The AIRAS Method for Accelerating Transformation
Change management sequences a rollout. AIRAS sequences the behavior: align, inspire, reflect, apply, scale. It is the sequence that survives the sponsor who launched it.
We fund more transformation every year — and three in four fail to deliver the results.
Funding is not the problem. Spend on transformation is on track to more than double, from $1.8 trillion in 2022 to over $4 trillion by 2027. Boards are funding it at unprecedented levels.
What is collapsing is the willingness to sustain it. Employee support for enterprise change has fallen from 74% in 2016 to 38% today. And roughly three in four transformations still fail to produce lasting value.
What the spend keeps buying is a rollout that lands on schedule and a return that falls short of the case that funded it. The constraint was rarely the budget. It is what people do the week after the launch.
ADKAR names the terms of compliance. Not the ones for commitment.
ADKAR is the change‑management model most Fortune 100 companies run on. Created by Prosci founder Jeff Hiatt and formalized in his 2006 book, it names the five sequential conditions an individual meets to adopt and sustain a change. For three decades it has been the default playbook for rolling out change, and for its era a genuine contribution.
It is a logical model, and a necessary one. It was simply not a sufficient one. Moving an organization through a defined change is a different job from building one that keeps adapting after that change ends and the next one starts.
Five gaps sit between managing a change and building a company that adapts.
It drives compliance more than commitment.
A manager who complies uses the framework when observed and eases off when not, and ADKAR does little to address the passive resistance that can follow.
It treats motivation as a communication problem.
Its Desire stage conflates burning‑platform messaging with intrinsic motivation, ignoring the autonomy, competence, and relatedness that Self‑Determination Theory shows are required.
It leaves open whether the learning endures.
Structured training decays fast: up to 90% forgotten within a week. Retention comes from doing and teaching the real work, not from sitting through instruction.
It does little to prepare people for adversity.
ADKAR does little to prepare people for how they respond when transformation gets hard, measured as AQ®, among the strongest predictors of whether change survives.
Its reinforcement leans on outside pressure.
Reinforcement depends on external governance; when the sponsor moves on or Q4 pressure mounts, it can fade, with little intrinsic motivation left to keep the change in place.
The diet you quit started with real desire.
You already know this one. It is the same gap you deal with at work, at a scale of one.
Every January I watch the gym fill up, and by March it is back to the same twenty people it had in December. Nobody in that January crowd was faking it. They paid for the membership, they bought the shoes, and they meant every word of it on the second of January.
Same with anyone who has decided to drink less — the wanting is rarely the confusing part.
What is missing is everything that comes after the wanting.
I think that is the part a rollout skips. It asks for Desire, it gets Desire, and then it moves on to training and governance — leaving the person alone with the hard part, which is every ordinary Tuesday after the kickoff.
Take anyone who has won something that mattered to them. Hardly anyone gets an Olympic medal by wanting it more than the person in the next lane. They get it because somebody built them a program, watched them do it wrong, made them do it again, and stayed with them through the long stretch where they were getting worse before they got better.
So what separates the people who change from the people who only wanted to?
Not the wanting. It is everything stacked around it: someone to practice with, a way to read a bad week that keeps the attempt alive, and enough repetitions that the new way stops feeling new. Simple, but not easy.
And it is harder at work than at the gym, because the people at the gym signed up. It is kind of like personal training hundreds of people who never asked to get into shape.
AIRAS closes those gaps in five stages, run cohort by cohort.
AIRAS is the delivery rhythm a transformation runs on: how mindset, skill, and tools get installed in a population rather than announced to one. Each stage is built on specific behavioral science, and each one addresses a gap the rollout playbook leaves open.
The order is deliberate. Align and Inspire build the motivation to engage before any framework arrives. Reflect gives people a way to work through the hard middle. Apply puts the capability into live P&L work, and Scale moves ownership from the program to the people, who then run the next cohort.
AIRAS runs on 24 mechanisms, each built to answer one question.
They are spread across all five stages: nine in Align, four each in Inspire and Reflect, five in Apply and two in Scale. Each one names who is involved and how it runs.
Align
9 mechanisms
Portfolio Review
How can we increase our impact on results?
