Why Social Support and Social Structure Belong at the Center of Change
The most dangerous thing about a change model is not always what it says.
Sometimes, it is what it quietly assumes.
Many change management tools are useful because they simplify complex work. They give leaders a shared language. They help teams diagnose barriers. They create structure where organizations often have confusion.
But some tools also carry a hidden assumption: that the person experiencing change is operating in a vacuum.
That assumption matters.
A person is not just an individual unit of change. A person is a member of a team, a family, a workplace, a culture, a network, and a system of expectations. People do not simply change because they are told why change matters, taught what to do, and asked to reinforce the new behavior. People change through trust, support, practice, feedback, permission, belonging, and shared accountability.
That is why I believe one of the most widely used change management models, ADKAR, needs an explicit S.
ADKAR should become ADKARS.
The missing S stands for Social Support and Social Structure.
Key takeaway: ADKAR is useful, but when it is used as a self-assessment or implementation rubric without a social component, it can unintentionally reinforce the very silos organizations are trying to break.
What ADKAR Gets Right
The ADKAR model, developed through Prosci, is one of the most recognized frameworks in change management. Prosci describes ADKAR as five outcomes an individual needs to achieve for successful change: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement (Prosci, n.d.).
Each part of the acronym has value.
Awareness asks whether people understand why the change is needed.
Desire asks whether people are willing to participate in the change.
Knowledge asks whether people know how to change.
Ability asks whether people can apply the new behavior in practice.
Reinforcement asks whether the change is supported long enough to last.
This is helpful. It reminds leaders that an announcement is not the same as adoption. It also helps explain why people get stuck. A person may understand the need for change but not desire it. A person may desire the change but not know what to do. A person may know what to do but lack time, coaching, confidence, or opportunity to practice.
So the problem is not that ADKAR is wrong.
The problem is that ADKAR can be too easily used as though change should only happen and be kept within the person. This is not true even on a primary basis because it suggests that the individual needs to “get it right” before presenting it to anyone. It suggest that the individual is not supposed to invite others in to the “messy” process of not having all the answers, but figuring it out together.
That is the vacuum problem.
The Vacuum Problem in Change Management
By “vacuum,” I mean the hidden assumption that people are supposed to change alone.
The vacuum shows up when a training teaches ADKAR and then asks participants to monitor themselves through a rubric based only on the acronym. The person is asked: Do I have Awareness? Do I have Desire? Do I have Knowledge? Do I have Ability? Do I have Reinforcement?
Those are useful questions.
But they are incomplete.
The rubric often does not ask:
Who is helping me understand the change?
Who can I safely ask when I am confused?
Who is practicing this with me?
Who will notice if the workflow makes the change unrealistic?
Who reinforces the new behavior besides my own self-discipline?
Who helps me know when a problem is mine to solve and when it needs to become a shared concern?
That last question is crucial.
Some people ask for help too early. They may hand off the thinking before making a reasonable attempt.
Others ask too late. They stay isolated, overthink the issue, hide uncertainty, and turn a shared problem into a private burden.
Both patterns hurt the person and the organization.
The healthy middle is not dependence and not isolation. It is calibrated collaboration.
The Cultural Assumption We Often Do Not See
Many people were raised, trained, or rewarded to believe that competence means figuring things out alone.
This belief can come from family systems, educational systems, professional training, cultural norms, or workplace environments where asking for help was treated as weakness. Over time, people may internalize the idea that a responsible person should struggle privately before seeking support.
That belief can become so normal that even our tools inherit it.
Cultural psychology helps explain why this matters. Markus and Kitayama’s work on self-construal describes how people understand themselves in relation to others, including more independent and more interdependent views of the self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Later summaries of this theory describe self-construal as the way people perceive their separateness from or connectedness to others within culturally shared assumptions.
This does not mean independence is bad.
Independence can build initiative, resilience, and personal responsibility.
But when independence becomes the only model for change, the person may become socially under-resourced. They may feel proud of solving problems alone even when the work itself is interdependent.
That is where independence becomes a silo.
Key takeaway: A person can be surrounded by people and still be trained to change alone.
Why CLARC Does Not Solve the Missing S
Prosci also uses a manager-facing framework called CLARC, which stands for Communicator, Liaison, Advocate, Resistance Manager, and Coach. Prosci describes CLARC as five people-manager roles that help team members build Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement during change (Prosci, 2023).
At first glance, CLARC may seem to solve the missing social dimension.
It does not.
CLARC is important because it acknowledges that managers matter. The manager communicates the change, acts as a liaison, advocates for the change, addresses resistance, and coaches employees through the process.
But CLARC still leaves a deeper issue unresolved.
It moves the social dimension into the manager’s responsibilities without making social readiness an explicit part of ADKAR itself.
