Table of Contents
- What Is Change Management?
- Why Change Management Models Matter in 2026
- 10 Change Management Models & Theories Shaping 2026
- What Are the Main Types of Change Management?
- What Are the Benefits of Using Change Management Framework Models?
- Key Metrics to Measure Change Management Success
- How to Choose the Right Change Management Model for Your Organization
- FAQs
Change is constant, but results are not. Organizations invest heavily in new systems, restructuring, and digital transformation, yet many initiatives fall short at the execution stage. The gap is rarely a strategy. It is adoption, process accuracy, and sustained behavior change. The right change management models help leaders move beyond announcements and training toward measurable outcomes. In 2026, successful enterprises are pairing proven frameworks with execution discipline to ensure transformation drives real business impact.
TL;DR
- In 2026, the main types of change management models include Lewin’s Model, Kotter’s 8-Step Model, ADKAR, McKinsey 7-S, Kübler-Ross Change Curve, Bridges’ Transition Model, Satir Model, Burke-Litwin Model, PDCA, and Nudge Theory.
- Each model addresses different transformation needs, including strategic restructuring, cultural shifts, and enterprise software rollouts.
- The best change management frameworks combine structured methodology with measurable execution to drive adoption and process accuracy.
- Modern enterprises integrate change management models with digital adoption strategies to ensure technology investments deliver sustained ROI and operational performance improvements.
What Is Change Management?
Change management is a structured approach that helps individuals, teams, and organizations transition from a current state to a desired future state. It ensures new strategies, technologies, and processes are adopted effectively and aligned with business goals. Proven frameworks guide execution, reduce resistance, and drive measurable operational outcomes.
Why Change Management Models Matter in 2026
As enterprises accelerate ERP, CRM, and HCM transformations, change fatigue is real. Employees must adapt quickly across evolving systems and workflows, and without structure, even well-planned initiatives lose traction.
Structured change management frameworks provide clarity, align stakeholders, and create measurable milestones for adoption and impact. Modern business change management models now focus beyond communication and training, emphasizing sustained behavior change, process accuracy, and measurable business results.
10 Change Management Models & Theories Shaping 2026
The most effective change management models do more than outline steps for communication. They shape how organizations align leadership, influence employee behavior, and translate transformation into measurable business performance. In 2026, enterprises are not just asking which framework to follow. They are evaluating which change management methodologies can protect ROI, accelerate adoption, and sustain operational efficiency.
Below are the 10 change management models that continue to define enterprise transformation strategy.
- Kotter’s change management theory
- Lewin’s change management model
- The McKinsey 7-S change management model
- Nudge theory
- Kübler-Ross change curve
- Satir change management model
- PDSA cycle
- ADKAR change management model
- Bridges’ transition change management model
- Kaizen change management model
1. Kotter’s Change Management Theory
Harvard Professor John Kotter’s 1996 book Leading Change is a go-to reference on how to navigate change in business. Kotter outlines an 8-step process for organizational change:
- Create a sense of urgency
- Build a guiding coalition
- Create a strategic vision
- Communicate the vision
- Enable action by removing barriers
- Generate short-term wins
- Sustain acceleration
- Anchor changes in corporate culture
Kotter’s organizational change theory is one of the most popular change management models because it does a great job of establishing a sense of urgency and explaining why change is needed. Where it comes up short is in its lack of feedback from all levels.
Kotter takes a top-down approach. If you start with these steps, be sure to incorporate some ways to build grassroots momentum and solicit feedback from frontline employees.
What we like about this model:
This model is ideal for companies that are adopting new enterprise software. We especially like that this model promotes “short-term wins” – specifically, onboarding departments that are least resistant to change first, which can help foster internal buy-in across other departments.
2. Lewin’s Change Model
Lurt Lewin developed his change model in the 1940s, and it’s still popular today – primarily because of its simplicity. The model breaks up organizational change into three steps:
| Unfreeze | Change | Refreeze |
|---|---|---|
| Decide what needs to change. | Make the change. | Internalize and institutionalize the change. |
| Analyze your current processes and identify what needs to change. | Communicate often about the benefits of the change. | Create a sense of stability to sustain the change. |
| Communicate the need for change. | Allow time and training for people to get used to the change. | Celebrate successes. |
The Lewin model for organizational change is deceptively simple since it’s only three steps. You will need to fight the temptation to rush through each phase. It takes time to plan, execute, and reinforce a change. Make sure you allow enough time for employees to get used to the changes and provide opportunities for them to give feedback.
