There are two aspects to some change management communication strategy: firstly the balance between information content and emotional resonance; and second the stage of the initiative, in other words before the change and during.
The content and structural facet of your communications
You will gain significantly in the discipline of a programme-based approach to handling and leading your change initiative, as your communication strategy will be based across the following:
- Stakeholder map and investigation [everyone who is going to be affected by the change along with your evaluations of these impacts and their reactions ]
- Pattern [ statement and the clear definition of the organization that is changed ]
- Vision statement and pre-programme planning procedure [ the follow up pre-planning procedure as well as the high-level vision to unpack the vision and analyse the impacts ]
- Programme plan [the steps which are taken to create the changes and get the benefits - a schedule of endeavors and jobs and initiatives ]
The crucial FACTUAL questions that the communication strategy should address
and to what degree of detail?
- What will be the essential used to disseminate information?
- Who are you wanting be supported?
What advice an effect of feedback?
- What are the goals?
- How much information is going to be provided, messages?
- What mechanisms will probably be *properly to reach?
The vital MENTAL questions that your Role of internal communications communication strategy must address
In regard to the emotional resonance characteristic of the communications, John Kotter makes the point that great change leaders are great at telling visual stories with high mental impact. Kotter illustrates this the anecdote of Martin Luther King who did not stand up facing the Lincoln Memorial and say: "I have a great strategy" and exemplify it with 10 great reasons why it was a great strategy.
William Bridges focuses around aspect of the change and the psychological and emotional impact - and introduces these 3 easy questions:
(1) what's altering? Bridges offers the following guidance - the change leader's communication statement must:- Certainly express the change leader's understanding and intention
- Link the change to the motorists which make it necessary
- "Sell the situation before you attempt to sell the solution."
(2) What will actually be different due to the change? Bridges says: "I go into organizations in which a change initiative is well underway, and I inquire what will be different when the change is done-and no one can answer the question... a change might appear really important and very real to the leader, but to the people who have to make it work it looks quite subjective and obscure until genuine differences it will make begin to eventually become clear... the drive to get those differences clear should be an essential precedence on the coordinators' list of things to do."
(3) Who's likely to lose what? Bridges maintains that the situational changes are as easy for firms to make as the emotional transitions of the people affected by the change. Transition management is really all about seeing the specific situation through another guy's opinion. It truly is a view centered on empathy. It is communication and management process that recognises and affirms people's realities and works together to bring them through the transition.
5 guiding principles of a good change management communication strategy
So, in summation the 5 directing principles of a great change management communication strategy are as follows:
- Resonance of message - the mental tone and delivery of the message
- Accurate targeting - to reach the right individuals with all the right message
- Time schedule - to reach timely targeting of messages
- Feedback procedure - to ensure actual two way communication
Failure reasons in change management are many and varied. But one thing is clear. Any organisational initiative that creates change - or has a substantial change component - has a 70% chance of not realizing what was initially envisaged.
The cause is a deficiency of communication and also lack of clarity. That is what a Programme Direction based way of change is really all about and why it so significant.
