2. Form a powerful guiding coalition.
Increase leadership visibility so that when key people are
ready to set out the strategy for change, your people know
and trust them. Visibility can be raised through regular
live webcasts from leadership figures where they talk about
the state of the business, current challenges and answer
employee questions. Roundtable sessions with small groups
of employees are effective and informal ways for your people
to see leaders, hear their views and provide feedback. Skip
level meetings can be useful for individuals who are potential
change agents (see stage 4).
 3.
Create a vision. Work with leadership to
articulate vision. Use emotion and logic to appeal to all
audiences. Test the leadership team to ensure they all share
the vision, and ask them what the vision means to them as
individuals.
4. Communicate the vision.
Develop the messages and processes to communicate the vision.
People will be hungry for this communication if you have
established a sense of urgency.
Consider engaging change agents or communication champions
to help communicate the vision in real terms. Select key
people from around the organisation who can be trained and
coached to support people through change. Facilitate a face-to-face
session for the group to explore what the vision means for
them.
Communicate the vision in an innovative way. Use or tailor
off-the-shelf tools like the FiSH DVD series.
Use an illustrator to help create a picture of the vision
for the company and use this in all communication. Hang
the picture in your reception area to remind people as they
arrive for work each day. Place it on your intranet site
as a homepage.
If people aren’t living the vision, the role for
engaging communication is even more important.
5. Empower others to act on the
vision. Use your change agents to demonstrate behaviours
that support the change. Facilitate communication within
this community so that they are encouraged to keep momentum
and share their experiences with each other.
Show examples of how people are changing, living the new
vision and making a difference towards the ‘new’
way of working. Use existing channels to communicate these
examples or consider a new one.
 6.
Plan for and create short-term wins. Once
short-term wins are defined, prepare a plan to communicate
them. This is vital to avoid the dip in confidence during
change. This often happens after the launch of a change
programme because there can be a delay in results. Communication
is critical to demonstrate examples and keep momentum.
7. Consolidate improvements and
produce still more change. Maintain momentum once
the quick wins have been achieved. Keep communicating examples
and updates regularly. During this phase, think about how
the communications need to change and whether the external
messaging needs more attention to manage expectations outside
the organisation.
8. Institutionalise key approaches.
Inform leadership of the ideas and feedback received. Consider
embedding your new change communication principles into
the everyday workings of the organisation so that the same
process is used in the face of any type of change, whether
it is a small change in one department or major transformational
change across an entire organisation. It’s during
change programmes that communicators often start working
with representatives from other areas of the organisation.
The most successful change communication occurs when a team
works together to identify stakeholder needs, define key messages
and deliver integrated communication. This team should combine
representatives from the project team, HR, corporate relations
and employee communication. External communication messaging
is integrated within the same plan so that messages are delivered
consistently with employees, customers, investors, local communities,
works councils and press.
At the IABC EuroComm event this month, I explored the reality
of how communication contributes to successful change in organisations.
Although there will be many examples of "information"
organisations and just as many that are "engagement"
cultures, Professors Worrall and Cooper’s research remains
a critical component in the change process.
Jane Sparrow is General Manager, Employee Communication
& Change at Sony Europe. From the outset, she has worked
closely with people of all levels within the business to build
communication strategy, implement behavioural change programmes,
increase understanding about the value of communication and
culture within a changing business environment. She travels
extensively across Europe, working with local teams to plan
and deliver internal and external communication.
Prior to her current role, Jane was a senior management
consultant for MCA Communicates. She has also held marketing
and communication management roles with IBM and is an advisor
to many small businesses.
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