How to successfully communicate change

By Eliska S. Padilla

January 27, 2021

We’ve all been there – you’re surrounded by your key leadership team members, explaining a major change coming around the corner. As a leader, you were intentional about getting all the right people in the room. It hasn’t escaped you that you need to launch this change properly. You could have just given them the bottom line, but as a good leader, you provided background information, shared the problem, the opportunity, the vision, you even shared all the variables you considered before coming to the conclusion you came to. The meeting is adjourned. Pens are down, padfolios closed and everyone returns to their offices. We are a GO to communicate to our teams the news of the new plan as we venture excitedly into our bold future. 

Days later, there’s a cacophony of communication, chaos abounding. Some directors have shared information not intended for consumption, some shared the message with their team members on day one, some shared day five. The lack of consistency is confusing and grave mistrust is taking hold. There are misunderstandings, misinterpretations, widespread fear and anger among some, while others completely disregard their job of communicating, leaving their teams in utter darkness.

How did we get here? 

If communication were so simple it wouldn’t be the number one complaint we see in employee satisfaction surveys. Purposeful communication campaigns are successful because they are agreed to and implemented by an aligned leadership team. As leaders prepare to cascade communication of a key organizational change throughout the business, following these simple steps will improve your odds of success.

Before breaking the meeting and hitting the GO button, your leadership team should summarize what was discussed. Then they should decide together, what they will communicate. Not necessarily everything that was discussed is available and appropriate for sharing. It should go without being said, but it can’t. So, the leadership team needs to take the time to summarize what was discussed, and what will be shared. They should think of the various needs for information that their teams and stakeholders will have and decide together the message that will be shared. Even the stories that will be used to convey the new direction are important as is agreement as to when and how the messages will be relayed. Should a memo from the CEO be prepared first that is distributed company wide, followed by individual department meetings? Do we all need to send a templated email to our teams or simply have bullet points we agree to share with them?

The team should also agree what they WILL NOT say. As a team, there may be many items that were discussed around the conference table that do not need to be shared beyond the room. It’s just as important that the leadership team discuss what will not be shared as what is shared to keep the message on point. 

Finally, it’s critical that the team then break it down to who is communicating what to each group of individual contributors and other stakeholders and when. Look for discrepancies. What happens if you tell the accounting department immediately but wait three days to tell IT and marketing? Is one leader scheduled for vacation and not able to share with their team for a week? Should the messages all go out at the same time, or will it matter if the messages are phased in over the next 3-5 days? 

As with any change you hope to sustain, it’s critically important that what gets done, gets measured. So at the next leadership meeting, start the meeting with a communications post-mortem.

Ask your team leaders

• What did you like about the communication plan – what worked?
• What would you suggest we do differently – what didn’t work?

Did some of the leadership team share information that had been agreed upon to not be shared? Hold one another accountable and use this opportunity to build trust by bringing the error out into the open and discuss the danger this disregard may have caused. 

What kinds of questions are being asked by employees? Customers? Board members? What are their hopes, fears, and concerns? Discuss as a leadership team the specific questions which are being asked and decide how to address those questions in the future. Again, agreeing what to say, what not to say, and when and how to say what. Rinse… and repeat for communications that successfully cascades throughout the organization. Good change communication does not happen organically, so invest the time and effort to get it right.