Change Management: A Comprehensive Overview of the Models and Approaches

We’ve summarised below some of the more popular models below but there are many others that are equally valid and offer useful guidance. If you’d like to get beyond the theory into practical strategies to help you make more impact then grab yourself a copy of our free guide to Business Change Success.

ADKAR by Prosci

Developed by Jeff Hiatt, founder of Prosci, after studying the change patterns of more than 700 organisations, the ADKAR Model is based on the principle that organisational change only occurs when individuals change. The model consists of five key focus areas or pillars represented by the ADKAR acronym:

• A – Build Awareness of the need to change
• D – Create the Desire to get involved and support the delivery of change
• K – Develop the Knowledge of those involved in how they will make the change
• A – Foster the Ability of those involved to make the required changes to their skills and behaviours
• R – Reinforce the changes and create new enduring habits, ensuring that we don’t slip back

Awareness

The first step is to help all team members understand why change is necessary and share the nature of the change. It is crucial to convey the risks of not changing. Change managers must understand what drives awareness and the forces that prevent it. Effective awareness-building factors include:

• An event
• New information
• Benchmarking data
• Data demonstrating weakening performance
• Communication

Desire

Understanding why change is necessary should lead people to personally support the process. To transition from awareness to desire, the reasons for change must translate into organisational and personal motivating factors. Supervisors and key business leaders need to act as coaches and motivators. Important motivators include:

• Incentives: personal gains or achievements
• Risks or penalties: fear of consequences
• Belonging: desire to be part of something
• Leadership: desire to follow someone trustworthy
• Perceiving that the alternative is worse

Although desire is a personal process, change managers can influence it through active sponsorships, engaging coaches, managing resistance proactively, involving team members in creating solutions, and implementing incentive programs.

Knowledge

The ADKAR model identifies two types of knowledge: how to change and the skills and behaviours needed to support the change. Knowledge becomes effective only after building awareness and desire. Building knowledge requires experience, access to information, education, training, and mentoring. Key challenges include bridging the gap between current and desired knowledge levels, conflicting demands, inadequate training resources, and lack of information or capacity to learn. Tactics to build knowledge include formal training programmes, forums, job aids, and coaching.

Ability

Ability involves putting knowledge into practice. Employees may need practice, role models, feedback, and access to the right tools to develop their ability. It is crucial to distinguish between knowledge and ability. Tactics to develop ability include performance monitoring, mentoring from subject matter experts, and hands-on practice during training.

Reinforcement

Reinforcement ensures that the new way of working is maintained and should be proactively planned. This stage is critical for sustaining change. Organisations that neglect reinforcement risk “change saturation” and may not fully achieve the desired results. Reinforcement strategies include celebrations, rewards, accountability mechanisms, corrective actions, visible performance measurement, and feedback.

By focusing on these five pillars, the ADKAR Model provides a comprehensive framework to guide individuals through successful change, ensuring both personal and organisational transformation.

Kotter’s 8 Steps for Leading Change

John Kotter, one of the biggest names in corporate change management, developed an 8-step model that provides clear guidance for large-scale organisational change. This model, often taught in business schools, is based on Kotter’s research with 100 organisations undergoing change. Here’s a short explanation of each step:

1. Create a Sense of Urgency: Creating a sense of urgency involves identifying and highlighting problems and threats that necessitate change. Communication is key: engage in honest dialogues, help teams reflect on prevalent issues, and involve key stakeholders. People need to be convinced of the need for change and feel they are a crucial part of the process. Patience is essential, as rushing this step can lead to significant setbacks later on.

2. Form a Powerful Coalition: Changes need to be guided and implemented by a diverse team that understands the current situation and the company’s goals. This coalition should include individuals with varied skills, backgrounds, and experience levels, ideally from different departments or areas of the business. Their task is to ensure that the change has organisation-wide support.

