How do you figure out what is actually blocking adoption in our teams?

The short answer: you stop asking people what they think and start observing what they do. The gap between what people say in surveys and workshops versus what they actually do under pressure is where most adoption programs go wrong.

Behavioral diagnosis follows a structured process. First, specify the exact target behavior. Not "be more collaborative" but "share project status updates in the shared platform by end of day Friday." Precision here is critical because vague behaviors cannot be diagnosed.

Second, identify the barrier type using COM-B. For each specified behavior, you assess:

Capability barriers (knowledge gaps, skill deficits, cognitive overload).

Opportunity barriers (environmental friction, missing tools, misaligned social norms).

Motivation barriers (misaligned incentives, competing priorities, habit strength, emotional resistance).

Third, and this is where most approaches fall short, you assess what people are actually optimizing for at the moment of action. A senior manager might say they support the new reporting process. But at 4:45pm on Friday, with three emails waiting and a client call in the morning, the question becomes: what is the strongest force right now? If the old way takes two minutes and the new way takes fifteen, the old way wins. That is not resistance. That is rational behavior given the context.

The diagnosis produces 14 coded barriers (B1 through B14), each with a self-talk signal, a COM-B classification, and a matched set of strategies. This turns vague adoption problems into specific, actionable intervention targets. The most expensive mistake in organizational change is treating the wrong barrier.