The COM-B model is an evidence-based framework rooted in behavioral science that offers precisely the kind of tools to help bridge this gap between great plans and real results. This model begins with the understanding that current behaviors are a likely predictor of future behaviors. Approaches lacking this point of view can often overlook the unique or nuanced reasons why certain stakeholders are resistant or disengaged. By focusing on three components—Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation—as key drivers of behavior, the COM-B framework helps organizations transform their plans into impactful actions with measurable results.

The COM-B model is both practical and versatile. This framework can support teams adopting new standards or policies, help leaders build alignment for difficult organizational decisions, or assist staff in implementing behavior change. The final result of using the COM-B model is the creation of new behaviors needed to make strategic shifts within each organization by fulfilling its three interdependent components:

1. Capability

Capability refers to whether we have the knowledge, skills, and ability to engage in a specific behavior. This includes psychological capability (such as mental states, knowledge, and skills) paired with physical capability (such as Fitness and energy levels). 

For example, an organization seeking to improve its capability to provide direct services in a trauma-informed way may choose to invest in staff training, hire external consultants to support program design, or create a new position to oversee changes in service delivery. All of these steps increase staff capacity to take on new challenges and achieve greater impact. 

2. Opportunity

Opportunity refers to external factors that make the execution of a specific behavior possible. These include physical opportunities (such as office space and enough time in the week to enact new behaviors), environmental opportunities (such as staff incentives and benefits), and social opportunities (such as a culture of innovation and honest feedback). 

For example, a company that wants to increase attendance at all-staff meetings may analyze the different barriers to attendance related to varying work schedules (whether it is having staff collaborating across different time zones or having team members who work night shifts) and decide to provide multiple virtual or asynchronous opportunities for staff to participate. 

3. Motivation

Motivation refers to the internal processes that determine whether someone makes a decision or not. The COM-B model highlights two kinds of motivation: reflective motivation (the more conscious process of making plans for the future) and automatic motivation (the more instinctive response to both impulses and inhibitions). 

For example, a leader may decide to facilitate workshops with every department team focused on identifying key parts of the organization’s culture, as well as how organizational changes—even difficult decisions—align with the organization’s values (automatic motivation). Such workshops can also provide space and tools for staff to identify needed behavior changes for themselves and plan for how to implement them (reflective motivation). 

Using the COM-B framework as the centerpiece of a strategic planning process requires a clear understanding of what kinds of behaviors need to be developed or changed, as well as where exactly the gap lies between an effective plan in theory and the ability to actually implement it. It’s equally as important to understand whose behavior needs to change—whether that be leaders modeling desired behaviors or staff adopting new practices. No matter the players at hand, COM-B provides a structured approach to identifying the factors needed for each layer of the organization to embrace desired behavior changes. 

Leadership-Level Behaviors

Leaders are critical in making strategic planning processes actually work. Real buy-in across the organization must be earned from the top down. In other words, staff need to see consistent behaviors from leaders that signal that they believe in both the process and the outcome. By applying the COM-B model, organizational leaders can first identify what they themselves will need to embody this kind of behavior: 

• Capability: Leaders themselves may require additional training in competencies like business software, board member recruitment, or emotional intelligence to improve their decision-making and encourage buy-in from their teams.
• Opportunity: Organizations can offer concrete support for their leaders (including chief executives), such as dedicated time for strategic thinking and trauma-informed coaching,  to build the skills needed to make difficult decisions and manage change.
• Motivation: Creating space for leaders and staff to collectively see their own values reflected in the decisions of the organization can inspire leaders to drive transformation and help them understand how to motivate their teams.

Staff-Level Changes 

Engaging staff in a way that feels tangible and genuine requires a tailored approach that speaks directly to day-to-day challenges. This allows staff to understand how concrete behavior changes at the individual level add up to meeting organizational goals. Here are a few action-based examples using COM-B as a framework:

• Capability: Providing formal training and upskilling opportunities to staff allows them to take on new responsibilities, think outside the box, and take calculated risks to expand their impact. 
• Opportunity: Increasing access to technology (as well as digital literacy training when needed) and introducing collaboration tools like Slack or Monday can help streamline processes across the organization.
• Motivation: Consistently celebrating contributions by individual staff members and teams, aligning needed changes with personal values, and using storytelling to highlight organizational impact can create positive feedback cycles that keep staff engaged and motivated to change behaviors. 

Through COM-B, organizations can design interventions that target specific desired behaviors, and track progress based on how well they are being implemented. By identifying and creating the right types of interplay between capabilities, opportunities, and sources of motivation, organizations can make sure their strategic plans are internalized and adopted across the organization. 

