As organizations head into a new year, many leaders find themselves planning change. New systems, new platforms, and new tools are approved with the hope that long-standing problems will finally be resolved.
January tends to create that sense of possibility. Executive teams and leaders say:
And yet, for many associations and mission-driven organizations, the pattern is familiar. The technology goes live. Training is delivered. And within a few months, people quietly drift back to their old ways of working. Manual spreadsheets reappear. Workarounds resurface. Shadow systems once again take hold, and shadow IT teams emerge.
When this happens, the explanation is usually the same. Adoption failed and people resisted change.
Having worked both as an external consultant advising organizations through change and as a strategy and transformation leader inside organizations expected to deliver it, I can tell you one thing. That explanation is convenient. It is also wrong.
The Real Reason User Adoption Fails
Most technology initiatives do not fail because the system is poorly chosen. They fail because the behaviors around the work never change.
I have seen organizations invest months selecting the right platform, only to spend days thinking about how people actually do their jobs. The assumption is that once the system exists, behavior will naturally follow.
It rarely does.
People default to what feels efficient, safe, and predictable. Even when leaders are clear about expectations, familiar routines tend to win anyway. This is why legacy workarounds survive for years. It is why SOPs that made perfect sense in a conference room go untouched in practice. It is why governance is often experienced as friction rather than support.
The old way of working continues not because it is better, but because it is familiar.
Adoption Does Not Fail. Habit Design Does.
To understand why change stalls, it helps to stop thinking in terms of systems and start thinking in terms of habit loops. Every recurring behavior in an organization follows a simple pattern:
Cue → Routine → Reward → Reinforcement
This habit loop exists whether leaders design it intentionally or not.
In my experience, legacy systems win because their habit loops are deeply understood. People know exactly where to go, what to do, how long it will take, and what “done” looks like. New systems often disrupt the routine without replacing the reward or reinforcement. When that happens, people revert.
Not out of stubbornness. Out of self-preservation.
Why “We’ve Always Done It This Way” Keeps Winning
This is where many leaders misdiagnose the problem.
People do not resist change. They resist uncertainty.
If a new system introduces friction without a clear and immediate payoff, the old habit will win every time. That is how shadow IT emerges. That is how teams quietly rebuild familiar processes inside new tools, even when those tools were designed to eliminate them.
From the outside, this behavior looks like defiance. From the inside, it feels like doing what is necessary to get work done on time and without risk.
This shows up frequently in associations and nonprofits, where institutional knowledge runs deep and resources are limited. Informal systems exist because they work and because people trust them. Asking people to abandon those systems without addressing the underlying habit loop does not eliminate the behavior. It simply pushes it out of sight.
Where Governance and SOPs Actually Fit
Governance and standard operating procedures are often introduced after adoption has already stalled. More documentation is written. Rules are clarified. Expectations are reinforced.
At that point, governance is perceived as enforcement.
In reality, governance and SOPs are habit reinforcement tools. When they are designed well, they clarify cues, simplify routines, create meaningful rewards such as faster approvals or fewer rework cycles, and reinforce consistent behavior over time.
When they are designed poorly, they add friction without value and people route around them.
I have watched well-intentioned governance frameworks fail not because they were wrong, but because they were disconnected from how work actually happens. The difference is not intent. It is design.
Building Better Habits Intentionally
Organizations that succeed with adoption approach the problem differently. They do not ask how to get people to use the system. They ask which habits the system is meant to replace and what new habits must be built instead.
That shift forces more honest conversations about legacy workarounds, competing processes, and the unintended rewards that keep old behaviors alive. It also requires leaders to remove alternative paths, not just discourage them.
This is often the hardest part of change. It requires saying no to familiar shortcuts and being explicit about what is no longer supported.
Adoption is not something you hope for after implementation. It is something you design alongside it.
From Accidental Adoption to Adoption by Design
When adoption seems to work effortlessly, it is rarely luck. It is the result of leaders who understand that sustainable change lives at the intersection of technology, process, and human behavior.
New systems do not fail because people are resistant. They fail because old habits are still better supported.
If organizations want different outcomes from their technology investments, the place to start is not with another tool. It is with a clear-eyed look at the habits being reinforced today, intentionally or not.
Because transformation does not happen when people learn a new system. It happens when old habits finally stop being rewarded.
A candid advisor’s note
Several years ago, I worked with an organization that had just rolled out a major enterprise system. Leadership had done what most teams do. They selected a strong platform, invested heavily in configuration, and delivered thorough training. On paper, it was a solid implementation.
A few months later, the reality looked different.
Reports were incomplete. Teams were maintaining spreadsheets “just in case.” While workflows technically lived in the system, the real work was happening elsewhere. When leadership asked why, the explanation was familiar. Adoption was lagging. People were resistant. More training was needed.
What we eventually uncovered was simpler and more uncomfortable.
The old way of working was still being rewarded.
Approvals moved faster outside the system. Questions were resolved more quickly through informal channels. Under deadline pressure, managers quietly encouraged teams to “do what works” and reconcile later. No one was undermining the change. They were responding rationally to the signals the organization was sending.
The fix was not more training or stricter enforcement. It was habit redesign. Competing paths were removed. Governance was aligned to real decision points. Leaders modeled the behavior consistently. Over time, the system stopped feeling optional because the old habits stopped being useful.
That experience reinforced something I have seen repeatedly, both as a consultant and as an internal transformation leader.
User adoption is not a communication problem. It is not a motivation problem. And it is rarely a technology problem.
It is a habit problem.
Organizations always get the behaviors they reinforce. Every tolerated workaround and every quiet exception teaches people how change really works. Transformation succeeds when leaders design habits deliberately rather than hoping behavior catches up to new tools. And as the old adage reminds us, incentives drive behavior.
That is the difference between accidental adoption and adoption by design.