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Why Is It Harder To Communicate During Change?

February 15, 2013 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Change Management

Why Is It Harder To Communicate During Change?
By Corrina Jorgensen

Business change puts real pressure on internal communications. Not only has the day job to be done in keeping everyone informed, involved and engaged but now a business change project has demands and specific milestones to meet – what to do?

Even in large organizations, an efficient internal comms operation can be thrown into disarray by the need to service both business-as-usual and project needs. Ultimately engaged employees make a tangible, positive difference to company performance so getting across the story behind business change, making change happen and making change stick delivers real business benefit.

Projects in large organizations are usually well provisioned for technically. But often the ‘user’ voice isn’t always front of mind. This has a real impact on any change lasting for the long term. After all it will be the people in the company, the end users who will adopt and adapt new ways of workings – whether that is systems, process or organization change driven.

Communicating isn’t just about letting people know what’s going on. They have to be at the center of the change themselves if it will affect the way they work and they have to undergo a change of behavior. Therefore, a communications approach needs to provide opportunities for input from stakeholders: real two way communication.

The following are situations we’ve probably all come across along with ideas on how to counteract their negative impact on project outcomes.

Sustaining momentum

Often change communications can lose energy during the project. People can be nervous about communicating bad news or believe there hasn’t been much progress so saying nothing is better.

However, effective communications is about being consistent – regardless of the message, being honest and behaving as partners with your change community. Working together in a collaborative, engaging and properly interactive way will build strong relationships.

Having and keeping engagement allows open and honest two way communication; working on a basis of ‘no surprises’ builds trust and empathy for the project/program as well as great insight and understanding of your customers and recipients of change.

A project or program of change needs a consistent set of messages with a set of consistent high impact materials. The messages contained within these should support the common goal.

Change program and projects can be a great opportunity to inject communications with innovation and creativity. The materials need to be creative but they also need to be cost effective. Approaches could include low tech, low cost movies, a DCO App for the iphone, tool kits and also Prezzie, as part of a suite of pragmatic, multimedia solutions.

For many project and program managers, there can be difficultly in addressing a geographically dispersed audience. This needs a coordinated response, meeting cross cultural needs and delivering timely, regular updates in the format that the users want and always providing the ability for them to get into the conversation.

What to do if it’s not working

Change communications need planning, strategy and method. The method needs to differentiate from business as usual communications to tell the story of change, connect stakeholders and encourage input. Communications methods in change programs also need measurement, evaluation and the flexibility to adapt to changes in the project.

Sometimes communications fail because they have not adequately identified “WIIFM” – What’s In It For Me – for stakeholders. Whilst a central cohesive story for the change is essential, and a brand reinforced, it needs to be reinterpreted to be relevant for each individual that the change impacts upon.
Measuring engagement with the project aims should indicate if it’s working or not and why. Then it’s time to determine how the affected individuals can be reached and why they in particular might not be on board.

Tackling failing support

A very open approach will show that leadership has nothing to hide and an open and honest Q and A webcast will show questions in real time on the screen. Often a lack of commitment from middle management (not necessarily sponsor level who often support effectively) can hamper success, so communications need to create a line of sight between leadership through to all levels within the organization.

Enabling managers to talk to their teams and have difficult discussions, and also creating communications networks, increases the chance of engaging with this traditionally challenging group of stakeholders.

Communications activity often decreases after implementation. Keeping people up to date with where they can go for further support after the BAU handover will give the business change more chance of being successful in the long term.

It’s worth remembering the personal touch and the need to use softer skills in leading communications as part of business change. Authentic storytelling that is aligned with the business case creates a line of sight and, although it doesn’t always come naturally to ‘techie’ leaders and managers, it’s a skill worth cultivating and maximizing during change and to sustain in the organization to really make change happen.

Above all a communications strategy for change must be realistic and it must be practical. Ultimately it’s about being able to do the most with the least amount of resources, to enable change to stick.

Corrina Jorgensen is the managing director of Afiniti Limited, a change management consultancy specialising in the people agenda of business change. She is a change management practitioner with over 20 years’ experience in enterprise wide, technology driven change within large organizations.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2013 and is filed under Change Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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