Introduction: why this action matters for adoption
During change, “performance” is not only whether employees are working hard. It is whether people understand the new expectations, can perform the new behaviors, and are receiving enough reinforcement to make the change stick. Prosci’s ADKAR model frames successful individual change as progress through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement, and it recommends identifying barrier points by role or individual [Prosci]. PMI similarly treats readiness as a diagnostic activity that informs decisions about capacity, commitment, and whether the organization can sustain the intended benefits [PMI, 2014]. (prosci.com)
This action helps a change manager move from broad statements such as “the team is resisting” to specific findings such as “supervisors understand the change but lack time and confidence to coach the new workflow.” That distinction matters because the follow-up action may be coaching, job aids, process redesign, sponsor intervention, or workload relief rather than another communication.
What this action is and when to use it
This is a diagnostic assessment and planning intervention. It combines evidence about current performance with structured conversations and constructive feedback so employees and managers can close adoption gaps. It is not a disciplinary process, although it may reveal performance issues that managers or HR need to handle through normal channels.
Use it before a pilot, after training, during go-live, when adoption varies across teams, when resistance increases, or when benefits are not appearing despite project delivery. In early phases, the focus is readiness and risk. During implementation, the focus is ability, workflow, and support. After go-live, the focus shifts to reinforcement, sustained use, and benefit realization [Prosci; PMI, 2014]. (prosci.com)
Preparation: inputs, stakeholders, materials, timing, and decisions needed
Start by clarifying the expected behaviors and outcomes. CIPD notes that performance management should align objectives with organizational goals and include regular, open, supportive discussion, not just periodic review [CIPD, 2026]. For a change initiative, translate the change into role-level expectations: what employees must stop doing, start doing, continue doing, and do differently. (cipd.org)
Useful inputs include training attendance, system-use data, quality results, customer issues, process cycle times, help-desk tickets, observation notes, pulse-survey results, manager feedback, and employee self-assessments. PMI recommends combining assessment templates with custom questions and following broad surveys with targeted interviews or focus groups to understand root causes [PMI, 2014]. Decide in advance who will receive individual feedback, who will receive aggregated themes, what will remain confidential, and what findings can change the plan. (pmi.org)
Step-by-step facilitation guide
Define the adoption standard. Write a plain-language description of “good performance in the changed state.” Include outcomes and behaviors, because CIPD distinguishes results from how work is carried out [CIPD, 2026].
Segment the impacted group. Compare teams, roles, locations, tenure groups, or manager spans. PMI advises including anyone touched by or able to influence the change so decision-makers do not work from incomplete data [PMI, 2014].
Diagnose the likely barrier. Use ADKAR to ask whether the issue is awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, or reinforcement [Prosci]. Use readiness questions to test whether the gap is capacity, skill, time, process, technology, commitment, or informal rewards [PMI, 2014].
Validate with employees. Hold short, respectful conversations. Edmondson’s research defines psychological safety as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking and links it with learning behavior [Edmondson, 1999]. Open with curiosity: “We are trying to understand what makes the new process easier or harder to adopt.” Avoid asking employees to criticize leaders in front of their managers.
Prepare feedback using observable facts. CCL recommends feedback that focuses on specific actions and impact, avoids judgment, and uses Situation–Behavior–Impact as a practical structure [CCL, 2025]. For example: “In yesterday’s customer handoff, the new intake fields were skipped. The impact was that the service team had to re-contact the customer. What got in the way?”
Co-create the improvement action. Gallup recommends timely, focused, future-oriented feedback and ongoing dialogue rather than delayed annual conversations [Gallup, 2024]. Agree on one or two actions, the support needed, the owner, and the review date. (gallup.com)
Feed themes into the change plan. Aggregate repeated issues into priorities: training refresh, manager coaching, system fixes, job aids, role clarification, sponsor messaging, or workload adjustment. Be careful: Kluger and DeNisi’s meta-analysis found that feedback improved performance on average but decreased performance in over one-third of interventions, so feedback should be specific, task-focused, and paired with support [Kluger & DeNisi, 1996]. (researchgate.net)
Example: how this could be applied in a real change initiative
A company rolls out a new CRM process. Early dashboard data shows that sales representatives are logging opportunities, but forecast fields are often incomplete. Interviews reveal three different causes: some reps do not understand why the new forecast field matters, some managers are not reviewing CRM quality in one-to-ones, and one region has a compensation-reporting workaround that rewards old behavior.
