Change Communications

A recent comment on the following post, “A definition of change communication“, got me thinking about what content we should be providing in this factual, fast and frequent manner?

Projects, and IT projects in particular, are usually run on a tight budget. Time, money and resources are often short. What I see happening is that any old information to hand is packaged and sent out to future users. The information I am thinking about is often extracted from progress reports, the sort of information that team managers give to hierarchy in PowerPoint files to track their progress.

However, successful change communication needs much more than this. It needs to be passed through a filter, a communicator, who will ensure messages are structured for a defined target audience. This should be someone that will digest the information into the following key points (a useful pense-bête):

• What is happening?
• Why is it happening?
• What does it mean (for me)?
• What are the next steps?

And there isn’t just one wise communicator in an ivory tower that can prepare this. It will require regular contact (surveys, conference calls, cups of coffee…) with the stakeholder groups being targeted, or at least a representative. In my experience, key users are invaluable change communication allies.

A simple, factual change message that goes straight to these points is more likely to be taken on-board; especially when it is competing amongst the hundreds of messages that we are “assaulted” with everyday via e-mail, press, radio, TV, intranets, websites, blogs, meetings, conference calls, workshops…

Maybe this sounds like common sense to some, but it surprises me that communications are rarely prepared in this way.

Nicholas

Still on the subject of consulting, I recently came across Schein’s description of three primary models for organizational facilitation.

1. Purchase models: refer to the purchase of expert information and advice
2. Doctor-patient models: refer to the purchase of diagnostic and prescriptive services
3. Process consultation models: refer to collaborative client-consultant relationships in which consultants function as facilitators and help client learn to improve their internal problem-solving processes.

These short descriptions give a good sense of perspective for those involved in change management and coaching with clients, activities which correspond to the process consultation model.

Source: Schein 1988

Inter-Comm: articles on personal development dedicated IC courses in UK:

• Manchester University – MSc in corporate communication and reputation management
• Kingston University – post graduate diploma and MA in IC management
• Bournemouth University – post graduate certificate in IC management

Source: Lee Smith, Talking Internal Communication

People are emotional beings. Such a simple, yet powerful phrase. In my current work environment it is also refreshing and almost revolutionary.

Understand that your co-workers are emotional beings, like you, and you can start being able to connect with them.

I won’t claim to take credit for this, but I recommend you read more on Malcom O Munro’s excellent blog:

• An example of the case in point: Curious About What Motivates Employees? Try Asking Them!
• More about Emotional Intelligence: So How “Smart” Are You?
  

Below is an extract from an article that I recently came across on communitelligence.com and I couldn’t agree more. This not only applies to media/presentation skills but I would say communications in general.

Extract:“The easiest way to spot an insecure public speaker is to look for someone who is dumping an endless supply of facts and details, but without the context of real examples and stories. Insecure speakers are afraid of looking stupid, so they always overcompensate by larding excessive facts into their presentation.

The insecure speaker uses the sea of facts as a protective covering to mask his or her insecurities. Only it doesn’t work.”

Original article on Communitelligence

Ever wondered what I meant when referring to sciences molles in French? Here’s the explanation…

The Hard Stuff Is Easy and the Soft Stuff Is Hard
There exists more than ample evidence that when all is said and done, “the hard stuff is easy and the soft stuff is hard.” Developing a great technical solution may not be easy. But, ensuring that the solution engages learners, motivates managers, and energizes the organization—the softer, less technical people issues—is really hard, and critical.

More information in French here…

1. Keep it short

You know what it feels like to be given a questionnaire that is pages and pages long. I usually have a strong desire to run in the opposite direction.

I have a rule: if possible, no more than 10 questions.

If the questionnaire is too long or complex it can actually produce the opposite of what you are trying to achieve; a frustrated reader will either skip questions or give poor quality answers. A short, simple and clear survey is much more likely to encourage the reader to spend a bit more time on the responses he/she is going to give.

2. Know what you want to find out (and how you want exploit that information)

How can you possibly collect and effectively work with information if you don’t have a very clear idea of what it is you want? It’s like trying to go somewhere with a map but not knowing where you want to get to.

• For each survey: define clear objectives, what is it exactly that you want to learn? Why? What are you going to do with this information?
• For each question: make sure you know how you will interpret the results. How are you going to be able to illustrate what is being said? How will this help you make decisions?

If this planning is done carefully you will avoid the following pitfalls:

• Unquantifiable replies: for example, a quantitive measure (such as a rating of 1-4) may be more appropriate than the traditional open text box. If you have 200 text answers to wade through, or even 20, how can you get an effective idea of the group’s opinions or a trend? Text boxes are good for subjective information and suggestions and should be used sparingly.
• Repetition of the same question in different forms: this is very common in surveys where the objective is not clear. The questions end up being a series of stabs in the dark.

3. Simplify your life

Life is complicated enough. Why complicate it more with Excel spreadsheets, word documents, email exchanges, manual counting of results or – god fobid – paper answers?! Very good, reasonably priced survey and questionnaire tools exist on the Web. Not only does this solve the problem of distributing the survey and collecting the results, most sites also include tools for presenting and/or exporting the data collected. All you need to do is send an URL to your target audience and sit back and watch the data come in.

Here are a couple of places to start:

1. http://www.questionmark.com – a heavy duty solution, good if you need to do a lot of surveys and assessments.
2. http://www.surveymonkey.com – a light-weight option, quick and effective. Good when you need to go quickly.

Alternatively you could try some of the advertisements on the side of this blog… :)

4. Know who you are adressing

What you ask and how you ask it (phrasing) should be adapted to your target audience.

Example: A common mistake is to see the survey from your (management) perspective. You know you need to work out what from your team can take from its current experience (organisation, process etc) and apply to future projects. The mistake is to ask your team this question directly. The team members are not necessarily project managers and will not give you the answeres you require. It is much more effective to ask what worked well and with this information you can decide what would be good for future projects.

5. Make sure you have the required management support and means to act on any findings

Avoid doing a survey just for the sake of being able to say you have done one. By sending a survey you are sending a strong message that you want to listen to the opinions of those being questioned; a survey implies some sort of change. If the survey reveals problems and no action is taken you will de-credibilse yourself.

Furthermore, be as open as possible about the results, findings and actions (even if you don’t have the means to act on all points, at least recognise the issues identified) resulting from the exercise, it will work in your favour and show that the team or organisation is capable of listening and adapting.

And that is really what it is all about, no?

Nicholas Ranken

EDIT 28/8/2006 For guidance on responding to a survey, check out this post on Lee Smith’s Talking Internal Communication

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.

————–

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

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