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Happy New Year and welcome to another issue of Melcrum's change communication newsletter. Thank you to everyone who provided feedback and ideas from the first issue. I'm very excited about some of the topics from your suggestions and I endeavor to cover them during 2008.
Listen first
I was reminded after last month's issue that one of the most crucial steps in communicating change was to "listen first". If we look at people's reaction over time, what we tend to see is an initial reaction of shock, followed by behaviors such as denial, anger, "blocking" and in some cases, depression. Of course, the extremity of the behavior will depend on what's changing, but people will always have a need to get their heads around what's happening.
Quite often we see companies launch straight into communicating details about the change, but what's missed is the human need to express feelings and talk about the change. How can communicators help?
Our role as communicators is quite simple; we need to find ways of listening rather than talking. In fact, by listening we are still communicating – we're communicating to employees that "we care, we understand your feelings and we're prepared to listen".
It's human nature to want to offload, but spare a thought for people going through big change, like redundancy, relocation or redeployment; these are areas of change where real counseling (listening) is required. And don't forget that what you hear from people will help you further along the change journey.
Top tips for listening during change
Here are some top tips for listening during periods of change:
- Find ways to allow people to be heard after any change announcement, such as team meetings, feedback sessions and open forums.
- Don't try and answer questions, see listening as an opportunity to understand the real issues beofore trying to solve them.
- Recognize that real individual emotions are at play and ensure everyone has an opportunity to be heard.
- Two-way communication is vital to any change effort, not just feedback, but true listening and examination of how it affects the people involved. (Thanks to Angela Diamond – Sydney, for this tip.)
Change at the BBC
A great example of listening during change is described in Strategic Communication Management, in a case study by Russell Grossman. Russell is currently director of communications at BERR and was formerly head of internal communication at the BBC. In the article he talks about the major transformational change led by the then director general Greg Dyke, who was well-respected and popular among employees.
During the transformation, Greg resigned from the BBC, causing a massive shock through out the organization. Russell reflects that one of the single most important actions his team took at the time, was to allow people to come together and actually grieve – giving them the chance to discuss their disappointment and anxiety over the departure of their leader. Once people had had time to grieve and be heard, they could then refocus on the planned change journey.
For further reading, another article I'd recommend is Using Appreciative Inquiry to drive change at the BBC by Sam Berrisford.
Happy communicating.
Regards,
Adrian Cropley Cropley Communications
adrian@cropleycomms.com
Need help with your internal communication planning? Strategic planning for internal communicators is the new practitioner’s guide from Melcrum that gives you this and more. It’s a practical toolkit that you can use to start the planning process immediately, including examples of real-world implementation at Adobe, HP-Compaq, Symantec, Owens Corning and Royal Bank of Canada. |
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