When I think of desire, I think of fire and sin. Perhaps that has to do with my religious upbringing, but nevertheless images of voluptuous torsos (e.g. Modern Family’s Gloria), sounds of heavy breathing (e.g. Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love), and racy music videos (e.g. Rhianna’s S&M) seem to permeate social portrayal of topics linked to desire. When considering these examples, it seems ridiculous to link desire with professional business performance—but that’s exactly what the ADKAR change management methodology aims to do.

As its second step in leading people through change, the ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) model recognizes the importance of appealing to inherent personal desire in order to bring about active involvement in organizational change. As mentioned in my previous blog, creating awareness on the personal level is the first step to achieving successful change at an organization. According to ADKAR, desire to participate in and support the change follows immediately thereafter; but, it is important to note that just because awareness has been created, desire will not automatically be conjured. Instead, business leaders must motivate their employees; and in order to stimulate intrinsic motivators that are unique to the individual, personal situations must be taken into context.

When leading an organization through change, we on the Global Change Management team at Bluewolf encourage our clients to remember the employee first; after all change management is defined by Prosci, the educational leader in the change management field, as the “people side of change.” When filtering down to the individual level, it is imperative to highlight the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) in order to create energy and engagement from each employee. This usually requires understanding the personal benefits and consequences to either adopting or rejecting the change. For example, if an employee does not accept a new method for entering data she may get to continue managing information in a way that is comfortable to her; but, simultaneously, this decision may have a negative impact on her overall performance with the company as she is not able to produce at the same level as her colleagues who adjusted to the new standards. In order to understand the root cause of individual decisions and their possible outcomes, we at Bluewolf collaborate with our clients to administer stakeholder interviews, where we ask specific questions around business processes, client management, technology usage, communications and training to help uncover barriers to change and better target key topic areas to initiate desire.  

Desire can be described as a sense of longing or hoping for an outcome. Research shows that multiple tactics can be used to generate this craving to support and participate in change. As described above, building from a strong foundation of awareness and focusing on the WIIFM perspective of the employee are two essential components when creating desire regardless of which approach is pursued. Perhaps the fire and sin to which I alluded at the beginning of this entry is not as disconnected from organizational change as first thought. After all, if burning desire promotes action on the personal level, it may be exactly what motivates an individual through organizational change as well.  

Next, we dive into the third component of the ADKAR model, Knowledge.

Did you miss the first installment in the series? Read 5 Keys to Effective Change Management: Awareness. To learn more about Bluewolf’s change management consulting services, contact us.