clearly Desire. They have Awareness of the change, but their skepticism and concerns about complexity and stability show they do not want to support it. Trying to train them on microservices (Knowledge) before addressing their concerns about the rationale (Desire) would be met with resistance.
-
Sales Team:
- Awareness: Low to Medium. They know a change is coming but lack clarity on its purpose and value ("haven't received any clear information"). They don't understand the "what's in it for me" or the customer value proposition.
- Desire: Low. Their compensation is tied to the old model, and they fear the new one will hurt their performance. This is a powerful disincentive.
- Knowledge: Low. They don't know how to sell the new product.
- Ability: Low. They can't sell what they don't understand or believe in.
- Reinforcement: N/A yet.
- Barrier Point & Justification: The barrier point is Awareness. While their lack of Desire is a huge problem stemming from misaligned incentives, it's compounded by a fundamental lack of Awareness about what the change is, why it's happening, and how it benefits the customer. They can't even begin to form a positive desire for the change without first understanding its basic value. Addressing the awareness gap by creating a clear value proposition is the first step before tackling the incentive structure (Desire).
Real-World Diagnosis: The Google SRE Experience
This type of diagnostic thinking isn't just theoretical. It's used by leading technology organizations to navigate complex internal changes. Let's look at a case study from Google's Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) organization.
Change Management for IT Transformation
The Google SRE workbook contains a case study on driving the adoption of common tooling across the organization. This scenario is very similar to the challenges you might face when rolling out new development practices. The authors explicitly map their experience to the ADKAR model.
Read the case study titled 'Case Study 2: Common Tooling Adoption in SRE'. Pay close attention to how they describe their challenges in terms of Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, and Ability. Note their key lesson: the cost of migration can be a huge barrier to adoption, directly impacting the Knowledge-to-Ability gap.
The Google case study powerfully illustrates these concepts. The effort to standardize tooling only gained traction when they moved beyond simply building the tools (Knowledge) and started actively managing the change. They had to build Awareness of the problem, create Desire by demonstrating clear benefits, and lower the barriers to Ability by making migration costs nearly zero. Their experience validates that even for a highly technical audience, the "people side" of change, as captured by ADKAR, is paramount.
Conclusion
In this lesson, you've transitioned from analyzing past failures to proactively diagnosing the present. This is the first and most critical step in designing a successful transformation program.
Key Takeaways:
- Diagnosis is Proactive: The goal of a readiness assessment is to anticipate and mitigate risks, not just to see if you can proceed.
- ADKAR is a Powerful Diagnostic Tool: By focusing on the individual's journey, ADKAR helps you identify the specific barrier point preventing progress for different groups.
- Diagnosis Informs Strategy: The results of your ADKAR analysis tell you where to focus your change management efforts. If the barrier is Desire, you need sponsorship and resistance management. If it's Knowledge, you need training.
Preview of the Next Lesson:
Our diagnostic work today focused on identifying barrier points within key groups. This naturally leads to the next question: who are all the groups and individuals that matter? In our next lesson, we will get more systematic by learning how to conduct a stakeholder analysis to map influence, interest, and readiness across your entire organization. This will give you a comprehensive political and social map to navigate as you build your guiding coalition.