3. Develop a Strategic Vision and Initiatives: A strategic vision helps convey the aim of the change to the entire organisation. It’s important to articulate how the proposed changes will affect operations and what the future will look like compared to the past. This clarity helps everyone understand and process the changes better.

4. Enlist a Volunteer Army: Support and acceptance are crucial for any change initiative. The change management team needs to ensure everyone is “on board” by addressing fears and anxieties and encouraging feedback. Open and honest communication is essential. Senior management must model the behaviours expected from their employees to demonstrate commitment.

5. Remove Barriers to Enable Action: Identify and understand the barriers that may block the implementation of change, which could be insufficient processes, faulty policies, or resistance from employees. Align all related processes to the new change vision. Training, mentoring, and coaching are effective tools to help employees adopt the change.

6. Accomplish Short-Term Wins: Break down the change project into smaller parts with short-term goals to keep everyone motivated. Choose simple targets that can be easily achieved, as early failures can discourage the team. Reward those responsible for each quick win to encourage others. These goals must be feasible and clearly understood by everyone.

7. Build on the Change and Sustain Acceleration: Measure progress throughout the change process. Reflect on what worked and what didn’t regarding each short-term goal, and decide on necessary improvements. This helps understand how each team and individual is working towards the change vision and identify unnecessary interdependencies and obstacles.

8. Institute Change: Transform changes into a new culture. By this stage, the change should have evolved into new values, processes, behaviours, and organisational norms. Create development programmes to help team members build competencies relevant to the new status quo. Evaluate performance, promote, and reward those who deserve it, and support individuals who may be hindering the process.

It’s useful to recognise that while there is a general sequence from 1 to 8, in practice it’s important to review and sometimes go back to previous steps as situations change.

Lewin’s 3-Stage Model: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze

Kurt Lewin developed this theory in the 1940s and it was first described in an article titled “Human Relations”. It’s power is in its simplicity, although that also means the model attracts its critics who point towards the fact that change is a continuous process now for most organisations. He describes the change process in 3 stages:

1. Unfreeze stage

During this stage, the focus is on getting ready to accept change, so this is a combination of recognising that things can’t stay as they are and creating the desire for something different. Essentially this is the process of letting go of the current state so people can move to the future. A key point here is a recognition that humans have a bias towards the status quo, in other words the do nothing option is normally the most compelling as its the most familiar and therefore comfortable.

2. Change stage

This is the process of moving to the future state, it’s a stage of transition in which the organisation (and individuals within it) transform from one way of doing things to something new. It’s the moment in which change becomes real, it’s also the stage in which people struggle the most. Education, training, communication and support are critical as people go through the process of adapting, each in their own way.

3. Refreeze stage

During this period, changes need to become the new norm. It’s the moment in which changes transform into organisational goals, processes, structure or roles. Once changes are accepted, they must be “refrozen” and become the new status quo. What’s more important is that changes are transformed into organisational culture. Positive reinforcement in the form of rewards, acknowledgement and nudging is very helpful during this stage. Critics argue that this stage is outdated (believing that it is unnecessary to spend time “freezing” a new change when today’s businesses need to be constantly changing), so it’s maybe more helpful to think of it as continuing to move forward and not slipping back into old productive ways, equally valid in a constantly changing world.

Nudge Theory

Based on the book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge Theory seeks to achieve change by shaping the environment to make it more likely that people will do the ‘right’ thing and less likely that they will do the ‘wrong’ one. It starts from the acceptance that individuals are free-thinking and that our behaviours are driven by our attitudes, values, habits, and the “norms” of those around us. It also acknowledges that we are not entirely rational and that our judgements are often distorted by mental shortcuts or heuristics, which we are mostly unaware of.

Key Principles

Nudge Theory differs from other change theories by designing choices to influence behaviour without taking away a person’s ability to choose. A “nudge” is an indirect, open-ended, and educational activity that is always open to discussion and feedback. The theory recognises three categories of nudges:

• Nudges to Perception: Influencing how people understand and perceive the change and any potential impediments.
• Motivation Nudges: Actions performed to increase the desire and motivation for change.
• Ability and Simplicity Nudges: Actions to improve people’s ability or perceived ability to adapt, making the change easier to implement.

