Change Communications

Information plus technology does not equal communication. Emails and power points don’t change people’s behaviour.

Good to get a reminder from time to time:

During any change, people fall into four categories:

• Acceptance
• Indifference
• Passive Resistance
• Active Resistance

I wouldn’t advocate giving up entirely on the active resistance camp, but we tend to spend too much precious time and energy trying to convert them. Sometimes in the end we just have to let them go (perhaps it is not their journey).

Typically: 13% of any organisation is disengaged, 11% is engaged = total 24% engaged/disengaged.

That means another 76% of your staff have tremendous potential to become peak performers. The trick is finding out what engagement methods work for you.

It’s a long way between awareness and action. It takes a long timefor people to go through the four stages of change: awareness,understanding, commitment and action.

Source: Melcrum Communication Network

The following are extracts from an email bulletin board discussion that I am following. I couldn’t agree more! We all, myself included, tend to get distracted by modern shiny technology… but are we not forgeting something important??!

The problem: how we can we as communicators help change organizational behaviours

A couple of replies:

Since I’ve been in similar situations, I’ll tell you what I’ve done in the past. I’ve identified folks who don’t participate and I’ve taken one, two or three out to lunch (always one on one) or out to coffee (by ‘out’ I mean outside of the building, if possible) and I’ve talked with them very honestly about my concerns. And they’ve been flattered that I cared about what they thought and told me things I’d never even considered and had no idea were going on! It gave me real insight into employees’ needs and how staff reacted to what was being said and – guess what- all kinds of issues came up that no one understood or appreciated. As a result, I adjusted my communications strategy, which ended up in being better and more effective.

So my advice is: Take people out to eat.

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I sometimes think the best communications tool available to internal comms practitioners is the $2 cup of coffee.

I know it sounds “corny” and certainly it lacks the glamour of a podcast, blog or intranet. However what could make for more meaningful communications than buying someone a cup of coffee, getting their undivided attention for 10 minutes and finding how they feel about the issues?

The strategic trick of course is to have coffee with the right people: those that others in the workplace look to advice, support, opinion or guidance. Get “key influencers” onside and chances are you will win over others in their network.

“Key influencers” can do three things for the internal communicator. Over coffee they can:

1. Tell you what’s on people’s minds and the type of information they really hunger for.
2. Help you convert company corporate speak in to the language of their “workplace tribe”.
3. Identify the informal opportunities (ones that will never make it into your comms planning) to get the message out.

Perhaps the lack of enthusiasm for change could come right back to the boss talking about change and forgetting to mention the end result. Mangers must paint he big picture and show people when they should stand in the group portrait. What’s the point in struggling up the summit of the mountain if we have no idea what we will see when we get there. Our experience suggests that people react best when managers talk in terns of the “challenge” rather than just change.

Source: Melcum Comms Network

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., Change Communication Guru, recently related an experience which I find an excellent way of explaining how to make change communication work. Here’s her story:

Twenty years ago, I was a therapist in private practice, specializing in short-term therapy for behavioral change. At first, I wasn’t always successful in my attempts to help people whose doctors wanted them to stop smoking, or whose parents wanted them to get better grades, or whose managers wanted them to increase productivity.

I became instantly and dramatically more effective when I learned the “secret of change.” After that, I could tell if someone was destined to fail based on preliminary conversations to discuss the problem. Those conversations would go something like this:

Client: My doctor wants me to quit smoking.
Me: Good idea. Have your doctor call me for an appointment, and you call back when there’s something you want to do.

Client: My husband hates it when I get fat.
Me: Okay, now I know his concern. What’s yours?

Client: My sales manager would really like me to meet my monthly quota.
Me: I’ll bet she would. What would you really like?

Client: My parents want me to study harder and do better in math.
Me: No doubt. Now, tell me about your goals.

It was a simple and obvious insight: people rarely changed because their doctor, their spouse, or others in their lives wanted them to.

I’m not saying there was anything wrong with trying to change for someone else, I’m only reporting that it didn’t work. The motivation wasn’t strong enough – it wasn’t selfish enough! And when I helped those same individuals identify or develop an overwhelming personal desire for change, the result was almost always a resounding success.

Everything I learned as a therapist has helped me in my work with organizational transformation, but nothing has been quite as powerful as “the secret of change.”