It’s important to note here that while leaders and staff will probably need different kinds of interventions, the COM-B model applies equally to both layers of leadership. In strategic planning processes where the COM-B framework is being intentionally applied, leaders may find that their focus should be on changing how decisions are made and communicated across the organization to ensure ongoing buy-in. Conversely, staff may need to focus more on implementing changes in day-to-day practices and aligning behaviors with organizational goals. 

Using the COM-B model across leadership levels (as illustrated in the table above) can help ensure that at each stage of the process—regardless of which stakeholder group is being engaged—everything in the final plan is focused not just on ideas or proposals but on concrete behavior changes.

Our consulting firm, Anavi Strategies, develops comprehensive strategic planning processes with both nonprofits and government agencies. In every process, we integrate the COM-B behavior change model to address barriers and align behaviors with organizational goals.

One of the ways we achieve this is by infusing every one of our client services with trauma-informed principles and practices. This approach allows us to fully structure our client relationships around empathy, honesty, and safety to have difficult conversations needed to solve big challenges.

We spend ample time at the beginning of each process working with leadership to identify their own barriers, resource needs, and tensions they may experience with others on their team. This includes encouraging them to include both operational staff and Board members in their strategic planning committees and use trauma-informed tools to create environments of trust and safety. This creates a permission structure for everyone at the table to actually talk about uncomfortable dynamics or emotional decisions. In our experience, this is typically where transformative change happens. This structured approach leads to successful and measurable outcomes for our clients. 

We ensure this happens through a few key steps:

1. Use Data to Pinpointing Barriers to Behavior Change 

We design tailored surveys, focus groups, and leadership decision-making meetings to identify organizational goals and desired behavior changes. We use trauma-informed facilitation tools to have honest and open conversations about barriers connected to capabilities, opportunities, and motivation. 

Example: Paralegal staff at a non-profit legal services organization were lacking the necessary legal training to fully engage and support volunteer attorneys, causing delays in how fast they could close cases. By analyzing this barrier—and incorporating recommendations from support staff themselves—we helped the organization strengthen the quality of their volunteer case management resources and staff training tools.   

2. Concrete, Trackable Implementation Plans

We create detailed implementation plans with simple metrics to ensure behavior shifts are trackable and aligned with the client’s mission and values. 

Example: A local government agency had a clear sense of what changes were needed in their programming, but had a hard time charting out how to make these changes across different parts of the larger system. By developing a detailed two to three-year implementation plan, we helped agency leaders identify specific timeframes for each action, as well as all staff members responsible for leading each action and the level of resource investment needed at each stage. 

3. Ensuring Inclusivity and Sustainability

Using a trauma-informed lens allows us to target the specific barriers to achieving desired behavioral changes caused by systemic inequities and traumatic experiences. By fostering psychological safety, we support organizational leaders and staff in addressing both tangible and intangible barriers and making genuine improvements in staff well-being.

Example: A local social services nonprofit was experiencing high levels of staff satisfaction and turnover. Using a trauma-informed approach that fostered confidentiality, trust, and honesty, we were able to uncover the root causes of why staff was feeling burnt out and chart out concrete steps to support well-being across the organization. 

Every strategic planning process should be designed with the end product in mind to ensure that form follows function. While each strategic plan can be quite different in both length and scope, an effective strategic plan will always include the following elements: 

• Identify Desired Behaviors: Implement surveys, facilitate focus groups, and analyze data to identify specific desired behaviors and the barriers to achieving them. 
• Map Behaviors Using the COM-B Wheel: Understand and tackle gaps in
• Capability: Skills, knowledge, and psychological capacity
• Opportunity: Environmental and systemic conditions
• Motivation: Values, beliefs, and emotional drivers
• Design Targeted Interventions: Develop tangible initiatives that specifically address capability, opportunity, and motivation gaps.
• Measure Progress: Use COM-B as an evaluation framework to track and assess the connection between investments, opportunities for decision-making at different levels of the organization, and specific behavioral changes over time.

In our experience, using the COM-B model when designing a strategic planning process ensures that leaders can be clear about the relationship between resource investments and behavioral outcomes. It also centers the voices of staff across the organization in identifying concrete challenges, fielding recommendations from those doing the work on the ground, and ensuring there are concrete investments to support their work. By focusing on the gaps in capacities and opportunities that lay underneath challenging behaviors (or lack of desired behaviors), leaders can get to the root of organizational challenges and tackle them head-on. 

Keeping behavioral changes at the core of any strategic planning process is precisely what ensures that these plans become a go-to resource across the organization and not just another report that sits on the shelf. 

Anavi Strategies guides mission-driven organizations such as government agencies, nonprofits, and philanthropies towards thoughtful strategic planning, designing transformative initiatives, and making greater social impact through data-driven and empathetic practices.