Grades each initiative already running or planned on how fast people are adopting it, then decides what to stop, improve or scale.
- Who’s involved
- Program team, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- Portfolio review workshop
Resistance Analysis
How can we convert resistance into momentum?
Traces resistance to its causes in structures, incentives and lost autonomy, and uses what it finds to design a new approach.
- Who’s involved
- Program team, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- Diagnostic workshop
“Red Dot” Priority Alignment
How can we align on which capabilities matter most?
A vote that narrows twenty‑plus candidate capabilities to the three to five a region or business unit most needs to improve to deliver its plan.
- Who’s involved
- Sponsors, program team, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- Prioritization workshop
Executive Positioning Deck
How can we get approval to test a new approach?
Makes the case for testing a new approach and ties it to executive priorities and business outcomes.
- Who’s involved
- Sponsors, program team, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- Positioning workshop
Stakeholder Interviews
How can we involve the right people in the process?
Hears each key executive’s expectations and concerns, and builds support for the proposed approach.
- Who’s involved
- Key executives, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- One‑to‑one interviews and a feedback report
Accelerator / Academy Program Plan
How can we design a pilot that can scale?
Sets the program’s structure, learning priorities, cohorts, governance, KPIs, budget and timing.
- Who’s involved
- Program team, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- Program design workshop
Pilot Region / BU Selection Process
How can we pick the right place to get started?
Chooses where to start and secures a sponsor who can provide resources and remove barriers.
- Who’s involved
- Program leader, BU and regional leaders, executive sponsor
- How it runs
- Selection and sponsorship meetings
Cohort Participant Nominations & Invitation Roll‑Out
How can we build genuine excitement and buzz?
Recruits participants who bring relevant challenges, diverse perspectives and the capacity to contribute.
- Who’s involved
- BU leaders, participants’ managers, program team, nominees
- How it runs
- Nomination meetings, then invitations
Performance Management & HR Integration Plan
How can we make this part of how we operate?
Makes project work part of the normal job through aligned goals, time allocation and recognition.
- Who’s involved
- Program team, HR lead, Operator‑Coach
- How it runs
- Integration workshop and a documented plan
Inspire
4 mechanisms
Expert Podcast Inspiration Videos
How can we inspire our people to take initiative?
Helps participants see the limits of current practice and picture what better performance could look like.
- Who’s involved
- Operator‑Coaches, program team
- How it runs
- Podcast‑style expert conversations using real stories
Guided Discovery Individual Assignment
How can we get everyone’s ideas on the table?
Listens at scale: participants describe challenges, assumptions and opportunities in their own words.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches, program team
- How it runs
- Open‑ended survey, responses grouped into themes
AQ® & GRIT™ Psychometric Assessments
How can we show evidence that a mindset shift is happening?
Sets each person’s baseline and shows where their response to adversity and sustained effort can grow stronger.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Dr. Paul Stoltz, PEAK Learning
- How it runs
- Individual psychometric assessments
Adversity Quotient® & GRIT™ Keynote
How can we reframe adversity from a threat to a fuel source?
Reframes adversity as an opportunity and gives practical ways to respond with more ownership and resolve.
- Who’s involved
- Dr. Paul Stoltz, cohort participants, sponsors
- How it runs
- Two‑hour interactive keynote
Reflect
4 mechanisms
Psychologically Safe Environment Design
How can we create the conditions for people to be honest?
Gives people explicit permission to speak candidly, challenge current practice and learn by experimenting.
- Who’s involved
- Executive sponsor, cohort, program team, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Sponsor message, reinforced by ground rules and leader behavior
Core Challenges Accountability Builder
How can we get clear on what we’re up against?
Discusses and documents the challenges the assignment surfaced, to strengthen the resolve to act.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Breakout sessions and group discussion
Priority Challenges Voting Exercise
How can we build resolve and the will to act?
Gives each participant a voice in choosing which challenges deserve the group’s attention.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Individual votes on the shared challenges
“CHAIN” Needs Definition Exercise*
How can we surface what we think we need?
Turns broad challenges into clear needs and surfaces the blockers preventing growth.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Breakout exercise and group discussion
Apply
5 mechanisms
Growth Squad Formation
How can we leverage each other’s strengths?