That’s why communicating the WIIFM – What’s in it for me? – is so important. It’s why a change strategy needs to include small wins and rewards along the way. It’s why the real-life stories of those who have succeeded at change are so powerful. And it’s why involving employees in creating change is the ultimate transformation strategy.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Communitelligence

I recently stumbled across an interesting quote by Clay Shirky:

“Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity”

Clay goes on to explain:

Web users form first impressions of web pages in as little as 50 miliseconds (1/20th of a second), according to Canadian researchers. In the blink of an eye, web surfers make nearly instantaneous judgments of a web site’s “visual appeal.” Through the “halo effect” first impressions can color subsequent judgments of perceived credibility, usability, and ultimately influence our purchasing decisions. Creating a fast-loading, visually appealing site can help websites succeed.

The Halo Effect

The speed at which users form value judgments of web pages precludes much cognitive thought. The users tested had an emotional reaction to home pages that they could not control. This pre-cognitive “affective reaction” is a physiological response to what they see on the screen – a gut reaction. This carry over of first impressions to other attributes of products is sometimes called the “halo effect,” or cognitive “confirmation bias” where users search for confirming evidence and ignore evidence contrary to their initial impression. People want to be right, and tend to look for clues that validate their initial hypothesis.

“…the strong impact of the visual appeal of the site seemed to draw attention away from usability problems. This suggests that aesthetics, or visual appeal, factors may be detected first and that these could influence how users judge subsequent experience…. Hence, even if a website is highly usable and provides very useful information presented in a logical arrangement, this may fail to impress a user whose first impression of the site was negative.” – (Lindgaard 2006)

Source: WebSiteOptimization.com

Ubuntu, from the Zulu and Xhosa languages, means “I am because we are,” as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu translates it. (Other translations have it as, “A person is a person through other people.” But that’s not quite as catchy.)

Ubuntu — I am because we are — is an appropriate mantra for leaders. It crystallizes a wonderfully inspiring attitude to hold toward all associates in the organization that you jointly serve.

A leader can be no more successful than the quality of the trust and relationship between the people she leads. And so the spirit of ubuntu, of humility and connectedness, permeates a good leader’s every relationship — and all healthy relationships.

Source: Don Blohowiak, Clarifier. Catalyst. Coach.

Evidence suggests that only 20% to 50% of large-scale projects succeed, and that the major cause of project failure is a failure to address the “people” issues.

Click on image to view full-size version.

Source: Atos Consulting

Let’s start with the hypothesis that change communication is a management process. No change initiative can suceed on communication alone; it requires management sponsorship. The role of a communication department or professional is therefore to advise, coach and execute communication actions to support the change leader.

So what role does a leader play in this process? A leader communicates:

A) a sense of confidence and control (or lack thereof) to employees.
B) his or her own feelings about the change.
C) the degree to which he/she trusts the abilities of the employees to get through the change.
D) a sense of purpose and commitment (or lack thereof).
E) the degree to which he/she accepts the reactions and feelings of employees.
F) expectations regarding behaviour that is seen as appropriate or inappropriate (ie. rumour-mongering, back-room meetings).
G) the degree to which he/she is “connected to” employees situations and feelings or is “in-touch” with them.

It is clear that if the leader communicates effectively, he or she will be sending messages that decrease resistance, and encourage moving through the change more effectively and positively. The bottom line with all of this is if you screw up communicating with employees, even the smallest changes can result in ugly problems.

Source: Nicholas Ranken

The Communication Plan Template reflects the following Seven Principles of Strategic Organizational Communications, developed by Francois Basili:

1- Organizational Communication is a management process..
with a specific business purpose and disciplined methods of development, implementation, and measurements. It is accomplished through a strategic communication plan reviewed and approved by senior management.

2- Organizational Communication is a change agent.
The purpose of communication is not just to convey information, but to change behavior. It changes behavior by persuading people to take action toward the organization’s objectives.

3- The primary responsibility for internal communication lies with all managers and supervisors.
The Organizational Communication unit is responsible for designing and delivering the system and tools that enable managers to play their role as communicators. Face to face communication with the immediate manager is the most effective form of communication, and is the way employees prefer to receive key information.

4- Communication is a two way process.
Listening and encouragement of feedback must be as emphasized and practiced as speaking and providing information and directions. Two-way is the only way for communication to actually exist in the organization.

5- To be understood, communication must be grounded in the interests and language of the receiver.
While it seeks to achieve the organization’s strategic objectives, it cannot do so effectively unless it uses a receiver-focused approach in both content and context.

6- To be noticed, communication must be compelling and continuous
As it must compete for the receiver’s attention, communication must use highly compelling and creative ways to deliver its message. To be remembered and internalized, communication needs to be continuous and consistent. We can not afford not to communicate.

7- To be influential, communication must be credible.
Without a high degree of credibility, the integrity and believability of the message will be lost, and the whole communication process will be a waste of resources.

Source: (c) 2003-2005 Francois Basili, President, Communication Ideas. Taken from the Communication Plan Template. All Rights Reserved.