Kotter and ADKAR: RevOps-Specific Application
Two established change frameworks, applied to revenue operations. Kotter diagnoses change at the organisational level. ADKAR diagnoses it at the individual level. Use them together: Kotter to design the programme, ADKAR to debug why a specific person or team is stuck.
Kotter's 8-Step Model, applied to RevOps
Create urgency. Lead with data, not opinion. Show the cost of the status quo in revenue terms: the win rate gap, the forecast miss, the churn the current system is producing. Urgency built on a real number survives the first objection. Urgency built on "leadership wants this" does not.
Build a guiding coalition. Not just the VP. Pull in 2 to 3 respected operators per affected team, plus the systems owner and a finance partner. The coalition has to include people whose hallway opinion others trust.
Form a strategic vision. State the after-state in one sentence a rep can repeat: "Every deal has a single source of truth, so forecast calls stop being arguments." Vague vision produces vague adoption.
Enlist a volunteer army. Adoption spreads peer to peer faster than top down. Give your champions something concrete to do (run a pilot, host office hours, demo the new flow in standup).
Enable action by removing barriers. Find the friction that makes the old way easier than the new way, and remove it. If the new process needs ten clicks and the old one needed two, you have not removed the barrier.
Generate short-term wins. Engineer a visible win inside the first 30 days. A cleaner forecast, a faster handoff, a deal saved. Publicise it. Momentum is a resource you spend and replenish.
Sustain acceleration. Do not declare victory at the first win. Most RevOps changes revert inside 60 days because the team eased off after the launch. Keep the energy system running (see kyle-norton-frameworks.md).
Institute change. Bake the new behaviour into the operating cadence, onboarding, and comp. A change is only institutional when a new hire learns it as "how we do things" without being told it was ever a change.
ADKAR: match the intervention to the barrier
ADKAR's diagnostic power is that it tells you which intervention will work and which will waste money. Find where the person is stuck, then act on that gap only.
| Stage | The barrier sounds like | The right intervention |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | "I didn't know this was changing." | Communication: the why, the business case, the timeline. |
| Desire | "I know, but I don't want to." | Address what they lose. WIIFM. Involve them in design. Never train. |
| Knowledge | "I want to, but I don't know how." | Training, documentation, worked examples. |
| Ability | "I know how, but I can't do it yet." | Deep practice, coaching, reps, on-the-job support. |
| Reinforcement | "I did it, then drifted back." | Spaced reinforcement, visible scoreboards, manager follow-up. |
The classic and expensive mistake: running training (Knowledge) at someone whose real gap is Desire. They sit through the session, nod, and never adopt, because you solved a problem they did not have.
Change Readiness Assessment
Before launching any change, score five factors from 1 to 5 each:
- Leadership Alignment: do the sponsors actually agree, or just say they do?
- Change Fatigue: how many changes has this team absorbed in the last two quarters?
- Trust Level: do people believe leadership tells them the truth about change?
- Data Quality: can the change be measured and reinforced with reliable numbers?
- Management Capability: can frontline managers coach the new behaviour, not just announce it?
Total the score:
- 5 to 10 = RED. Do not proceed. Fix the weakest factor first.
- 11 to 17 = YELLOW. Proceed only with extra support on the low-scoring factors.
- 18 to 22 = GREEN. Proceed.
- 23 to 25 = IDEAL. Proceed and use this as the reference case for future changes.
Run the assessment honestly. A RED score you talked yourself out of is the cheapest failure to avoid.