What we like about this model:
This model focuses on empowering employees, rewarding them for adapting and communicating with them regularly. We think the Lewin model would work well for large companies that want to avoid internal rumors and confusion about major changes.
3. McKinsey 7-S Model
The McKinsey 7-S model was outlined in the book In Search of Excellence by McKinsey consultants Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman. Instead of focusing on structure, the model emphasizes the need for coordination and maps out a series of interconnected factors that impact a company’s ability to change. These seven elements are:
Hard Elements
- Strategy – your plan for how to compete and succeed in the marketplace
- Structure – how your organized i.e. your business unit and reporting structure
- System – the processes and technologies employees use to get their jobs done.
Soft Elements
- Shared values – core values as defined by the company’s corporate culture and work ethic
- Style – leadership approach to managing the company and employees
- Staff – the company’s workforce
- Skills – employees’ collective knowledge and skill set.
The 7-S model’s strength is helping organizations understand that status quo so they know what needs to change. The model also helps illustrate how any organizational change will impact all seven elements.
The model is less effective at actually guiding companies through making the change. The McKinsey model might be best paired with a more actionable organizational change management framework and corporate communication tools like Flipsnack.
What we like about this model:
We like the separation of hard and soft change elements, as different managers or departments may be overseeing those points.
4. Nudge Theory
Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein outlined the ideas behind nudge theory in their book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. The approach gently guides or suggests users make a change without strict enforcement or penalizing non-compliance.
Companies should present the change as a choice and remove as many obstacles as possible to make it more likely people comply. They’ll also need to celebrate small wins and highlight the benefits of the change.
Companies have found success in using the Nudge theory to encourage more people to contribute to their retirement plans. Governments have used it to increase the number of people signed up for organ donation.
Each of these actions is a one-time choice by the participant. When dealing with complex organizational change, companies may need a more structured change management framework.
What we like about this model:
This model reminds us of the ways marketers move people through the sales funnel — using several “touchpoints” to drive consumers toward an action. We can see how marketing agencies would be especially successful in implementing the nudge theory.
5. Kübler-Ross Change Curve
You may be familiar with the Kübler-Ross Change Curve because it’s based on the five stages of grief outlined by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. She focused on how terminally ill patients processed their grief about facing death. She outlined five phases:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
So why is a theory about grieving in a list of change management models for business? People are naturally resistant to change. The change curve expands upon the five stages of grief to describe the emotions employees feel when adjusting to an organizational change. The stages are:
- Shock – Employees are surprised by the change.
- Denial – Employees are in disbelief about the change.
- Frustration – Employees begin to acknowledge changes, but are resentful.
- Depression – Employees are unmotivated to work or complete the change.
- Experiment – Employees begin to engage with the new structure/systems.
- Decision – Employees feel more comfortable with the change and learn how to work in the new environment.
- Integration – Employees fully adapt to the change and make it part of their work life.
The model is a great resource for thinking about and managing your employees’ reactions to a change but doesn’t provide an overall framework for initiating organizational change. Consider pairing it with another model.
What we like about this model:
We think this model is helpful for human resources teams that need to anticipate and prepare for how employees might react to change.
6. Satir Change Model
The Satir Change Model is also based on the five stages of grief. It can be used to model how employees are performing during the change. The five phases are:
- Late status quo – This is when employees understand what is expected of them, but may not agree with the productivity requirements.
- Resistance – This is the first phase after you introduce the change. You can expect some resistance which will lead to a decrease in productivity.
- Chaos – This is the lowest point in your productivity as the change starts to take its full emotional toll on your workforce. This is when you’ll need to provide the most support to make your change successful.
- Integration – Productivity starts to improve in this phase as employees begin to see the positive value of the change.
- New status quo – This is when you can expect productivity to become stable again (hopefully at a higher level than when you started) as people accept and integrate the change into their work.
Like the Kübler-Ross model, this framework isn’t ideal for helping you plan and execute your change. Where it is helpful is in predicting and responding to how your team’s performance will be impacted during the successful implementation of your organizational change.
What we like about this model:
We can see this model being useful for teams in deadline-driven environments. Being able to predict when productivity may decrease could help project managers set more relaxed timelines for projects.
7. PDSA Cycle
The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycle is a continuous process for optimizing and improving your business. The cycle is based on the work of W. Edward Deming and Walter Shewhart. The approach is sometimes called the Deming Wheel or Deming Cycle.
The cycle is meant to work in a loop where you repeat the four steps:
- Plan – Recognize what needs to change and make a plan.
- Do – Test your idea on a small scale.
- Study – Analyze your results and determine what worked and what didn’t.
