For people to accept and implement change they need to understand why it is necessary. Communicating change will only succeed if everyone shares ownership in the change.
Ideally this means involving people early in the process to understand the factors initiating the change and getting them involved in creating potential solutions.
Resist the temptation to wait until more is known. Even with the most uncertain of changes, something can be communicated. If you wait for the right moment to start communicating change the ‘grapevine’ will take over and will send messages out quicker than official channels doing irreparable damage to your change initiative.
A way to counter this uncertainty is to communicate different scenarios about what could happen along with timescales of when you will know more. These messages should be delivered face to face, to allow for questions and answer concerns.
Research has shown that people prefer to receive information about change from their immediate manager, face to face. This means that the capability of your people managers will be critical to the success of your change. As a result you may need to develop the capability of your people managers alongside, or preferably in advance, of your change initiative starting.
We are shaped by our experiences, how we perceive the world is shaped by what we say & how we say it.
Five key steps to communicating change
- Who do you need to communicate with?
- What is your outcome? How do you want your audience feel, hear and see about the change?
- How do they receive messages currently?
- How will you measure the effectiveness of your communication to your audience?
- Know your audience
- How does your audience perceive issues related to the change?
- What values and behaviours are driving these beliefs?
- What are the likely challenges to communicating change likely to be?
- What messages have landed well in the past – how were they delivered?
- Create key messages that:
- Enhance understanding
- Answers the ‘what’s in it for me?’ question
- Busts myths
- Acknowledges the reality for people (both in the ‘existing’ and ‘new’ world)
- Show empathy
- Develop the communications
- Understand current channels – what works well and why for specific audience groups
- Prototype communications with audiences and adapt based on feedback
- Deliver the communications in a regular, timely manner
- Understand the impact
- Measure changes in perception, understand the opportunities to improve how you are communicating change
- Present findings to change agents and sponsors of the change
- Adapt your communication approach