That means the model may still fail to ask whether employees and teams are socially prepared to engage in change well.
Do people feel safe asking questions?
Do peers reinforce the new behavior?
Do team norms support timely help-seeking?
Does the organization reward collaboration or private heroics?
Do people know the difference between healthy independence and harmful isolation?
Does “resistance” sometimes signal a lack of trust, unclear boundaries, poor workflow, or insufficient social support?
CLARC can become transactional if it is reduced to managerial tasks: communicate, liaise, advocate, manage resistance, coach.
Those actions matter. But they are not the same as building a social structure where change can live.
A stronger way to say it: CLARC proves that ADKAR needs a social layer, but it externalizes that layer into the manager’s role instead of embedding it into the change model itself.
ADKAR Without S Can Misdiagnose Resistance
One of the most important implications of this argument is how we interpret resistance.
In many change efforts, resistance is treated as something to reduce, manage, or overcome. Sometimes that is appropriate. But resistance can also be data.
A person may resist because the change is unclear.
A team may resist because the workflow does not match the training.
A department may resist because previous change efforts damaged trust.
An employee may resist because asking for help feels unsafe.
A supervisor may resist because they are expected to coach others while receiving little support themselves.
In other words, what looks like an individual ADKAR problem may actually be a social structure problem.
Weiner’s theory of organizational readiness is useful here because it defines readiness for change as a shared psychological state: organizational members have shared commitment to the change and shared confidence in their collective ability to implement it (Weiner, 2009).
That word collective is essential.
If the change requires coordinated behavior, then readiness cannot be measured only person by person. It must also be measured relationship by relationship, team by team, and system by system.
Organizational change is often a team sport. A solo readiness rubric will not fully capture whether the team can actually carry the change.
Social Support Is Not Soft. It Is Structural.
Social support is sometimes treated as a nice extra.
It is not.
Jolly, Kong, and Kim’s integrative review of workplace social support found that social support can contribute to higher-quality relationships, positive affective reactions, and individual performance, while also buffering stressful demands (Jolly et al., 2021). The same review noted that social support research is fragmented and often lacks conceptual clarity, which is exactly why change management needs a more explicit and measurable social dimension.
Psychological safety also matters. Edmondson defined team psychological safety as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, and her study found that psychological safety was associated with team learning behavior (Edmondson, 1999).
This is not abstract.
In change management, interpersonal risk-taking looks like:
“I do not understand this yet.”
“I need help.”
“I think the new process creates a problem.”
“I made a mistake.”
“I see a barrier we have not named.”
“I need someone to practice this with me.”
If people cannot say those things, then ADKAR may look complete on paper while failing in practice.
The Missing S: Social Support and Social Structure
The missing S should stand for two connected ideas:
Social Support and Social Structure.
Social Support
Social Support means people have access to trusted, appropriate, and timely help.
This includes supervisors, peers, mentors, coaches, informal leaders, cross-functional partners, and psychologically safe spaces for questions and feedback. ADKAR does also include CLARC, which includes some of these attributes; however, human beings thrive within a socially structured foundation, thus the social support should be primary, not secondary in nature to ADKAR.
Social Structure
Social Structure means the organization has designed the conditions that make the change possible.
This includes workflows, staffing, meeting rhythms, feedback loops, peer learning, role clarity, shared accountability, documentation systems, and norms for escalation.
The S is not just about being nice.
It asks whether the social system is strong enough to carry the behavior that the organization wants people to adopt.
Relational coordination research makes this point powerfully. Bolton, Logan, and Gittell’s systematic review explains that interdependent work is supported by shared goals, shared knowledge, mutual respect, and frequent, timely, accurate, problem-solving communication (Bolton et al., 2021).
That is the kind of structure change requires.
Not just a training.
Not just a rubric.
Not just a manager saying, “My door is always open.”
A real social system.
From ADKAR to ADKARS
Adding S does not mean discarding ADKAR.
It means completing it.
The upgraded model would become:
A — Awareness
Do people understand why the change matters?
D — Desire
Do people have a meaningful reason to participate?
K — Knowledge
Do people know how to change?
A — Ability
Can people apply the change in real conditions?
R — Reinforcement
Are the new behaviors sustained over time?
S — Social Support and Social Structure
Do people have the relational, cultural, and organizational conditions needed to change together?
The S should not be treated as the final step only. It surrounds every step.
Awareness is social because people trust some messengers more than others.
Desire is social because motivation is shaped by belonging, respect, and whether people feel heard.
Knowledge is social because people learn from modeling, repetition, coaching, and peer translation.
Ability is social because people need practice, feedback, time, and permission to make mistakes while learning.
Reinforcement is social because norms, recognition, leadership behavior, and peer expectations determine whether the change sticks.
Without S, ADKAR can become an individual checklist.