- Act – Take action based on your results and what you learned.
The cycle is a great tool to use for continuous improvement. It can easily fit into any or every part of your overall change management plan. But you’ll probably need a more detailed framework for planning out a large organizational change.
What we like about this model:
We like that the “Study” stage of this cycle compares actual results with projections. This simple four-step process can be repeated until the results align with objectives. It also provides a clear framework to streamline OKRs, making it easier to track progress and keep teams focused on measurable outcomes.
8. Prosci ADKAR Model
The Prosci ADKAR change management model is not a top-down approach. Instead, it focused on what people at all levels of an organization need to do in order for an organizational change to be effective. Prosci founder Jeff Hiatt created the ADKAR model. According to the model, people need to achieve five outcomes:
- Awareness – Management explains that changes are coming and why they are necessary.
- Desire – Leaders persuade employees to support the change, by providing case studies or other evidence. They may also need to address individual concerns to build confidence in the changes.
- Knowledge – This is the stage at which employees learn how to implement changes. For companies introducing new software, this stage includes training.
- Ability – At this stage, employees are applying what they’ve learned.
- Reinforcement – This is an ongoing process that recognizes employees for their accomplishments and provides performance incentives.
The ADKAR model is a useful tool because it helps you think about and plan for everything that needs to happen on the ground for your organizational change to be successful. It forces you to plan for how to support and create change across all levels of the organization.
What we like about this model:
We like that this model illustrates the need for educating employees about a change before jumping into training. It’s a much more effective way to implement new software platforms.
9. Bridges’ Transition Model
William Bridges made an important distinction in Bridges’ Transition Model – it wasn’t about change, it was about transition. Bridges believed changes happen abruptly and a person has no control over the matter. A transition, however, is a slower process or journey a person goes through. The model proposes three stages employees go through during a transition:
- Endings – This is when employees understand what they will lose – for example, colleagues, software platforms, or physical locations.
- Neutral zone – This is the transitional time between old and new. Employees may feel unsure about new responsibilities or methods.
- New beginnings – This is when the change is accepted as the new norm. The goal is to keep the momentum going.
The model is similar to the Satir model or the Kübler-Ross Change Curve because it focuses on managing employees’ emotions through an organizational change. Similarly, it has the same drawback in that it does not actually provide a framework for implementing change.
What we like about this model:
We like that this model mentions loss – allowing employees time to process those feelings may ultimately lead to a better implementation of changes.
10. Kaizen Change Model
Kaizen is a popular change management model. This model calls for change to be a continuous process rather than a one-time transition.
The Kaizen model promotes the concept that small and ongoing changes offer more benefits than infrequent and large changes.
- Let go of assumptions.
- Be proactive about problem-solving.
- Reject the status quo.
- Let go of perfectionism and embrace iterative, adaptive change.
- Look for solutions as you discover mistakes.
- Create an environment that empowers everyone to contribute.
- Instead of accepting the obvious explanation, ask “why” five times to get to the root cause.
- Gather information and opinions from multiple people.
- Find low-cost, small improvements.
- Never stop improving.
With the Kaizen model, all employees work as a team on a regular basis to promote small yet continuous and comprehensive development with the cooperation and commitment of all partners.
What we like about this model:
This model gives employees more control over changes, which we think is a creative approach to building employee trust. (We also like that Kaizen loosely translates to “good change” in Japanese).
What Are the Main Types of Change Management?
Before exploring the 10 change management models, it’s important to understand that organizations experience change in different ways. The types of change management vary based on scope, urgency, and business impact. Identifying the category helps leaders apply the right change management methodologies and align their approach with proven organizational change management theory.
Strategic Change
Strategic change focuses on shifts in long-term direction, market positioning, or business models. These initiatives typically require executive sponsorship, cross-functional alignment, and clear performance metrics tied directly to business outcomes.
Operational Change
Operational change centers on improving internal processes, workflows, and efficiency. While less visible than strategic transformation, it directly affects productivity, compliance, and overall execution quality across teams.
Technological Change
Technological change is driven by ERP, CRM, or HCM implementations and upgrades. Because these initiatives reshape daily workflows, structured change management frameworks are essential to ensure correct system usage, minimize errors, and protect ROI.
Cultural Change
Cultural change addresses leadership transitions, mergers, acquisitions, or shifts in organizational values. These transformations demand sustained reinforcement, communication clarity, and measurable behavioral alignment over time.
Understanding these organisational change models ensures transformation efforts move beyond announcements and into sustained execution.