Nudge Examples

Common examples of nudges include:

• Encouraging people to eat less by reducing the sizes of plates food is served on (a smaller meal looks bigger on a smaller plate).
• White lines in car parks to encourage straight parking.
• Adding more visible litter bins and signs to reduce littering.
• Digital road signs displaying our current speed to encourage us to slow down.
• Making printers less accessible to reduce unnecessary printing.
• The inclusion of a fly image on urinals in Schiphol airport, which reportedly reduced spillage by 80%.

Often, small changes in the environment can significantly influence behaviour.

Cognitive Biases and Heuristics

Nudge Theory also acknowledges that cognitive biases shape our behaviour and can hamper our judgement. We use mental shortcuts or heuristics to guide decision-making, which, while often useful, can sometimes lead to poor decisions.

Understanding these biases can help in understanding what drives behaviour, especially when it appears irrational. Some common heuristics from Nudge Theory include:

1. Anchoring: Using known information to estimate something unknown.
   • In a shop, if the salesperson shows you something expensive first, you are far more likely to spend more. £10 for a tie can appear expensive till you have paid £200 for a suit, then suddenly it seems very reasonable. Sales and marketing people use this technique regularly.
2. Availability: Overestimating the prevalence of something based on how often we observe or hear about it.
   • After seeing frequent news reports about shark attacks, people typically overestimate the risk of swimming in the ocean, even though shark attacks are extremely rare.
3. Avoiding Loss: Valuing what we already have more highly than something we don’t yet have, leading to reluctance to give up what we have.
   • Subscription services use this by offering free trials, knowing people are more likely to continue using the service to avoid losing access to it.
4. Framing: Viewing information differently depending on how it is presented.
   • A medical treatment with a 90% survival rate is perceived more positively than one with a 10% mortality rate, even though both convey the same information.
5. Over-Confidence and Optimism: Underestimating timescales, difficulty, and costs while overestimating benefits and rewards.
   • Entrepreneurs tend to overestimate their business’s potential success while underestimating challenges, leading to overly optimistic business plans.
6. Status Quo / Inertia: Sticking with what we know rather than venturing into the unknown.
   • Consumers often stay with their current energy providers even if switching could save money due to the hassle of changing.
7. Present Bias: Favouring immediate rewards over long-term benefits.
   • People are more likely to spend a bonus immediately, e.g., for a holiday, rather than saving for retirement, valuing immediate pleasure over future security.
8. Herd Mentality (social proof): Following the lead of others, especially when unsure.
   • If we’re looking for a restaurant, we’ll generally go for the one with cars in the car park rather than the empty one. We tend to check for lots of positive reviews when buying online.

By integrating these practical examples, Nudge Theory becomes more relatable and applicable to everyday situations, helping individuals and organisations understand and leverage cognitive biases to influence positive behaviour and decision-making.

Application and Ethical Considerations

Nudge is not intended as a change management model but rather a set of principles that can be used in combination with other theories to achieve better results. One of its strengths is that it provides a framework that employees can use to take ownership of a change process.

However, it is important to be mindful of the ethical considerations, as some critics view Nudge Theory as potentially manipulative. Therefore, leadership and change managers must ensure that nudges are presented transparently and that all team members fully understand them.

Using Nudge principles, you can subtly guide behaviour in a way that encourages positive change while respecting individual autonomy.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ Change Curve 

Developed by Dr Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969 and popularised in her book On Death and Dying, the Kübler-Ross Change Curve describes the emotional journey individuals typically experience when dealing with change and transition.

Originally known as “The Five Stages of Loss” or “The Five Stages of Grief”, this model has been adapted to illustrate how people react to significant changes in their lives, including organisational changes. The stages are not necessarily linear, and individuals may move through them at different paces or even revisit previous stages.