The change manager summarizes the finding as three adoption gaps: awareness of business value, manager reinforcement, and misaligned incentives. Managers receive a feedback script and dashboard. Sales reps receive brief, behavior-specific feedback during weekly pipeline reviews. The sponsor removes the conflicting report. Two weeks later, the change team checks field completion, forecast accuracy, help requests, and manager check-in completion.
Roles and responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
Change manager | Design the diagnostic approach, synthesize findings, identify adoption risks, and update the change plan. |
Line manager or supervisor | Provide role-specific feedback, remove local blockers, coach employees, and follow up. |
Sponsor | Act on systemic barriers, reinforce priorities, and make decisions that managers cannot make alone. |
HR or employee relations | Advise on fairness, documentation, privacy, and escalation for formal performance issues. |
Employees | Share practical barriers, reflect on feedback, test improvement actions, and identify support needed. |
Project or product team | Fix process, technology, data, or training issues revealed by the assessment. |
Common mistakes to avoid
Do not treat this as a disguised performance review. That reduces trust and narrows the conversation before you understand the barrier. Do not label people as resistant before testing awareness, knowledge, ability, workload, incentives, and manager reinforcement [Prosci; PMI, 2014]. Do not rely on one data source; dashboards show what happened, but conversations often explain why. Do not give vague feedback such as “be more adaptable.” Use observed behavior, impact, and a future action [CCL, 2025]. Finally, do not collect feedback from employees and then fail to act; that weakens psychological safety and future participation [Edmondson, 1999]. (prosci.com)
Measures of success or adoption indicators
The action is working when findings become clearer, feedback conversations happen faster, and adoption barriers start to decline. Track leading indicators such as readiness or confidence scores, completion of manager check-ins, training-to-application rates, observed use of new behaviors, and employee-reported clarity. Track adoption indicators such as system-use quality, error rates, rework, cycle time, customer outcomes, support tickets, workaround reduction, and sustained performance after go-live. Gallup reports that employees who received meaningful feedback in the past week were more likely to be fully engaged, so feedback frequency and quality are useful management indicators, not just activity counts [Gallup, 2024]. (gallup.com)
Checklist for the change manager
The changed-state behaviors are defined by role.
Data sources include both performance evidence and employee input.
The assessment distinguishes awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement barriers.
Managers know how to give behavior-specific feedback.
Employees understand that the purpose is improvement, not blame.
Findings are aggregated into priorities and owners.
Support actions are built into the change plan.
Follow-up dates and adoption indicators are agreed.
Optional reusable worksheet and script
Adoption feedback worksheet
Field | Prompt |
Role or group | Who is impacted? |
Expected changed behavior | What should be happening? |
Evidence | What data or observations show the current state? |
Likely barrier | Awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement, capacity, process, incentive, or workload? |
Feedback statement | Situation, behavior, impact. |
Employee perspective | What does the employee say is getting in the way? |
Support action | Training, coaching, job aid, system fix, decision, reinforcement, or workload change. |
Follow-up measure | What will show improvement, and by when? |
Feedback script
“In [specific situation], I observed [behavior]. The impact on [customer, team, process, risk, or adoption outcome] was [impact]. I’d like to understand what was happening from your perspective. What support or change would help you perform this new expectation consistently? Let’s agree on one action before [date], and we’ll review what improved.”
References
Prosci. “The Prosci ADKAR® Model.” No publication date shown.
https://www.prosci.com/methodology/adkar
Project Management Institute. “Change Readiness: Focusing Change Management Where It Counts.” July 2014.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/change-readiness-11126
CIPD. “Performance management: An introduction.” 29 Jan 2026.
https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/factsheets/performance-factsheet/
Gallup. “How Effective Feedback Fuels Performance.” 1 Jan 2022; updated 19 Jan 2024.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/357764/fast-feedback-fuels-performance.aspx
Center for Creative Leadership. “How To Give Feedback Most Effectively.” 27 Apr 2025.
https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/review-time-how-to-give-different-types-of-feedback/
Edmondson, Amy. “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 1999.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Kluger, Avraham N., and Angelo DeNisi. “The Effects of Feedback Interventions on Performance: A Historical Review, a Meta-Analysis, and a Preliminary Feedback Intervention Theory.” Psychological Bulletin, March 1996.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.254