With S, ADKAR becomes a system of shared change.
The Practical Question: When Should I Ask for Help?
Adding S creates one practical challenge.
It is not enough to tell people, “Collaborate more.”
People need training in when and how to collaborate.
This is where many workplaces struggle.
Some employees ask for help before they have defined the problem. This can create dependency, frustration, and uneven distribution of work.
Other employees wait too long. They overthink, isolate, hide uncertainty, and delay escalation until the problem has become more expensive for the team.
Bamberger’s review of employee help-seeking argues that help-seeking at work should be understood as a multi-level process shaped by factors such as the nature of the problem, organizational norms, support climate, and even the timing of help solicitation (Bamberger, 2009).
Karabenick and Dembo also frame help-seeking as a self-regulated learning strategy, not as weakness, and they describe it as a developmental skill that can be taught (Karabenick & Dembo, 2011).
That distinction matters.
Healthy help-seeking is not dependency.
Healthy help-seeking is a professional skill.
Introducing the BRIDGE Scale
To make the S practical, organizations need a simple tool that helps people locate themselves between two unhealthy extremes:
Overdependence — asking too early, before making a reasonable attempt.
Over-isolation — asking too late, after the problem has become hidden, stressful, or risky.
The middle is what I call calibrated collaboration.
A tool for this could be called the BRIDGE Scale.
BRIDGE: Boundary-Regulated Interdependence for Development, Guidance, and Exchange
BRIDGE helps workers ask: Am I balancing personal responsibility with timely collaboration?
B — Bound the Problem
Can I clearly state the problem?
Before asking for help, a person should be able to say:
“Here is what I am trying to solve.”
“Here is what I understand.”
“Here is what I tried.”
“Here is where I am stuck.”
This protects agency.
R — Rate the Risk
What is the cost of waiting?
Some problems allow for independent effort. Others require quick escalation.
Ask sooner if the issue affects safety, quality, compliance, trust, deadlines, client outcomes, resident outcomes, patient outcomes, customer experience, or another team’s work.
This protects the system.
I — Invest a Bounded Independent Effort
Have I made a reasonable attempt?
The key word is bounded.
The goal is not endless private struggle. The goal is a reasonable effort before asking someone else to think with you.
This protects learning.
D — Diagnose the Barrier
What kind of barrier am I facing?
The barrier may be technical, emotional, relational, cultural, structural, or role-based.
For example:
“I do not know how to do this.”
“I do not have the authority to decide.”
“I am afraid I will look incompetent.”
“I do not know who is safe to ask.”
“The workflow does not match the training.”
“The deadline makes solo problem-solving risky.”
This protects honesty.
G — Go to the Right Support
Who is the right person, and what kind of help do I need?
Not all help is the same.
A person may need a hint, a decision, a resource, coaching, permission, a peer example, a second set of eyes, or emotional support.
The best request preserves learning:
“Can you help me understand the part I am missing?”
is different from:
“Can you fix this for me?”
This protects collaboration.
E — Embed the Learning
How do I return the learning to the system?
After receiving help, the person should apply the lesson, document the insight, share it with the team, update the checklist, or help someone else avoid the same barrier.
This protects organizational memory.
Key takeaway: BRIDGE turns social support from a vague value into a trainable change management competency.
The Collaborator–Competitor Balance
The BRIDGE Scale can also help people identify their current pattern.
This should never be used to label people as fixed personality types. These are behavioral patterns shaped by context, culture, workload, trust, and past experience.
| Pattern | Independent Agency | Support Integration | What It Means |
| Calibrated Collaborator | High | High | Makes a reasonable attempt, asks at the right time, and shares learning back with the team. |
| Early Outsourcer | Low | High | Asks quickly but may transfer too much ownership or thinking to others. |
| Lone Competitor | High | Low | Works hard and may appear highly independent, but delays help-seeking and can unintentionally deepen silos. |
| Stalled or Unsupported Worker | Low | Low | May lack clarity, safety, confidence, resources, or role definition. This is often a system signal. |
The “Lone Competitor” pattern is especially important because many organizations accidentally reward it.
This is the person who says, “I handled it myself.”
Sometimes that is excellent.
Sometimes it means the person withheld a problem from the network that needed to learn from it.
In a system, hidden struggle is not always private. It can become rework, delay, confusion, burnout, or missed learning.
A Simple BRIDGE Self-Assessment
Use a 1–5 scale:
1 = Rarely true
2 = Sometimes true
3 = Moderately true
4 = Often true
5 = Consistently true
Independent Agency
- I can clearly explain a problem before asking others to help me solve it.
- I make a reasonable attempt before seeking help.
- I know which parts of my work I should own independently.
- I set a time or risk boundary for solo problem-solving.
- After receiving help, I apply what I learned so I am more capable next time.
