Communicating change

26 January 2015 by Justin York

Business change and evolve continuously, whether that is in response to new regulations, external factors such as material shortages, new management teams or simply the normal churn of staff. Every time a business changes there is a need to communicate that change, quickly, effectively and simply; if that’s the case then what is it that makes communication so difficult or misunderstood.

I have personally experienced change in many environments and seen how communication has been done well, poorly and partially.Often communication comes from the management team, top down, cascaded through the structure to those who are working in the business.The same communications can both be left the same and therefore filled with the latest business jargon or can be adapted to be more palatable for the consumption by the workforce.Both of these approaches have merit and problems.

If you firstly consider a piece of management communication which contains jargon, the lower down the business that the information cascades the more lost the meaning will be to the recipients.If you take the version where it is adapted then the meaning from the management team is lost as the 'Chinese whispers' effect comes in.

Everyone I have met believes that they are great communicators; the higher the grade the better they believe they are!They often base this on no feedback coming from the lower organisational levels as to what their communique means.This can be based on a false premise; for many who receive the communication do not wish to ask any 'silly' questions for fear that they may be the only ones who have not understood or their experience of asking a question is met with a 'cold' response from the management.

When you consider these issues, what you find is that in the majority of cases there are two sides to this issue, these are:

The management view – the communication is open and makes clear what is expected of the teams
The Teams View – the communication is confusing and I don't know what I'm doing or what's in it for me.

All too often communication makes assumptions about the message and how it's been received, without understanding their teams or staff in general.By that I mean that they don't understand how different teams are motivated, or how individuals actually prefer to receive information.What we then end up with is a written instruction / communique, one that is simply read out by a senior manager or one which is a Power Point presentation with bullet after bullet being read from the screen.

The issues here are simple:

People like variation, they are either visual, auditory or kinaesthetic
They are either motivated by doing a good job or by reward
They all need to know what's in it for them, and
They all need to understand how what they do brings this greater good.

It does not matter what the communication is about or how its delivered providing that all the bases are covered.You have presented the message to all the teams in a clear and meaningful way, If there is a call to action of some description then they understand how what they do helps achieve that goal and the message appeals to them understanding what they get from it.

When we consider data within an organisation the issues of communication remain the same; that does not matter whether you are briefing the board, a prospective data owner or steward or talking the detail with IT.

Failing to fully communicate the message inevitably brings, misunderstanding, greater cost, levels of unacceptable delay and general frustration at progress and performance.I'm not suggesting that communication is simple, however if you follow the basic rules it can be easier.