The Five Stages of Grief

1. Shock and Denial: A sense of disbelief that change is happening.
2. Anger: The realisation that change is occurring, often leading to frustration.
3. Bargaining: Attempts to negotiate or lessen the impact of the change.
4. Depression: Feelings of helplessness as the reality of the change sets in.
5. Acceptance: Realisation that there is a future in the new situation and beginning to see how to adapt.

Applying it to Change Situations

When considering the emotional response to change, there are various adaptations to the curve. A popular version includes additional stages. It’s worth keeping in mind that this is the emotional response as change is first announced (e.g., a major restructuring) and then continues forward. Each person typically moves through the curve differently due to factors such as previous experience, tolerance for uncertainty, self-confidence, etc.

The stages of change are as follows:

1. Shock: Initial surprise by the event.
2. Denial: Refusal to believe the reality, seeking evidence that it isn’t true.
3. Frustration: Processing the event and recognising change, often accompanied by anger.
4. Depression: Characterised by low energy and mood.
5. Experiment: Beginning to engage with and understand the new situation.
6. Decision: Feeling more positive and learning to function in the new environment.
7. Integration: Fully integrating the change and transforming into a new state.

Applying it in Practice for Organisational Change

Successfully navigating the change curve in an organisational context requires information, communication, support, guidance, and direction. Here’s how to apply the Kubler-Ross model to organisational change:

• Be clear on the vision: Help people to understand why change is so critical and how it will affect them, addressing any negatives honestly and emphasising the positives.
• Guide people through denial: Give people space to reflect, approach change gradually, involve employees in the process, and maintain transparency and open communication.
• Address anger: Remember that anger is closely related to fear, so understand the underlying causes and focus communication on addressing these causes, helping people to become less fearful.
• Listen to bargaining: Be aware of attempts to alter the change plan in a way that undermines the intended outcome but do encourage other ideas and input on how to get there. Maintain transparency and be firm on the direction to help individuals move towards acceptance.
• Support during depression: Recognise the potential drop in productivity and help employees see the positive aspects of change. Give people the support they need when they need it.
• Celebrate acceptance: Acknowledge and celebrate the wins as they happen, as people begin to experiment and gradually see how this could work for them. Early wins help people to see the possibilities, which in turn helps them to relax.

It’s important to remember that these stages are not strictly sequential. Individuals may skip stages, revisit previous ones, or move through them in different orders. Change managers should adopt a coaching and mentoring role, remaining attentive to behavioural changes that might indicate regression or skipping stages.

By understanding and applying the Kubler-Ross Change Curve, leaders can better support their teams through transitions, helping them to navigate the emotional journey of change effectively. You can read more on this in our blog How to ease the pain of change 

The Trans-theoretical Model (TTM)

This model was developed by Prochaska and Di Clemente in the late 1970s. It evolved from studies examining the experiences of smokers and focused on the differences between those who quit on their own and those requiring further treatment and outside help. They used these experiences to understand the factors present when people chose to quit on their own, determining that those people did it because they were ready for change.

The theory is an effort to understand and define individual and intentional change. They assert that individuals move through six stages of change and that different intervention strategies are effective to help the person move from one step to another and ultimately to the ideal stage of behaviour. These stages are:

1. Precontemplation: A stage in which an individual does not intend to act within the next six months. They are unaware of their problematic behaviours and do not recognise that they produce negative consequences. They often underestimate the benefits of changing behaviour and place more emphasis on the negative aspects of change.
2. Contemplation: This is the moment in which someone intends to start or change their behaviour within the next six months, and they begin to recognise current behaviours as problematic. It is at this stage when a person may give more thoughtful consideration to the pros and cons of changing the behaviour and give equal emphasis on both positive and negative outcomes. Regardless of this, they remain ambivalent.
3. Preparation (determination): When a person is ready to act within the next 30 days and start to take small steps toward behavioural change, they now believe that this change will improve their life.
4. Action: This is when someone has recently changed a behaviour (in the last six months) and intends to keep moving forward. They may exhibit this by modifying their problematic behaviour or acquiring a new, healthy one.
5. Maintenance: This is sustained behaviour change for over six months and the person intends to maintain the behaviour change going forward. They are also working to prevent relapse to earlier stages.
6. Elimination: This step was not a part of the original model but is a person that has no desire to return to their unhealthy behaviours and is sure that they will not relapse. Since this is rarely reached and people tend to stay in the maintenance stage, it’s rarely used in health promotion programmes.

