The Lippitt-Knoster model for complex change.

The model

Vision, skills, incentives, resources and a plan of action. With all five present the change happens. Take one away and the result is not half a change but a symptom you can recognise.

Without vision you get confusion. Everybody is working, but in different directions, and nobody can explain why the task exists.

Without skills you get anxiety. People know what is supposed to happen but not whether they can manage it, and from the outside that anxiety looks like unwillingness.

Without incentives you get resistance. Everybody understands, everybody is able, but nobody has any reason to put it ahead of their ordinary work.

Without resources you get frustration. The will is there and the plan is there, but nobody has the time, the money or the mandate.

Without a plan of action you get a false start. The work begins again several times without ever getting further than it did last time.

One thing about the name is worth knowing. The model was created by Mary Lippitt in 1987 under the name The Managing Complex Change Model. Timothy Knoster used it in a presentation in 1991, and that was the route by which it spread, which is why it is often named after him. Both names are in use, and in the literature it now usually appears as Lippitt-Knoster.

How it’s used

In two directions, and both are worth being able to do.

Beforehand. If you are facing a change, a restructuring or a merger, the five parts make for a short review to run before you start. The question is not whether you have them on paper but whether each of the people involved has them. Does everybody know why, can everybody do what is required, does everybody have some reason to put it ahead of their ordinary work, are the time and the money there, and does everybody know what happens on Monday. It takes a short while and it is the cheapest insurance you can take out, because every part that is missing costs considerably more to repair afterwards than to put in place in advance.

Afterwards. If something has already got stuck, start with the symptom rather than with the list. If the same question about why is heard over and over, it is the vision. If it sounds like unwillingness, it is more often skills or incentives. If the work stalls even though everybody wants it, it is resources. If the same initiative starts over every quarter, it is the plan of action.

It is the second half that makes the model worth carrying around. Nearly all the symptoms look like a lack of will, and they rarely are. Read instead as a missing precondition, the conversation becomes an entirely different one, and above all it becomes something that can be acted on.

Where it’s usually misused

Two ways. The first is using it as a checklist after the fact, which always produces the answer that everything was there. The second is letting it become an argument for more communication, because vision is the easiest part to do something about. Communication solves confusion, but it solves neither a shortage of resources nor an absence of ownership.