Meeting People Where They Are
It’s easy to assume that once we communicate a change, people will naturally adjust. But as Julie Dirksen reminds us in Chapter 3 of Talk to the Elephant, change isn’t a switch. It’s a journey.
When you’re leading a team, it helps to recognize that each person may be starting from a different point and moving at a different pace. If you want new behaviors to take hold, it helps to understand the stages your employees move through and the kind of support they need along the way.
Key Takeaways
- Readiness comes in stages. Just because you’ve explained the change doesn’t mean everyone on your team is ready to act on it. Some may still be processing, asking questions, or figuring out how it affects them personally.
- Pushing too early creates resistance. If you pressure a team member to get on board before they’re ready, you might see frustration, disengagement, or surface-level agreement that doesn’t translate into real follow-through.
- Clear, simple choices encourage progress. When you give someone a practical option that fits where they are in the process, they’re more likely to move forward and build confidence as they go.
From Page to Practice
This concept has been top of mind as I work on building out a new gamified course on change for leaders, called The Adaptive Leader. The course equips managers to guide their teams through real shifts in how they work without losing momentum or morale.
I modeled the course after a popular change management framework created by Prosci, known as ADKAR. It outlines five key stages that people experience as they process a change:
Awareness → Desire → Knowledge → Ability → Reinforcement
All five must be addressed for a person’s behavior to fully change.
Like Dirksen’s framework, which I’ll describe below, ADKAR recognizes that change unfolds in a sequence. You can’t jump straight to action if your team doesn’t yet understand why the change matters or how it fits into their day-to-day work.
Chapter 3 reinforces the importance of pacing your support to match where someone is, not where you hope they’ll be.
Applying This to People Management
Dirksen highlights a concept she refers to as the “change ladder,” based on research around behavior change and risk perception (Perski et al., 2021; Gould, 2016). She uses this ladder to illustrate how people progress through different levels of readiness, from not considering a change at all to fully maintaining a new behavior.
In Talk to the Elephant, she outlines ten distinct stages someone might move through when adopting a new behavior:
- Doesn’t know about it
- Knows about it but doesn’t really get it
- Gets it but doesn’t really believe it
- Believes it but has other priorities
- Prioritizes the behavior but doesn’t know how to change
- Prioritizes it but thinks it’s too hard
- Prioritizes it but isn’t confident
- Is ready but needs help to start
- Has started but isn’t consistent
- Has been consistent but is struggling to maintain
This list captures the nuance of how people weigh relevance, risk, and effort before (and after) making a change. It’s not a linear path, but a way to understand the friction points that may be holding someone back. If you're looking for a deeper dive into these stages and how to spot them in action, I highly recommend reading this section of her book in full.
To make this more directly applicable for people managers, I’ve grouped her ideas into four broader mindsets that reflect the underlying beliefs or thought patterns team members may be navigating during change.
- I don’t see a reason to change.
- I get it, but I’m not ready.
- I want to try this.
- I’m doing it regularly now.
Each of these mindsets gives you a clue about what kind of support someone needs next. When paired with the ADKAR model, they offer a useful lens for understanding how people move through change and what support makes the biggest difference.
Each stage aligns with a specific phase of the ADKAR model and gives managers a framework for what kind of actions to take at that moment in time. Here’s how they connect:
- I don’t see a reason to change ties to Awareness. Managers need to help their team understand what’s changing, why it matters to the organization, and how it affects the team’s day-to-day work.
- I get it, but I’m not ready reflects Desire. It’s not enough for employees to understand the change. They also need to care. Managers can support this stage by connecting the change to personal or team-level benefits and creating space for questions or concerns.
- I want to try this connects with both Knowledge and Ability. At this point, employees need the skills and confidence to take action. Managers should look at what training, mentoring, or hands-on support is needed to help the team follow through. Working with your training team or a learning designer can help map the desired skills to the right learning methods and ensure support is both timely and relevant.
- I’m doing it regularly now maps to Reinforcement. Change sticks when there are ongoing cues, consistent expectations, and opportunities to practice. Managers can strengthen this phase by recognizing progress, sharing wins, and building space for new behaviors to become habits.
When you tailor your message and support based on where someone is, you build momentum and make change feel more manageable. An intentional approach creates momentum and helps each person move forward with more clarity and less wasted time.
A Parting Thought
Real change takes hold when you recognize that not everyone starts from the same place. The change ladder helps you see where each person is, while the ADKAR model gives you a structure for how to support them. Both remind us that successful change begins with awareness. Before skills, buy-in, or habits can take shape, people need a clear reason to pay attention.
In the next post, we’ll explore how to spark that first step.
Next Up
Chapter 4 – Communicating Value. We'll focus on how to position change in a way that earns attention, builds relevance, and lays the foundation for real engagement.