The model also identifies ten processes of change:

1. Consciousness raising: Improving awareness around the healthy behaviour.
2. Dramatic relief: Emotional arousal about healthy behaviour. Arousal may be positive or negative (for example, fear of a repercussion or feeling better after exercise).
3. Self-re-evaluation: Self reappraisal helps an individual to realise that the new, healthy behaviour is part of who they want to be.
4. Environmental re-evaluation: Social reappraisal to realise how their unhealthy behaviour impacts others.
5. Social liberation: Environmental opportunities which exist to show society is supportive of healthy behaviour.
6. Self-liberation: This is when a person is committed to the change in behaviour based on the belief that healthy behaviour is possible.
7. Helping relationships: Finding supportive relationships that endorse the desired change.
8. Counterconditioning: Eliminating unhealthy thoughts and behaviours with healthy ones.
9. Reinforcement management: Rewarding positive behaviour and lowering any rewards that come from negative behaviours.
10. Stimulus control: Redesigning the environment to provide hints and reminders that encourage and support healthy behaviour and remove those that encourage unhealthy ones.

UCL COM-B Behavioural Model

This model was developed by Susan Michie, Maartie Van Stralen, and Robert West at UCL (University College London) in 2011. For them, behaviour is a dynamic system with positive and negative feedback loops. In other words, behavioural changes only happen when the person concerned has the capability and opportunity to engage in a behaviour and is motivated to enact the behaviour over any others.

The model identifies three essential factors for change to happen: capability, opportunity, and motivation.

Capability

Does the person have the required skills and knowledge to engage in positive behaviour? What about their abilities? Capability can be further broken into physical and psychological. In organisational settings, capability can be developed through specific activities such as training sessions, mentoring, and workshops.

Opportunity

Refers to external factors which make it possible to engage with specific behaviour. Opportunity can be divided into social (norms, culture) and physical (infrastructure, location, time). Change managers and organisational leaders need to define or create opportunity factors, but their job does not end there. It is extremely important that people can recognise opportunity and how to take advantage of it.

Motivation

An internal process related to how we make choices, motivation is a very important factor for organisational change. Motivated people are more able to see opportunities and develop capabilities. Motivation can be reflective (reflection upon something that has already happened) and automatic (impulses, inhibitions, desires). To successfully develop motivation, change managers need to make employees desire the change. Their job is to shift the process from something that is happening to them to something they want.

If interventions related to all three factors are successful, there’s not only a behavioural change but a process in which by engaging in positive behaviour, employees become more motivated and seek more opportunities to develop their capabilities. This is especially relevant because the model does not only seek to accomplish a particular change in behaviour but to maintain it.

Today, this model is widely used to recognise what makes an intervention effective when it comes to changing certain behaviours. The model is deeply linked to the PRIME theory of motivation. This theory represents the structure of the human motivational system, which is composed of behaviours: responses that create and compare impulses and inhibitions, which are potentially competing or reinforcing; impulses, which are patterns of brain activity in charge of coordinating and impelling responses; inhibitions, which directly oppose impulses; and motives, which are feelings of “want” or “need” and that arise from anticipated pleasure or satisfaction.

The theory recognises that “In every moment we act in pursuit of what we most want or need at that moment”. Another factor in play is evaluation, which is a belief that implies a judgement of positive or negative and is generated by sensory processes and perception, memory, and inference.

