It's a long one...
We’re at Cranfield again running another Black Belt course. The people who run this place are very good – they may not have the beautiful scenery of Henley, but it’s a pretty slick operation. I’d certainly recommend it as a venue if you’re looking for an alternative to the same boring hotels and you want to get people into a learning frame of mind.
In one of the sessions yesterday, as a prelude to the input on change that we do on the final day, Sue gets delegates to discuss examples of change that they have seen done well (and some they have seen done less well). I thought I’d share some of the thoughts that came out of that. There was a lot of talk about the value of really thorough briefing packs for managers.
People remembered the usefulness of providing detailed scripts, Q&A documents and responsive feedback channels which gave managers access to more information if they asked for it. One large UK public sector body has just made some announcements and provided “champions” – experience communications advisors who gave practical (and importantly, moral) support to managers breaking the news to their staff.
Other people include a discussion guide for handling one to one conversations which also include a checklist to help people prepare. The checklist even went into the detail of making sure managers had water or tissues to hand if they were likely to be breaking bad news to someone. The key strength of this approach is that it goes some way towards ensuring consistency of messaging.
This organisation also ran a single question survey after the announcement of change. All it asked was whether people had been told about the planned change. This allowed them to be quick (rather than bogged down with process or analysis) and to give a very clear picture to the board of management how communications had performed. Someone pointed out the importance of making materials “translatable” – not just into different languages.
They said that you have to think about the level of customisation or adaptation they should permit line managers. Too much and the messages is lost – too little and they won’t use it. There was quite a bit of talk about making change feel like business as usual. One guy said “we know that we’re in a business that needs to adapt continuously so we’re very conscious of the need to make each change into a good experience – otherwise it will affect how people react to the next one”. Others talked about not making things seem unnecessarily scary.
We also discussed what to do in the event of announcements leaking and there was general agreement of the need to have some contingency plans in place. In the days before an announcement, knowing how to contact senior leaders in the event of an emergency is important if approval for a quick message is needed (and those leaders need to know that you might contact them).
People also warned of the importance of being ‘joined up’. We heard a tale of one division in a company getting different messages about change which caused confusion in other teams when people started comparing what they had been told. The lesson is to have oversight of everything that was being said so that IC can check for consistency.
Someone else also highlighted the importance of checking the authority for a decision. They gave the example of a senior manager who gave undertakings about an office relocation – undertakings he wasn’t in a position to deliver on. The result was considerable disruption when the Board subsequently over-ruled his decision.
However, this also underlined the role of very senior managers in announcing change and their value. Although there was general agreement on the central importance of line managers people said seeing a senior leader talking about change has an important impact.
Although we talked a lot about the moment of an announcement, we heard one very positive story about spending time preparing people for the news and then bringing them together to discuss it when they have had time to digest the implications. This meant that people had a much more productive discussion about than they might have had if they were asked to debate something immediately after being told about it.
Someone also said you have to think about pacing the news – change is not normally instant so avoid making a big announcement and then having nothing to say. If it’s going to take a year, plan communications to keep rumbling along and be clear about the timescales in your messaging. People also talked about the problems of timetable slippage. Things rarely happen entirely as planned and sometimes that leads to a communication vacuum – a space that is filled with rumour and leaks.
Getting senior managers to understand the need to say something even if it’s “there’s nothing to report” is clearly important. In the absence of news, people make up their own views which results in productivity drops and unwanted resignations. Messaging should also illustrate that the personal cost of the change is less than the benefits wherever possible.
The dream scenario for IC people is to be involved early in the planning process which underlined the importance of having a good intelligence network in the organisation. If you find out in enough time you can add more value than simply making sure the intranet notice has the right wording. Being able to test the assumptions of the planners at the very beginning of their thinking brings an employee perspective into the process at the point when mistakes can be avoided.
It also enables you to test the assumptions being made by the guys planning a transformation – after all it's communications that has to deal with a sceptical audience when a mad idea is inflicted on the organisation!
Finally someone talked about finding simple ways that people can get involved in practical actions. We were given an example of a safety programme that got people involved in clearing up their workplaces under the banner “a tidy place is a safe place”. Given the mess we made of the room I thought this was rather funny!
I hope these thoughts are a useful reminder of the sorts of things we have to do to support change – it would be interesting to see what else people would add to this list (take a look at Nicholas Ranken’s blog for more tips!).
And we had snow here this morning – so we took some photos inside (Sue was really pleased because someone said she was obscuring them in the photo – that must be a first!) And as soon as Alex gets down to SnappySnaps we’ll post some pictures of the January gang (I promise Jeroen!). Liam
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