Communication: A Vital Tool In The Change Management Process
Sometimes change processes in organisations don’t achieve their set objectives because of insufficient communication.
Every message should be first of all geared towards winning the trust of all categories of stakeholders.
There should not be a one cap fits all approach when it comes to communicating a change process.
Understanding and meeting the various communication needs of external stakeholders is vital to the success of any change management initiative.
External stakeholders must be factored in the communication plan. They can fall into different categories based on their influence and interest in your change process.
They could be High influence/ low interest, High Influence/ High Interest, Low Influence/ Low Interest or Low Influence/ High Interest stakeholders.
The team that handles communication during a change process should understand that these stakeholders have to be constantly fed with information regarding the process.
One other thing to bear in mind is that most times, those with low interests should not be overloaded with info.
As a form of follow up to the general communication plan, the internal communications team should assess and craft different messages for staff at different levels.
There will be staff who will be in shock during any change process. These set of people should be properly fed with orientational messages to enable them understand why the change has to take place, the benefits to the organization and to them, duration, tasks, the how etc.
Other staff might react in an unpredictable way, due to the dissonance the change process might cause in their career of work routine.
These set of people should be met with messages of hope and reassurance, while communicating the essentials of the change process.
There also will be members of the team who will adopt the change immediately. Among them, could be influencers who can be tasked with the responsibility of rallying the team to see the big picture and the advantage the process with bring.
There needs to be a buy-in by all categories of stakeholders and communication is the vital tool that will create a conducive atmosphere for the implementation of the process.
Top management needs to personally put out messages or physically reassure all stakeholders that the process has been well thought out, also stating contingency plans if expected outcomes change.
Identifying the team members at different levels of acceptance will require professional assessment.
In most cases, organizational psychologists are brought in to help team members mentally ease into the new process, so their productivity will not be affected.