The COM-B model provides guidance and strategy to recognise problem behaviours and create effective intervention plans. It is an interactional model: long-term change happens when behaviour changes and impacts the determinants of that behaviour.

AIM (Acceleration Implementation Methodology)

AIM (Acceleration Implementation Methodology) consists of an integrated system that includes principles, strategies, operational principles, tactics, and measurement analytics. It can be applied to any project, and its main goal is to get the maximum impact in the shortest amount of time. AIM is based on a view of change as cyclical and dynamic, and therefore it’s designed to be scalable and flexible. It’s divided into 10 clear steps:

1. Define the change
   • Change managers must help the team understand what’s changing, the reasons behind the change, and the consequences of not being successful. A clear change definition, shared by all members of an organisation, is the first step to success.
2. Build agent capacity
   • After defining the change, it’s important to appoint an identified group of change agents. They must have the required competencies to guide the process and come from different impacted areas of the organisation.
3. Assess the climate for change
   • Factors that determine an organisation’s climate for change include the level of stress (initiatives competing for the same resources), and the organisation’s implementation history, as past patterns are likely to be repeated. Understanding the climate helps change agents determine the opportunities for acceleration.
4. Generate sponsorship
   • Effective leaders realise that change is accelerated by example. When what they do, say, and reinforce is aligned around a commitment to change, the transition is easier. Teams must prioritise this level of commitment at every step of the process to get the full implementation.
5. Determine change approach
   • Changes are either compliance-driven (for example, new industry regulations that need to be implemented) or commitment-driven (which are more related to a company’s internal processes). Understanding the change approach helps choose appropriate tactics.
6. Develop target readiness
   • Change agents must work on identifying the sources of resistance to better manage them. They must also focus more on how things are going to be different rather than on if the change is perceived as positive or negative.
7. Build a communication plan
   • AIM focuses on using the right vehicles to communicate the right messages to the right audiences. It always includes feedback loops to gather and analyse reactions to the process and the content.
8. Develop reinforcement strategy
   • Behaviour changes when you alter the reinforcements. A clear reinforcement strategy, one that includes mechanisms aligned with the new performance expectations, is key for success. During this stage, rewards and consequences must be applied based on observable behaviour.
9. Create cultural fit
   • Change must be consistent with company culture, as it’s one of the main predictors of implementation success. Because company culture is extremely powerful, if a change does not align with current cultural values, an organisation can either “change the change” or change the culture.
10. Prioritise action
    • Project teams must develop an implementation plan that integrates seamlessly with the technical project plan. This will help define how the AIM steps are applied and sequenced, and the selected deliverables.

One of the main advantages of this model is that, like Kotter’s 8 steps, it gives practical instruction, almost in the form of a checklist for leaders.

Lewin’s Force-Field Analysis

Developed in the 1950s by Kurt Lewin, this theory builds upon his “Three-stage model of change”. He believes that a situation is maintained when there is an equilibrium between forces that drive change and forces which are against it. His basic assumption is that the status quo changes when driving forces become stronger than restraining forces. To achieve the desired change, the following stages need to happen:

1. Describe the proposal for change: What is the nature of our current situation that is unacceptable and needs modification? Separate and clearly outline a specific problem. Then, very specifically describe the desired situation. During this stage, it is very important to address people’s concerns and help them understand why change is necessary.
2. Identify driving forces: What are the factors or pressures that support change in the desired direction? What are the relative strengths of these forces? What are the inter-relationships among the driving forces?
3. Identify restraining forces: What are the factors or pressures that resist the proposed change and maintain the status quo? What are the interrelationships among the restraining forces?
4. Develop a comprehensive change strategy by strengthening any of the driving forces and adding new driving forces: Remove or reduce any of the restraining forces.
5. Consider the possible consequences when equilibrium forces are altered (for example, increased resistance, new alliances, fear, etc.): Actions and strategies must be analysed by the change management team at each step, deciding if they are still valid or if they need to be redirected or eliminated/substituted.

