Change Communications

To speed up a major change in your company, think about how your intranet, paper and face-to-face communication contribute to the process.

In an in-depth report on managing major change called “Communicating Big Change Using Small Communication,” authors Dr TJ Larkin and Sandar Larkin explore the idea of using “thousands of small face-to-face conversations between managers and employees” to bring about big change in large companies. Drawing on various research findings, the report outlines the effectiveness of each of the main communication channels and when and how they should be used in a major change campaign. This can briefly be summarized as follows:

1. Intranet: best for short, quick information retrieval Internet is the best channel for searching and retrieving factual information. This implies that the company intranet is most useful during the implementation phase when employees need to quickly find small pieces of information located within large data sets. It’s wrong, however, to rely on the intranet as your major communication channel during the planning phase of the change. Using intranet instead of face to face is a mistake. Intranet is not employees’ preferred choice and does not change behavior. It’s also a poor choice for sensitive information.

Don’t rely on the intranet as your major communication channel during the planning phase of the change.

2. Paper: best for learning complicated informationWhen ideas on a computer screen become complicated — employees hit “print.” Research shows that employees prefer paper as soon as new material becomes difficult to understand. Although less certain than employees’ preference (i.e., face-to-face communication), many studies also show improved comprehension. With difficult topics, employees often learn more when reading from paper than from a web page. This means paper plays an especially important role during implementation when there may be many new and complicated ideas to communicate. Paper also plays an important supporting role in face-to-face communication. It’s wrong, however, to rely on paper as your primary communication channel during the planning phase of a big change.

With difficult topics, employees often learn more when reading from paper than from a web page.

3. Face to face: changes behavior If your change means employees must change the way they behave, then face to face is the best channel for communicating the message. “Diffusion of innovation” is the study of how groups adopt new behaviors. The leading expert of this approach is Professor Everett Rogers. Surveying 50 years of research and 4,000 studies, Rogers concludes that mediated information (print and electronic) creates awareness of new ideas but rarely adoption. On the other hand, face-to-face communication with a respected member of your own group (opinion leader) delivers the most new behavior.

A study by the Hay Group, Key Driver Analysis, also examined different ways to communicate and the associated amount of employee support forthe change. The correlations discovered by the Hay Group show most support when employees learn about the change from their own managers.