Builds teams around the challenges people are intrinsically motivated to work on together.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Self-selected teams, formed with guidance
Growth Project™ Charter Definition
How can we clarify what we plan to do?
Turns a challenge into a project with scope, roles, milestones and success measures.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Team working session with a project charter
“Science Fair” Ownership Expo
How can we make our commitments public?
Makes each squad’s commitments visible and gathers feedback and support from peers and leaders.
- Who’s involved
- Cohort participants, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Exhibition of project concepts
90‑Day Growth Project Execution by Squads
How can we build skills while solving real issues?
Solves real business challenges while the squads build new capabilities and produce visible momentum.
- Who’s involved
- Growth Squads, business stakeholders
- How it runs
- 90‑day work‑based sprints, 6–10 projects per cohort
On‑the‑Job Coaching by Operator‑Coaches
How can we use obstacles to build tenacity and grit?
Helps squads work through adversity, apply new skills and keep live projects moving.
- Who’s involved
- Growth Squads, Operator‑Coaches
- How it runs
- Weekly team coaching tied to the project work
Scale
2 mechanisms
Impact Reports + Roadblock Removal
How can we recognize progress and get support?
Shows progress and business impact, and takes barriers beyond the team’s authority to leaders who can remove them.
- Who’s involved
- Growth Squads, Operator‑Coaches, executive sponsors
- How it runs
- Structured impact reports and targeted escalations
Growth Project Scale‑Up Planning
How can we “double down” on what’s working?
Extends what worked to other teams, business units and regions, and embeds the capabilities built.
- Who’s involved
- Growth Squads, Commercial Excellence team
- How it runs
- Scale‑up planning workshop
* CHAIN is Kurt Friedmann’s framework.
AIRAS rests on three sciences — two of them published before ADKAR.
AIRAS did not come out of a change‑management textbook. It was assembled inside Demand Metric, the advisory firm behind the Commercial Excellence Consortium™ and an invite‑only community of senior commercial operators, by people who kept watching well‑run programs finish on plan and revert a quarter later.
Rather than write another communication model, it synthesizes three bodies of performance science that ADKAR leaves out. Two of the three were established well before ADKAR was formalized in 2006, and left on the table.
Adversity Quotient (AQ®) & GRIT™
Dr. Paul Stoltz's paired measures of how people handle hardship: AQ® for how they absorb pressure and setbacks, GRIT™ for how they push through toward goals that matter.1
Self‑Determination Theory
The autonomy, competence, and relatedness that produce intrinsic motivation, which the Desire stage asks for and rarely creates.2
Project‑based learning
Capability is built by doing the real work rather than delivered to a room, and it outlasts the classroom.3
1 Stoltz, P. G. (1997). Adversity Quotient: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities. Wiley. 2 Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self‑Determination in Human Behavior. Plenum. 3 Chen, C.-H. & Yang, Y.-C. (2019). Revisiting the effects of project‑based learning on academic achievement: a meta‑analysis. Educational Research Review, 26, 71–81.
Mindset before skillset, skillset before toolset.
Mindset
Built before any framework. Skip it and the skills and tools that follow get rejected. The coaching: AQ® and GRIT™, run by Operator‑Coaches.
Skillset
Real capability, built on the team's own live P&L problems, not a training audience. The real work: 90‑day Growth Projects™ on the team's own priorities.
Toolset
Frameworks embedded in daily workflows, for a population already motivated to use them well. On demand: 1,000+ Demand Metric playbooks, pulled when the work needs them.
All three install cohort by cohort through AIRAS: the mindset layer during Align, Inspire, and Reflect; the skill layer during Apply; the tools last.
AIRAS is how TransformationOS™ gets installed.
A commercial transformation operating model that turns compliance into commitment. It builds the mindset to absorb change before the skillset to execute it and the toolset to sustain it, to accelerate adoption of new ways of working.
A framework is a diagram on a wall.
An operating system runs underneath the work and keeps it running. This is the layer beneath the training, the tools, and the governance, rather than another one of them.
Mindset, then skill, then tools.