Examples of restraining forces may include fear, lack of incentives and/or resources, and lack of training. Examples of driving forces include customer demands, trust in leadership, clear incentives, and clarity about how the change may improve working conditions, benefits, and daily activities. However, the nature of driving and restraining forces is different in each organisation, and they are even different in each stage of a change process, which is why this analysis must continue until the new behaviours become the status quo.

Lewin’s force field analysis is an important tool to understand an organisation’s current situation, and to determine what it needs and how it is going to be achieved. It is especially relevant when analysing company culture and how it helps or stalls change. However, it’s better when it is used as part of a change management model that also includes clear steps for action, and that accounts for implementing changes and maintaining them. This analysis model is useful in all steps of a change process, as driving and restraining forces are subject to transformation as the process unfolds.

Elephant and Rider – 3-Part Model

This theory was popularised by Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch – How to Change Things When Change is Hard. It uses the metaphor of an elephant and its rider, which they borrowed from psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In his metaphor, every person’s mind has two significant aspects: The elephant is a representation of the emotional mind: difficult to shift, easily scared, and stubborn. It’s the part of our mind that needs constant reassurance and seeks immediate pleasure, but it’s also the one in charge of our creative impulses and is strong.

On the other hand, the rider represents our logical, rational mind. It’s in charge of making decisions based on facts and often focuses on the negative side of a situation to protect us. Finally, there’s the path, which represents our environment: outside stimuli, cognitive biases, and distractions that play an important role in how we model our behaviour. They outlined three “surprises” about change:

1. Problems that seem to be related to people are often really about a situation (The path)
2. Exhaustion is easily mistaken for laziness (The elephant)
3. Lack of clarity can be mistaken for resistance (The rider)

For the Heath brothers, behavioural change happens when we can:

1. Direct the rider
   • The rider must be focused on specific behaviours while ignoring “the big picture”. It must keep its eyes open to understand what works and what doesn’t, without forgetting the goals. The rider must remain an avid researcher, understanding where you’re going and why you want to get there. Another key element is to “focus on the bright spots”, which are successful efforts that are worth duplicating. The rider needs clear direction, and the key is to understand what’s working and how to replicate it.
2. Motivate the Elephant
   • For change to happen, people need to feel something. When it comes to organisational changes, it’s very important that people are motivated and personally invested in the actions required for change to take place. The elephant is also easily scared, and when the task feels very big, it gets discouraged. Change must be broken down until it’s no longer scary. Finally, people need to develop a sense of identity and a growth mindset to remain invested in the process.
3. Shape the path
   • Situational changes are very important when it comes to changing behaviour. Shaping the path means tweaking the environment to make change more likely. As a leader or change manager, here is when you get the chance to set up situations that bring out the best in people. For change to be meaningful, behaviours must transform into habits.

The basic thesis of the Switch model is that change happens when someone starts acting differently, that change is more a process than an event, and when it works, it tends to follow a pattern.

#The ‘7 ‘R’s of Change Management’

The 7 ‘R’s of change management is one that we see very occasionally. It can be a useful checklist which poses some simple questions to help introduce and normalise the process of change management to those who are unfamiliar:

1. What is the REASON behind the change? 
2. Who has RAISED the change request? 
3. What RESOURCES are required to deliver the change? 
4. What are the RISKS involved in the requested change? 
5. What is the expected RETURN required from the change? 
6. Who is RESPONSIBLE for creating, testing, and implementing the change? 
7. What is the RELATIONSHIP between the suggested change and other changes? 

Bringing it all Together

Change Management is a topic that attracts a good deal of attention and probably an equal amount of misinformation and misunderstanding. I’ve attempted here to at least give you a flavour of the more popular models although I should stress that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

If you’d like to fast track yourself to change leadership mastery, learn how to apply this wisdom in practice and benefit from decades of experience, incorporating the latest behavioural science, then grab yourself a free copy of our Leaders Guide to Business Change Success by clicking below.