Three models come up again and again in change management: Kurt Lewin’s three-step model, Prosci’s ADKAR and John P. Kotter’s eight steps. They are often set up as rivals — but they actually answer different questions. Here I go through what each is best at, and how you choose (or combine) them.
The three in brief
Lewin – Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze. The oldest and simplest. Change is described in three phases: unfreeze the status quo (build readiness and challenge the old), change, and refreeze the new so it becomes the new normal. Its strength is that it is easy to understand and communicate. Its weakness is that it is simplified — in today’s reality little ever ”freezes”; change is a constant state.
ADKAR – the individual’s journey. Prosci’s model for the individual level: Awareness (understand why), Desire (want to take part), Knowledge (know how), Ability (be able to in practice) and Reinforcement (make it last). It is diagnostic — you can see exactly where someone gets stuck. But ADKAR is only one level of Prosci — see below.
Kotter – mobilising the organisation. Kotter’s eight steps are a leadership perspective: create urgency, build a guiding coalition, form a vision, communicate it, remove obstacles, create short-term wins, consolidate and anchor in the culture. Its strength is the whole picture and the power to get an entire organisation moving. Its weakness is that it is fundamentally top-down and says less about the individual.
Prosci: two levels — and a parallel to Lewin
The very fact that ADKAR focuses on the individual person is its great value: of the three models, only ADKAR zooms in on the individual’s journey. But it is also only one level of Prosci.
Prosci is in fact a larger methodology that also works at the organisational level, through a 3-Phase Process — Prepare Approach, Manage Change and Sustain Outcomes — plus the PCT Model, which links project management, change management and sponsorship/leadership. Within the process you develop several plans that together describe the change effort: a sponsor plan, a people manager plan (how first-line managers should act), a communication plan, a training plan and a resistance management plan. This is where the leadership perspective comes in — through sponsors and managers.
So Prosci operates on two levels at once: the individual (ADKAR) and the organisation (the 3-Phase Process).
And here is a neat parallel: Prosci’s three phases mirror Lewin’s three. Prepare ≈ Unfreeze, Manage ≈ Change, Sustain ≈ Refreeze. You could say Prosci has taken Lewin’s classic skeleton and dressed it with concrete steps, roles and plans at the organisational level — and added ADKAR as an individual layer on top.
And the same is actually true of Kotter. His eight steps group into three phases: the first three form Creating the right conditions (≈ Unfreeze), the next three Engaging and implementing (≈ Change) and the last two Securing and anchoring (≈ Refreeze). So Kotter, too, carries Lewin’s three phases inside his model — Lewin is the shared deep structure that both Prosci and Kotter build on.
This is just a broad orientation — if you want to read more I recommend the deep-dives at prosci.com. And if you want to both learn the method in depth and become a certified change leader into the bargain, I also recommend Prosci’s own certification courses.
The crucial difference
At the model level they operate on different levels: Lewin describes the phases of change — a mental map. ADKAR describes the individual’s journey through the change. Kotter describes the organisation’s journey and the leadership that drives it. That is why they rarely truly compete. And as we saw, Prosci as a methodology spans both the individual (ADKAR) and the organisation (the 3-Phase Process) — while Kotter and Lewin are pure frameworks. So the question is not ”which is best?”, but ”what do I need right now — a simple frame, an individual perspective, or a leadership perspective?”
Which fits when?
- Choose Lewin when you want a simple, clear frame to communicate the logic of the change — especially early on, to build shared understanding.
- Choose ADKAR/Prosci when the core is getting people to change behaviour (a new system, new ways of working), and when you want to diagnose where the resistance sits — and with Prosci’s full methodology you also get the sponsor and manager perspective into the bargain.
- Choose Kotter when the change is large-scale and requires mobilising an entire organisation from the top through urgency and a compelling vision.
Can you combine them?
Yes — and often that is the wisest choice. In practice I like to use Lewin as the overarching frame, Kotter for the organisational leadership and ADKAR to follow and support the individuals inside the same change. They don’t exclude one another; they cover different layers of the same journey.
One important caveat: all three lean towards the leadership-led. If you want to give employees real room to influence how the change is carried out, you need to complement them with a more involving approach — something I return to in the section on choosing the right model.
Conclusion
Lewin gives you the map, ADKAR gives you the individual, Kotter gives you the organisation — and Prosci links individual and organisation in one combined methodology. Start with the question of level and need — not with the model.
Which model should I choose? If you want concrete help matching the right strategy, model and tools to your specific change project, head over to Choosing the right strategy and model.