Measuring and Sustaining Change

🔄 Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, you learned to manage resistance as diagnostic information, build champion networks recruited for peer influence rather than volunteered for enthusiasm, and design phased rollouts where each phase improves the next. Now you’ll learn to measure whether it’s all working — and how to sustain change long after the initial rollout.

The Change Measurement Framework

You can’t manage what you don’t measure — and in change management, what you measure determines whether you catch problems early or discover them too late.

Three Metric Types

1. Behavior Metrics — Are people actually doing the new thing?

2. Sentiment Metrics — How do people feel about the change?

3. Outcome Metrics — Is the change producing results?

Help me design a change management measurement
dashboard.

Change: [describe what changed]
Business objective: [what the change was supposed
to improve]
Population: [number of people affected, broken down
by department/team]
Timeline: [when the change started, current phase]

Design a dashboard with:
1. 3-5 behavior metrics specific to this change
2. 2-3 sentiment metrics and how to collect them
3. 2-3 outcome metrics tied to the business objective
4. A monthly review template for analyzing trends
5. Red/yellow/green thresholds for each metric

✅ Quick Check: Why is old system usage an important metric to track alongside new system adoption? Because adoption and abandonment are two separate behaviors. Someone can log into the new system (adoption appears high) while still doing their real work in the old system (actual change hasn’t happened). Tracking old system usage declining is as important as tracking new system usage rising — together they tell you whether the switch is real or superficial.

Sustaining Change: The Reinforcement Phase

Adoption isn’t the finish line — sustained adoption is. The Reinforcement phase (ADKAR’s “R”) is where most changes ultimately succeed or fail.

The reinforcement toolkit:

The 3-6 month danger zone: Research shows most change reversion happens 3-6 months post-launch, when the initial push is over and the change team disengages. Plan reinforcement activities specifically for this period.

✅ Quick Check: Why is updating onboarding materials one of the most important reinforcement actions? Because onboarding determines what new hires learn as “normal.” If onboarding still references or allows the old process, new employees will learn the old way — and your change slowly erodes through turnover. Anchoring the change in onboarding ensures it survives beyond the people who adopted it.

Key Takeaways

• Change measurement requires three metric types: behavior (are they doing it?), sentiment (how do they feel?), and outcomes (is it working?) — missing any one creates blind spots that lead to surprises
• Track old system usage declining alongside new system adoption rising — together they show whether the switch is real or just superficial compliance
• The 3-6 month post-launch period is when most reversion happens — plan specific reinforcement activities (documentation updates, health checks, celebration, old system sunset) for this critical window
• Declaring victory at 85% adoption is premature — compliance without conviction erodes under pressure, and sustained adoption requires 6-12 months of active reinforcement
• Anchor change in culture (Kotter’s Step 8) by updating all documentation, integrating into onboarding, including in performance reviews, and making the new way the ONLY documented way

Up Next: In the capstone lesson, you’ll integrate every framework, tool, and technique into a complete change management playbook you can apply to your next initiative.