Mark Blackwell, Arkaro
How combining ADKAR’s individual change model with Arkaro’s collaborative “do it with you” philosophy creates lasting transformation in agriculture, food, and chemicals industries
A familiar story: The consultants arrive with impressive credentials and polished frameworks. They conduct interviews, analyse data, and deliver a comprehensive strategy presentation. The slides are beautiful, the logic is sound, and everyone nods approvingly in the boardroom. Six months later, nothing has changed.
This is the “do it for you” consultant trap that organisations across agriculture, food, and chemicals know all too well. The missing ingredient isn’t better strategy—it’s sustainable change management that addresses both the technical and human dimensions of transformation.
The Individual at the Heart of Organisational Change
Jeff Hiatt’s ADKAR model recognises a fundamental truth: organisational change happens one person at a time. ADKAR’s five sequential building blocks—Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement—provide a structured approach to individual change that perfectly complements Arkaro’s collaborative philosophy.
But here’s where most implementations go wrong: ADKAR is often treated as a checklist rather than a dynamic framework that requires ongoing facilitation and support. This is where the Arkaro Approach transforms ADKAR from theory into practice.
The Arkaro Advantage: "Do It With You" Meets ADKAR
Change management often falls into the same trap as traditional consulting—imposing solutions rather than building capabilities. The Arkaro Approach integrates ADKAR through our four-step methodology:
1. Understand - Building Awareness with Context
Rather than simply announcing change, we work with your teams to explore the bottlenecks that make transformation necessary. But understanding is a two-way conversation. In the Arkaro “do it with you” approach, awareness building isn’t just about making the case for change—it’s about understanding what the roadblocks might be.
What if resistance to change isn’t blocking your success—but actually enabling it? By actively listening to concerns and treating resistance as valuable feedback, we uncover insights that become the seeds of successful change design. The hesitations, concerns, and pushback from your teams often reveal critical gaps in our understanding that, when addressed, create far more robust solutions.
ADKAR Connection: Awareness isn’t just knowing that change is happening; it’s understanding both the specific bottlenecks to your aspirations that require this change AND the potential roadblocks that could derail it.
2. Co-create - Developing Desire Through Ownership
When people help design the solution, they naturally develop stronger desire to make it work. Our collaborative approach ensures that teams don’t just receive change—they help shape it.
ADKAR Connection: Desire emerges naturally when people see their fingerprints on the solution and understand how it addresses challenges they’ve helped identify.
3. Enable - Building Knowledge and Ability Together
This is where “do it with you” becomes crucial. Rather than delivering training programmes, we work alongside your teams as they develop new capabilities, providing real-time coaching and support.
ADKAR Connection: Knowledge and Ability develop more effectively through hands-on collaboration than through traditional training approaches.
4. Sustain - Embedding Reinforcement into Daily Operations
Change becomes permanent when it’s integrated into regular business processes. We help design reinforcement mechanisms that don’t require external maintenance. As one wise client observed, “don’t take the foot off the gas too soon.” The sustain phase may not be as intense as other phases, but it is absolutely critical—this is where transformation either becomes the new normal or quietly fades back to old habits.
ADKAR Connection: Reinforcement isn’t an afterthought—it’s built into the process design from the beginning.
Why This Matters in Traditional Industries
Agriculture, food, and chemicals companies face unique change challenges:
- Deep technical expertise can create resistance to “outside” perspectives
- Risk-averse cultures require careful attention to building desire for change
- Complex regulatory environments demand thorough knowledge transfer
- Geographically distributed operations make consistent reinforcement particularly challenging
The ADKAR-Arkaro combination addresses these challenges by:
- Respecting existing expertise whilst building awareness of new possibilities
- Creating desire through collaborative problem-solving rather than imposed solutions
- Developing knowledge through practical application rather than theoretical training
- Building ability through mentoring and real-time support
- Establishing reinforcement through integrated business processes
Practical Application: IBP Transformation Case Study
Consider a recent Integrated Business Planning transformation. Traditional approaches might have:
- Presented the IBP framework as the solution
- Trained teams on new processes
- Implemented new technology
- Expected adoption to follow
The ADKAR-Arkaro approach instead:
Understand/Awareness: Worked with teams to first understand the organisation’s strategic aspirations and bottlenecks, then explored how IBP design and implementation could support the execution of strategy rules rather than simply improving planning processes in isolation.
Co-create/Desire: Facilitated sessions where teams designed their own IBP approach, adapting the framework to their specific context and challenges.
Enable/Knowledge & Ability: Provided side-by-side coaching as teams ran their first IBP cycles, building capability through real application rather than classroom training.
Sustain/Reinforcement: Helped embed IBP metrics, reviews and cross-functional decision making ensuring reinforcement became part of normal business rhythm – indeed the decision making process of the business.
The Culture-Strategy Integration
What makes this approach particularly powerful is how it addresses both technical and cultural dimensions simultaneously. Rather than treating culture as a separate workstream, the ADKAR-Arkaro integration recognises that:
- Strategy implementation requires individual behaviour change
- Behaviour change requires both technical knowledge and emotional commitment
- Sustainable change emerges from collaborative design, not imposed implementationplement
Moving Beyond the Presentation
The next time you’re considering a transformation initiative, ask yourself:
- Are we building genuine awareness of the bottlenecks that require change, or just announcing what we’ve already decided?
- Are we creating desire through collaborative problem-solving, or expecting enthusiasm for imposed solutions?
- Are we developing knowledge and ability through hands-on support, or relying on one-off training events?
- Are we building reinforcement into our business processes, or treating it as an afterthought?
The ADKAR model provides the structure for individual change. The Arkaro Approach provides the collaborative methodology that makes it stick.
Your Next Step
Sustainable transformation requires more than good frameworks—it requires skilled facilitation that combines technical expertise with deep understanding of human change dynamics.
If your organisation is considering a transformation that needs to stick beyond the consultant’s departure, the ADKAR-Arkaro combination offers a proven path forward. We don’t just deliver change management—we build your team’s capability to lead change themselves.
Ready to explore how ADKAR and the Arkaro Approach could accelerate your transformation? Contact Mark Blackwell for a complimentary 30-minute consultation to discuss your specific change challenges and how collaborative change management could make the difference.
Further Reading from Arkaro Insights
Explore these related articles to deepen your understanding of collaborative change management and strategy implementation:
- “Arkaro’s Approach to Culture During Change Initiatives”
Discover how culture and change management integrate in practice through the Arkaro methodology. - “Strategy is an adaptive challenge not a technical problem”
Understand why transformation requires addressing human dynamics, not just technical solutions. - “How to bring strategy execution to your Integrated Business Planning process…or whatever Managing Process you have”
See real application of change management principles through IBP transformation case studies. - “What is the definition of strategy?”
Learn the foundational bottleneck-focused approach that underpins both effective strategy and successful change management. - “So what is a Framework for strategy? and why do you need it?” Explore how frameworks provide essential structure for organisational change and transformation success.
About the Author Mark Blackwell founded Arkaro following extensive experience leading transformations in agriculture, food, and chemicals industries. Having witnessed both successful and failed change initiatives, Mark developed the collaborative “do it with you” approach that builds lasting organisational capability rather than dependency on external consultants.
Connect with Mark on LinkedIn or visit www.arkaro.com to explore how the Arkaro Approach could support your next transformation.
