The first A in ADKAR is awareness, awareness
of the need for change, and it's because change
begins with understanding why.
This is a question we began asking when we
turned about two years old as human beings.
Why?
Why?
Why?
We're seeing it show up all over the business
literature as well.
You look at Simon Sinek's "Golden Circle,"
or you look at all the work around purpose-driven
organizations, the notion of why as a central
driving force is becoming more and more evident.
Awareness has been the beginning building
block of ADKAR since ADKAR was created.
What are the factors that influence awareness?
There are things like your view of the current
state, how you perceive problems, and the
credibility of the sender.
Do you think the current state is broken and
needs to get fixed or do you think the current
state is doing great?
Because you know what?
You're the one that built the current state.
Are you hearing a lot of rumors about the
current state or you are not hearing much
about the current state?
Do you identify problems as soon as they start
to creep up or are you kind of oblivious until
the problem is sort of blatantly right in
front of you?
Who's telling you this is the problem?
Who's telling you that there's a need for
change?
Is it someone that you trust?
Is it someone that is credible?
Do you buy into the message?
So, that's awareness of the need for change.
It's what's the nature?
Why?
Why now?
What if we don't?
And I'm gonna make one quick observation here.
Notice that it is not awareness that the change
is coming.
It's awareness of the need for change.
It is a subtle but incredibly important difference
because I've heard even skilled change practitioners
said, "Oh, we built awareness.
We told them when it was coming."
Awareness that it's coming is not awareness
in the ADKAR Model.
We define awareness as awareness of the need
for change.
It's when I've internalized and understand
why this is happening in the first place.
Grab your smartphone.
We're gonna build a real quick word cloud
here.
That question why we began asking from the
very beginning.
What I'm asking here is, what are some of
the common reactions when a person is asked
to change, but they don't understand why?
A person is asked to change, but they don't
understand why.
This is stupid.
Resistance.
They resist.
They panic.
Frustration.
Sometimes we just ignore, you know.
Reluctance, consolidation, apathy.
Yeah.
I will shut down.
The why is so important to open up my receptivity
to hear anything else that's about to come
and to start to open up to the fact that I
might need to take a step out of my current
state how I do things today because there
might be a need to change.
If we don't create that compelling why we
see confusion, resistance, people ignore,
we get fear, and anger, and all of those consequences.
