Gourdanen Ventures · A free seed for the design stage
Where it gets stuck
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Almost everything I get hired for is behaviour change wearing a different outfit. A product that won’t ship, a store that will not convert, a team that won’t touch the AI tools, a career that won’t move. Same problem underneath. Something is stopping people from doing the new thing, and everyone is guessing what.
I stopped guessing years ago. Every change I have ever helped land got stuck on one of five questions, and they go in order. This is the tool I reach for in the design stage of everything I do, once we know where you are and where you want to be. It tells you where the barrier really is, so you stop spending effort on the wrong fix.
The five questions, in order
Ask them top to bottom. The first one that fails is where you’re stuck. Fixing anything below it is wasted effort until you fix that one.
Awareness
Do they know what the change is, and why it matters right now?
How you can tell. People nod in the meeting and nothing moves. Nobody can say in one sentence what’s actually changing or why this year and not next.
What actually helps. Tell the story properly, from someone they believe. Then check they can tell it back.
Desire
Do they know what’s in it for them?
How you can tell. They understand it perfectly and still aren’t doing it. That isn’t confusion, that’s a choice.
What actually helps. Find what each person gains, or fears losing. Sometimes a carrot. Occasionally a stick, from someone with the standing to use one. Never another workshop.
Knowledge
Do they know how, and have the skills to do it?
How you can tell. They want to. They start. It comes out wrong or slow, and they quietly go back to the old way.
What actually helps. Show them, in their own work, on their real tasks. This is where most people start. It only works if the two above are already true.
Ability
Do they have the room to actually do it?
How you can tell. Willing, skilled, and stuck. Their manager said no. Their plate is full. The course costs money they don’t have. The process they would change inside doesn’t exist.
What actually helps. Clear the path. Time, permission, budget, a written way of working to change within. Don’t push harder on the person.
Reinforcement
What keeps it in place after the first week?
How you can tell. They did it once. Nobody noticed. Nothing measured it. By Friday the old habit was back, and it didn’t feel like a failure to anyone.
What actually helps. Small guardrails. A check-in, a number, some recognition, someone who asks. Make the new way the easy way.
The mistake almost everyone makes
They skip the first two and go straight to Knowledge. A course, a lunch and learn, a new tool rolled out with a video. Then they’re surprised nobody uses it. Nobody uses it because nobody was convinced it mattered, or that it was worth their while. Training people who don’t want to change is the most expensive way to achieve nothing.
Resistance is personal. So is influence.
A whole team isn’t stuck in one place. Each person is stuck somewhere, and it’s rarely the same somewhere. So the second half of this is a small map. For each person who has to change, three columns. Where they’re stuck (which of the five), how resistant they’re, and how much influence they have over everyone else.
That third column is the one people forget, and it’s the one that decides everything. If the most influential person in the room is the most resistant, you’re swimming upstream without a paddle, and no amount of training the rest of the team will save you. Win that person first, or find who influences them.
None of this works from a spreadsheet alone. Change is personal. It runs on relationships, trust, and support, with the occasional firm word from someone senior when it’s genuinely needed. That’s rare, and it should be. Mostly it’s knowing people well enough to know what they need.
Try it on your own thing
Pick one change you’re trying to make right now. Yours, your team’s, your customers’. Walk the five questions from the top and be honest about the first one that fails. That’s your work. Then list the people involved and ask who’s stuck where, and who moves everyone else. You will usually know within ten minutes what to do next, and it’s usually not what you were about to do.
Running the AI Business Diagnosis on your business gives you a first read of where the whole company is stuck. Bring it, and this map, to an intro call and we will read them together.
The five questions come from the Prosci ADKAR model, which I trained and certified in years ago and have used on everything since, from product launches to career moves. The framing, wording and tools here are my own, and aren’t affiliated with or endorsed by Prosci.