Change doesn’t happen because of a process

I’m a big advocate of applying change management concepts in the Agile world and ensuring that when adopting agile we achieve the maximum traction possible.

One of my biggest problems though with the most common change management models out there, ADKAR by Prosci and ADAPT created by Mike Cohn, is that they lead you to believe that change can be applied as a process. The very terms used give you a sense that first you should give people awareness and then desire and then knowledge etc etc.

I firmly believe that the reality of any change is that it is built up of a multitude of little changes at a variety of levels such as — broad groups, individual people, the skills they use and the practices they apply. Each one of these elements ultimately has a change curve of its own.

This being the case, I find a more successful approach to enable change is to target all aspects of the change curve at the same time, but in little chunks (kind of sounds like agile :D).

In my experience this leads to better engagement and momentum than would targeting one element after the other. Success and small wins generates momentum faster than speeches and presentation decks, and the reinforcing loops of successful change can lead to increased traction for the next set of small wins and successes.

So what I’ve found myself using is a supplementary change model that I created called Education, Environment, Support.

This model targets 3 levers that can be pulled to support a change. The 3 levers target the factors that make change hard. Bundled alongside an ADKAR/ADAPT type view, it can be used to make sure you are covering all your bases at the same time.

The EES (Education, Environment Support) model works by highlighting that if people are finding it hard to change, they generally need help in one or more of these 3 major areas to help it stick.

So how does Education, Environment, Support work?

Firstly, while implementing any change a change agent needs to ensure that the people that are changing have enough Education around the topic to understand why, how and what a change is, and how they will play their part in implementing it.

In addition this education must be supported by an Environment that is conducive to applying that change. This materialises in a whole raft of factors like, do they have enough time to apply the change? is it safe enough for them to feel they can change? do they have person challenges that will inhibit the change?

Targeting the environment to create a change conducive space is critical to successful change adoption.

Assuming that the appropriate amount of education has been supplied and an environment conducive to change has been created, people will still require Support.

This is the support that is provided to each person that is part of the change. The support must be considered on an individual basis as change is ultimately a very individual journey. Each person has a varying degree of resistance to change that is based on their personal life experiences. This means that each and every person experiencing the change has the possibility to resist a change at a different time and in a different way. This makes ready access to support ever more important.

Ensuring that there is a timely or regular way in which individuals are able to reach out for support, or just feel supported when they are ready to run for the hills because change is scary, can be the critical factor in making change stick.

Ultimately when applied together as 3 parts of a holistic change approach, Education, Environment, Support allows you to targets all elements of ADKAR and ADAPT at the same time to maximise your chances of making change stick.

What’s best is that if your change is failing to gain traction, thinking about which part of EES might be missing can give you a very tangible way of responding to any feedback or challenges that are preventing your change from happening.