Develop a written communication plan to ensure that all of the following occur within your change management process.
- Communicate consistently, frequently, and through multiple channels, including speaking, writing, video, training, focus groups, bulletin boards, Intranets, and more about the change.
- Communicate all that is known about the changes, as quickly as the information is available. (Make clear that your bias is toward instant communication, so some of the details may change at a later date. Tell people that your other choice is to hold all communication until you are positive about the decisions. This is disastrous in effective change management.
- Provide significant amounts of time for people to ask questions, request clarification, and provide input. If you have been part of a scenario in which a leader presented changes, on overhead transparencies, to a large group, and then fled, you know what bad news this is for change integration.
- Clearly communicate the vision, the mission, and the objectives of the change management effort. Help people to understand how these changes will affect them personally. (If you don’t help with this process, people will make up their own stories, usually more negative than the truth.)
- Recognize that true communication is a “conversation.” It is two-way and real discussion must result. It cannot be just a presentation.
- The change leaders or sponsors need to spend time conversing one-on-one or in small groups with the people who are expected to make the changes.
- Communicate the reasons for the changes in such a way that people understand the context, the purpose, and the need. Practitioners have called this: “building a memorable, conceptual framework,” and “creating a theoretical framework to underpin the change.”
- Provide answers to questions only if you know the answer. Leaders destroy their credibility when they provide incorrect information or appear to stumble or back-peddle, when providing an answer. It is much better to say you don’t know, and that you will try to find out.
- Leaders need to listen. Avoid defensiveness, excuse-making, and answers that are given too quickly. Act with thoughtfulness.
- Make leaders and change sponsors available, daily when possible, to mingle with others in the workplace.
- Hold interactive workshops and forums in which all employees can explore the changes together, while learning more. Use training as a form of interactive communication and as an opportunity for people to safely explore new behaviors and ideas about change and change management. All levels of the organization must participate in the same sessions.
- Communication should be proactive. If the rumor mill is already in action, the organization has waited too long to communicate.
- Provide opportunities for people to network with each other, both formally and informally, to share ideas about change and change management.
- Publicly review the measurements that are in place to chart progress in the change management and change efforts.
- Publicize rewards and recognition for positive approaches and accomplishments in the changes and change management.
