How to Manage Rapid Change in a Crisis

During a crisis, the constant influx of new information can cause change management practitioners to reassess and course correct often, sometimes daily. This makes rigid planning approaches less useful during a crisis or other times when rapid adoption and usage are critical for people and organizations. Fortunately, you don’t need to throw out process, plans or structure—you just need to adapt them properly.   

To be successful with crisis change management, your approach must shift from delivering a plan to enabling adaptability and resilience. Change practitioners bring value during a crisis not through plans and strategies but by helping leaders navigate complexity, make better decisions faster, and support people through uncertainty.

In a crisis, people need to move quickly—and confidently. Structure makes that possible. It turns reactive moments into intentional choices. Structured approaches to change during a crisis enable you to:

• Focus on outcomes – so even if the path changes, the direction stays clear.
• Ensure shared understanding – so people know what matters most and where to put their energy.
• Create anchors for adaptation – giving teams a way to adjust without starting from scratch every time something changes.
• Enable predictability – not in the what but in how the organization will respond, support people, and communicate through change.

Effective Crisis Change Management

A crisis can cause a sudden shift in the way your organization operates. Crises that have significant organizational impacts range from natural disasters and socio-cultural events to market shifts and economic downturns.

We only need to think back a few years to remember how the global pandemic reshaped how organizations do business. More commonly, however, organizations grapple with intermittent crises that require effective change management, often with little time to plan.

For example:

• Leadership changes – Frequently occurring during difficult economic times, changes in leadership can leave change practitioners without sponsors for important projects.
• Supply chain disruptions – Significant changes can pressure organizations to rewire supply networks quickly. These changes impact multiple functions and teams, from procurement and finance to compliance and distribution.
• Economic headwinds – Rising costs and changes in market demand require organizations to change quickly to maximize resources, creating changes to workforces, operating models and organizational structures.

Rapid Change Management in a Crisis With Adaptive Decisions

When you implement a technical change rapidly―before we’ve had adequate time to prepare, equip and support people―we need to shift to supporting people during and after the implementation. This means your change management activities must be highly responsive to what is needed in the moment to achieve adoption and usage.

• What?
• So what?
• Now what?

What? helps you to reflect on your current situation and see clearly beyond any confusion. So what? helps you make meaning and draw conclusions about strengths, opportunities and options. Now what? helps you act.

Adaptive Action isn’t about the time-consuming search for the perfect or right answer. Rather, it’s about making progress with the best information you have at the time. This simple thinking process encourages you to move rapidly from conceiving ideas to trying them, and then learning and refining as you go.

Example of Rapid Change Management 

When combined, the ADKAR Model and Adaptive Action create a powerful and nimble change process for crisis change management. As an example, consider managing a rapid change to a new supplier due to a widespread supply chain disruption.

Start with "What?"

Recognize that a supply chain disruption requires a rapid change in processes, potentially involving new suppliers, altered logistics, and different operational processes.

Agree about the consequences of not changing. For example, if the organization doesn’t make a rapid shift to a new supplier or suppliers quickly, production will grind to a halt, the organization will default on customer orders, revenue will plummet, layoffs will become necessary, etc.

Determine how this change will affect people at various levels. As a change practitioner, your role is to help the organization identify which aspects of the supplier changes impact the way people do their jobs. This may include changes to job roles, responsibilities, and the need for new skills.

10 Aspects of Change Impact

Conduct initial assessments to understand how the change will impact front-line employees, supervisors, managers, others, assessing their readiness for the change. Use ADKAR Assessments to gauge levels of Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.

The next step is to reflect on "So what?" 

After all the salient observations have been collected, you must make sense of what is happening. This is where you consider the opportunities that exist.

Analyze the implications of the change on employee morale and productivity. Identify potential resistance points stemming from fear of the unknown, lack of information, or previous negative experiences with change.

Understand employee concerns and resistance. For example, is resistance due to a lack of Awareness (not understanding the need for change), Desire (not wanting to support the change), Knowledge (not knowing how to implement the change), or Ability (not having the skills to adapt)?

Evaluate the risks associated with employee engagement during this transition. If employees do not feel supported, it could inhibit productivity further or lead to turnover.

"Now What?"

Let's say the supplier change requires your employees to learn how to use a new supplier relationship management system and new processes. Despite training, people are struggling to complete their work, which is creating bottlenecks, and they're overwhelmed by having to adopt multiple changes quickly and all at once.

Reassessing the ADKAR elements will enable you to identify barrier points that need to be addressed. It will also help you tailor support and resources to meet employee needs quickly.

Finally, consider Now what? This step moves you to action. It helps you get “unstuck” by determining the next, best action you can take to support people. If you get it right, fantastic! If you notice that people are still struggling, you can simply begin the Adaptive Action process again. When you begin again, check your past assumption and start with what you know about your current situation.

Using the supply chain example, you could identify the groups that have the highest needs. Then, agree on a plan to deliver additional training to these users first, so they can help others during the crisis. Finally, you might provide a simple, visual job aid for the technology platform to offer just-in-time learning support. 