Support Integration
- I ask for help before delay creates avoidable risk or rework.
- I know whom to ask for different kinds of support.
- I feel able to ask clarifying questions without treating it as personal failure.
- I involve others sooner when the issue affects people beyond me.
- I share what I learn so the team benefits, not just me.
How to Interpret the Pattern
If Independent Agency is high and Support Integration is high, you are operating as a Calibrated Collaborator.
If Independent Agency is low and Support Integration is high, practice bringing the problem, the attempt, and the question.
If Independent Agency is high and Support Integration is low, set earlier escalation triggers and notice whether pride, fear, or habit is keeping the problem isolated.
If both are low, the organization should not rush to blame the person. The issue may involve unclear expectations, low psychological safety, limited training, weak supervision, or missing resources.
This is where person-centered change management matters.
A low score is not a character flaw.
It is information.
What Leaders Should Do Differently
If ADKAR becomes ADKARS, change management practice changes in several concrete ways.
- Add Social Readiness to Every ADKAR Rubric
Do not only ask whether people have awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement.
Ask whether they have:
Trusted messengers.
Peer support.
Psychological safety.
Clear escalation pathways.
Shared practice opportunities.
Time to learn with others.
A workflow that supports the new behavior.
A way to return learning to the system.
- Train Managers to Move Beyond Transactional CLARC
Managers should still communicate, liaise, advocate, address resistance, and coach.
But each role should be relationalized.
A Communicator creates shared meaning, not just messages.
A Liaison builds safe feedback loops, not just information transfer.
An Advocate models humility and help-seeking, not just public support.
A Resistance Manager interprets resistance as data, not merely defiance.
A Coach helps people calibrate independence, boundaries, and collaboration.
- Normalize Timely Help-Seeking
Organizations need to stop treating help-seeking as weakness.
Nelson-Le Gall’s work helped establish help-seeking as an adaptive learning strategy when it supports mastery rather than simply getting someone else to solve the problem (Nelson-Le Gall, 1985). Educational summaries of this literature distinguish instrumental help-seeking, which builds future competence, from executive help-seeking, which simply transfers the solution to another person.
Workplaces need the same distinction.
The goal is not more dependency.
The goal is better calibration.
- Treat Silos as a Design Problem
Silos are not only personality issues.
They are often designed into the organization through reward systems, reporting structures, meeting patterns, workload pressures, and cultural expectations.
Errida and Lotfi’s review of 37 organizational change models identified multiple factors that shape change management success, including leadership, communication, and stakeholder engagement (Errida & Lotfi, 2021).
Khokhar and Akhlaq’s review categorized change barriers and facilitators under three themes: self, social support, and organizational support (Khokhar & Akhlaq, 2022).
That is exactly the point.
The individual matters.
The social environment matters.
The organization matters.
Change management needs all three.
The Next Frontier of Change Management
The next frontier of change management is not another motivational speech.
It is not another rubric that asks people to assess themselves in isolation.
It is not another reminder email.
The next frontier is making the social system visible.
Kamarova, Gagné, Holtrop, and Dunlop argue that organizational change models often need stronger integration with behavior change theories so we can better understand the psychological mechanisms underlying adoption and maintenance of change (Kamarova et al., 2024). Rousseau and ten Have similarly define evidence-based change management as the science-informed practice of planned organizational change, emphasizing the importance of scientific, organizational, stakeholder, and practitioner evidence (Rousseau & ten Have, 2022).
That is where ADKARS can contribute.
It does not reject ADKAR.
It completes the conversation.
ADKAR tells us what the individual needs.
CLARC tells us what managers can do.
ADKARS asks whether the surrounding social structure is strong enough to help people change together.
And BRIDGE gives workers a practical way to activate that structure without becoming either overly dependent or overly isolated.
Final Thought: Change Needs Company
A person can have awareness and still feel alone.
A person can have desire and still lack support.
A person can have knowledge and still be afraid to ask a question.
A person can have ability and still be trapped in a workflow that makes the new behavior difficult.
A person can receive reinforcement and still work inside a culture that rewards private struggle over shared learning.
That is why ADKAR needs an S.
Social Support and Social Structure are not optional extras. They are the conditions that allow change to become human, shared, and sustainable.
The most powerful question for the next change initiative is not only:
“Are people ready?”
It is also:
“Are we socially ready to support one another through this change?”
That question may be the difference between another training and a transformation.
Call to Action
Before your next change management training, implementation meeting, or self-assessment rubric, add one question:
Where does the S live in this change?
Then use BRIDGE to make the answer practical.
Bound the problem.
Rate the risk.
Invest a bounded independent effort.
Diagnose the barrier.
Go to the right support.
Embed the learning.
Because change does not happen in a vacuum.
Change needs company.
References
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