TO SUCCESSFULLY COMUNICATE CHANGE,
TRY STARTING YESTERDAY
S u ccessfully co m m unic ating a m a j or c h a n g e to em p l oyees st a r t s way
before the ch a nge. P re pa ring t h e com p a ny to s u ccess f u l l y weat her
c han ge first re quire s building a c u l t u re t h at h el p s em p l oyees fe el i n
t h e loo p and awa re o f the co mp a ny ’s g oa l s . Li ke s o m a ny a s p ect s of
a co mpany ’s c ulture, a gre at d ea l d ep en d s on t h e p er s on or p eop l e at
t h e very to p o f the o rga nizati on a l c h a r t . I n ter n a l com m u n i c ato r s can
o n l y do so muc h, a nd the ir jo b s i n com m u n i c at i n g c h a n g e b eco me
h arder o r eas ie r de pe nding o n t h e a n swer s to t h es e s i x q u est i ons:
Has leadership established an
organizational vision?
If you’re tasked with communicating a
major change, it will be much more difficult if your
CEO or other leadership has never established an
overall vision for where the company is going. If
your CEO happens to have an inspirational and
transformational vision, then so much the better.
For instance, Jeff Immelt's vision of transforming
the behemoth of GE into a digital industrial
company that’s defining the future of the internet
of things is an easy vision to get employees
excited about. But even if the vision is something
less inspiring, like to be the biggest widget
manufacturer in the world, that vision can be
helpful for framing change.
Has that vision been
communicated to employees?
One town hall or a poster in the
breakrooms doesn’t count, of course. What you
hope is that leadership talks about the vision
all the time, and that it’s filtered down through
the ranks so that managers are also always
communicating the vision to their teams. When
employees hear about the vision from their
leaders, and read about the vision in their internal
communications, it can provide an important
anchor when they feel buffeted by the seas of
change.
Does this change support the
stated vision?
If you’ve got a vision, and employees know
about it — and this change is a clear step towards
achieving that vision, your job communicating
the change will be infinitely easier. In the case
of the widget company above, for instance, the
acquisition of another widget company makes total
sense. Employees will put two and two together,
understanding that buying another company
supports the vision of becoming the largest.
But what if the change is diametrically opposed
to the vision? What if, for instance, a hospital
system’s vision is about quality of patient care, but
changes in the healthcare industry require extreme
cost cuts. The vision is still helpful in framing that
change. Leadership can make decisions about
what costs to cut based on how it impacts patient
care. In that case, employees can more easily
understand decisions that inconvenience them,
like staggering their shifts to better handle patient
volume.
Like so many aspects of a
company’s culture, a great
deal depends on the person
or people at the very top of
the organizational chart.