Most programs install those three in reverse, then wonder why nothing takes. The operating model enforces the sequence that makes each layer land.
Commitment outlasts the sponsor. Compliance rarely does.
Behavior driven from outside needs a watcher to survive. Behavior people own sustains itself, and the point where ADKAR degrades is exactly what this is built for.
From today's pattern to the one that lasts.
The same organization, run on a mindset‑first operating model.
- Transformation activity is high, but velocity is slowTeams adapt and execute faster under pressure
- Programs run, but adoption is uneven across teams and regionsAdoption lasts after the pressure lifts
- Training happens, and behavior lags well behind itCapability is built in the work, and it stays
- Passive resistance slows the work downResistance is surfaced and reduced at the root
- Commercial Excellence struggles to prove its strategic contributionCommercial Excellence becomes a credible growth engine
AQ® is measurable, improvable, and unlike IQ, it moves.
AQ® measures defense: how a person absorbs and recovers from pressure, setbacks, and ambiguity. GRIT™ measures offense: how they turn that adversity into forward motion on goals that matter.
Over four decades and 3,500+ studies, the same methodology has been used at the most elite levels of sport, academia, and enterprise, and unlike IQ, it can be assessed, strengthened, and linked directly to outcomes.
Higher adversity capacity predicts the outcomes you are funding for.
These are AQ® research findings, the foundation the mindset layer stands on, rather than results from any one program. Across 3,500+ independent studies and 5M+ people tested, higher AQ® predicts and strengthens what a mindset‑first method is built to move.
Higher AQ® predicts and improves at the individual and team level: performance, productivity, innovation, agility, resilience, pace of change, problem‑solving, optimism and energy, and morale. At the enterprise level: retention and hiring, talent, leadership, culture, and engagement.
Source: PEAK Learning / Peak Performance International research base; independent studies including Cornell University and Educational Testing Service (ETS).
What installing AIRAS asks of you — and where it breaks.
This isn't plug‑and‑play. It asks more of the sponsor and the team than a training rollout does. That's the point, and the risk.
What it requires
Where it breaks
Adaptive capacity moves first — and it predicts the rest.
The metrics Commercial Excellence and Transformation own: leading, behavioral, then financial. The financial ones belong to the business.
Adaptive capacity
AQ® for defense, GRIT™ for offense, benchmarked before and after. The research base shows it predicts successful outcomes better than the alternatives. Commercial Excellence owns this.
Execution discipline
Growth Project™ progress, adoption of new ways of working, and the consistency of follow‑through, observed by coaches rather than self‑reported. Commercial Excellence owns this.
Business impact
Pipeline, margin, win/loss, market entry, measured in your own systems, on the Growth Projects the work put in motion. The business units own this.
He recommended a new approach and rebuilt the program mindset first.
At LANXESS, Roy van Griensven inherited a classroom capability program from a top consulting firm, a design he had watched fail before. It treated behavior as a downstream result of training rather than the thing to solve for.
He rebuilt it as the Commercial Excellence Academy, designed with Demand Metric. Participants started with an adversity‑response baseline, then ran 90‑day projects on their own live problems, coached weekly by a senior operator, not a consultant. By the sixth cohort LANXESS coaches were in a coach‑the‑coach program; by the seventh they were coaching Growth Projects themselves as part of the Academy, supported by our team. That is how the coaching capability moves in‑house.
“The best development experience of my career.” — a German‑HQ skeptic
ADKAR and AIRAS, across the dimensions that matter.
The job changed. So did the question worth asking.
ADKAR gave the field structure, vocabulary, and a repeatable process for managing the human dimension of change. For three decades, it was the best available tool for the job.
But the job has changed. Commercial leaders are now driving fundamental shifts in how their organizations create and capture value, under pressure, against inertia the playbook leaves in place. Big‑consultancy change practices, Prosci and the LMS manage the same surface ADKAR named. Few of them install the behavioral layer underneath.
So the question for the next initiative shifts. Not ‘how do we manage the change?’ but ‘what makes these people want to run it after we stop watching?’ That is the question AIRAS was designed to answer, and the reason the behavioral science it rests on is worth the extra quarter it asks for.
Ready to run your next transformation on the behavioral science?
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