What Are the Benefits of Using Change Management Framework Models?
Change is the growth enabler and most organizations have realized it because of the recent disruptions. Today over 75% of the organizations are ready to multiply their change initiatives but even then only 34% of the change efforts are successful.
This is because most of the time organizations are in a hurry with their initiatives and some cases change they are reactive to change. To achieve success organization must be proactive and must start by listing the benefits of change.
We have listed some of the benefits of change and the impact that it might create on your organization.
- Measure results – Change should never be implemented without setting objectives, schedules, and budgets. This is where change management framework models come in and help to structure the process in such a way that it becomes measurable. It helps the organization to measure the efficiency of the transformation, analyze employee productivity, understand the rate of adoption, map the budgets and predict implementation time.
- Eliminate internal resistance – A change framework helps to detect the possible areas of resistance and the reason behind it. Post this organizations can plan ways to reduce the resistance and convert resistors into advocates. Moreover, it enables organizations to create communication channels to ensure that all the stakeholders are on the same page.
- Forecasting – A Change framework not only helps to measure but also helps organizations to forecast the timeline, employee behavior, expected output, and revenue. Based on this prediction businesses can formulate a strategy and again change model helps in that and give a sense of confidence to all the stakeholders. As a result, people start feeling that change is manageable and not overwhelming. With forecasting business leaders can detect the pain points beforehand and invest in a solution that can make the life of employees easy during change. This approach boosts their performance and enables them to do better.
Key Takeaways
-
- Choosing the right change model increases your chances of success.
- Emotional and behavioral aspects matter just as much as systems and strategy.
- Many models can be paired together depending on your organizational context.
- Measurable change = manageable change.
Key Metrics to Measure Change Management Success
Modern change management methodologies must be tied to measurable outcomes. In 2026, executives are no longer satisfied with completion reports or training attendance metrics. They expect clear visibility into how transformation efforts improve performance, reduce risk, and protect ROI. Without defined success indicators, even well-structured change management frameworks struggle to demonstrate tangible value.
To evaluate impact effectively, organizations should measure success across three levels: adoption, performance, and business outcomes.
Adoption Metrics
Adoption metrics provide early signals of whether employees are engaging with new systems, processes, or workflows as intended. These indicators help leaders determine whether change initiatives are gaining traction at the behavioral level.
- System login frequency reveals whether employees are consistently accessing the new platform.
- Feature utilization rates indicate whether key functionalities are being used effectively rather than ignored.
- Workflow completion percentages show whether processes are being followed end to end.
While adoption metrics are important, they represent the beginning of the change journey. Usage alone does not confirm correct execution or sustained impact.
Performance Metrics
Performance metrics connect change initiatives to operational efficiency. These indicators reveal whether new behaviors are improving how work gets done.
- Process cycle time measures how quickly tasks move from initiation to completion.
- Error reduction rates highlight improvements in data accuracy and compliance.
- Support ticket volume indicates whether employees are confident navigating new systems.
Tracking performance metrics ensures that change management theories translate into improved execution rather than superficial engagement. When process accuracy improves and support dependency declines, organizations begin to see operational gains.
Business Impact Metrics
Business impact metrics evaluate whether transformation efforts contribute directly to strategic objectives. These are the indicators that matter most to executive leadership.
- Time-to-productivity measures how quickly employees reach full effectiveness after rollout.
- Compliance adherence reduces financial and regulatory risk.
- ROI on software investment determines whether technology investments deliver measurable returns.
The most effective business change management models align behavioral adoption metrics with operational performance and enterprise KPIs. When adoption leads to fewer errors, faster processes, and higher productivity, transformation moves beyond theory and begins delivering real business outcomes.
How to Choose the Right Change Management Model for Your Organization
There is no universal best change management model. The right choice depends on the scope of transformation, organizational maturity, technology complexity, and the level of measurable impact required. Strategic restructuring may demand leadership-driven change management frameworks like Kotter or Burke-Litwin. Technology rollouts often benefit from behavior-focused change management methodologies such as ADKAR combined with structured reinforcement.
In practice, high-performing enterprises rarely rely on a single model. They blend multiple types of change management approaches to align strategy with operational discipline. However, frameworks alone do not guarantee results. Change management theories provide structure, but execution determines ROI.
This is where organizations increasingly invest in digital execution layers. A Digital Adoption Platform like Apty ensures that change initiatives translate into correct system usage, reduced process errors, and measurable workflow performance. Instead of stopping at communication and training, enterprises use Apty to reinforce behavior at the point of action, turning transformation strategy into sustained business outcomes.