Combining the ADKAR Model with the Adaptive Action process is a great way to leverage two simple and powerful tools that are uniquely suited to addressing today’s change challenges, and especially during rapid, urgent or crisis changes.

Use these tools to involve people directly in the change process. You may not have much to say in what is changing or when, but you can maximize their involvement in how you will change. You can start a conversation about the driving forces for each ADKAR element. You can also engage groups in an activity to reflect on how the change is going and tap into their ideas about what they need to be successful.

Prosci ADKAR Model

How to Adapt the Prosci Methodology for Urgent or Rapid Changes

The Prosci 3-Phase Process, part of the complete Prosci Methodology, is also an excellent resource for crisis change management. A structured yet flexible approach, it enables you to move changes forward quickly during uncertain times by focusing on plain-language questions to guide activities to equip and support people.

Prosci 3-Phase Process

Asking good questions focuses energy and attention, guiding people to think about the right things at the right time.

When pulled into urgent or rapid changes, start with the first four plain language questions:

• What are we trying to achieve?
• Who has to do their jobs differently and how?
• What will it take to achieve change success?
• What will we do to prepare, equip and support people?

Document the responses in a simple, one-page change plan.

Then, use the next two questions to continue to monitor activities:

• How are we doing?
• What adjustments do we need to make?

When new information emerges, be prepared to adapt the plan.

Although this is not a full change management plan, it offers an incredibly simple but effective way to keep leaders focused on the people side of an urgent change when you don’t have time to use detailed plans.

Equipping Organizations for Rapid Change

Sometimes we change because we want to. Sometimes we change because we have to. The pace of change today means organizations need to be proactive. Those who build change capabilities are better equipped to succeed with rapid changes and through crises of all kinds. These change-ready organizations see change not as a setback but as a growth opportunity.

The power of change-enabling roles during rapid change

A key way to maximize change as a growth opportunity is to enable people with the right skills. This lays the groundwork for your organization to pivot faster, achieve better outcomes, and emerge from rapid changes more resilient and change-agile than ever before.

Every individual—from front-line employees and people managers to Agile team leads and senior leaders—has a specific role to play in change. Prosci research offers clear insights into role-based capabilities and how developing them effectively enhances success. When people understand the importance of their roles and step into them during change, the speed and quality of change increases dramatically.

Sustaining change takes a village. And change happens much faster when you have clear expectations for each change-enabling role. Building capabilities in these critical roles equips people to manage change and build resiliency, no matter the timing or reason:

• Change practitioners work behind the scenes to prepare, equip and support sponsors and people managers, and develop effective change management strategies and plans.
• Sponsors perform the ABCs—Active and visible participation, Building coalitions of sponsors, and Communicating directly with people impacted by the change.
• People managers support their teams during change, serving the roles of communicator, liaison, advocate, resistance manager, and coach.
• Project managers support change by integrating the technical and people sides of change and designing solutions with adoption and usage in mind.

When you understand these roles and equip people to play them, you can turn challenging times into high-growth opportunities for your organization, as well as your leaders and teams.  

Core Roles in Change Management

Tips for Crisis Change Management Communications

When time is of the essence, but you have incomplete information about a change, effective communication is critical. Don’t let uncertainty hold you back. You can still communicate effectively in this situation.

1. Develop a communications plan. Make sure it focuses on the driver for change and the intended outcome. Anchor communications in purpose, not panic.
2. Establish a predictable cadence and stick to it. Uncertainty creates a communications vacuum and fear. Consistency builds trust even if all the answers aren’t clear yet. Tell people what you know, what you don’t know, and when they will hear from you next.
3. Acknowledge emergence. Don’t pretend the plan is fixed. Focus on honest and timely information, not perfection. Define and name communication roles and protocols clearly. In a crisis, clarity is calm. Define who owns the message, how decisions will be shared, and who people should go to as the authority on decisions. This will reduce confusion and prevent rumors or secondhand information. Use preferred senders to demonstrate focused leadership and not reactive chaos.
4. Define and name communication roles and protocols clearly. In a crisis, clarity is calm. Define who owns the message, how decisions will be shared, and who people should go to as the authority on decisions. This will reduce confusion and prevent rumors or secondhand information. Use preferred senders to demonstrate focused leadership and not reactive chaos.
5. Create feedback loops and use them. Be sure you use two-way communications and invite input, questions and concerns. Show you are listening by closing feedback loops. Using them after communications pulse checks enables you to stay connected to people’s information needs.

Uncertainty as a Catalyst for Growth and Resilience 

When navigating a challenging marketplace and economic uncertainty, we must recognize that change management isn't just about maintaining the status quo—it's about propelling our organizations forward. By combining structured approaches like ADKAR with the nimble flexibility of Adaptive Action and plain language questions, you position yourself as the bridge between disruption and opportunity.

Remember, the most innovative solutions often emerge from our most challenging circumstances. Those who can maintain clarity amid chaos, make meaning from complexity, and take decisive action will thrive through disruptions and transform them into a competitive advantage. As a change practitioner, you hold the key to helping your organization reach new levels of growth and possibility.