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Communication is the most important tool for Change
Management
Effective communication is required at each stage of the change process.
Six stages of the change process model
When organisations contemplate change in response to
Perceiving the need for
events in their business environment, open
change
communication is highly recommended. Secrets in an
organisation tend to create an atmosphere of tension,
anger and resentment. It is human nature that there will
be information leaked by staff hearing the talk about
change, to friends (the grapevine network) in other
sections. In the absence of valid information about what
is to occur, staff will tend to fill the gap with erroneous
negative data, which does far more damage than sharing
(even bad news) with staff.
Diagnosing the situation Involving relevant staff at this stage can give managers
very accurate information with which to solve the
and generating ideas
problem. Often staff working in a problem area have
developed appropriate strategies to overcome the
problem, or assist in doing so. They have not solved it
already perhaps due to perceived lack of support or
motivation, or because it is a larger concern belonging to
higher levels of authority.
Others can offer their first-hand knowledge of the issue
and assist in very successful problem solving exercises.
At this stage, planning for the change should not only
include operational concerns, but identification of all
stakeholders and design of a thorough communication
and information program for them, taking into account
the organisational culture and the likely impact of the
change. Employees who are well informed about how
the planned changes will affect them, their work groups
and the organisation as a whole, tend to accept the
changes more readily.
Presenting a proposal
and adopting the change
Planning to overcome
resistance
This is essentially a management activity that may or
may not involve general staff. Employees would more
easily accept the change if representatives of those who
contributed to the change planning process attended the
meeting in which the proposal is presented and accepted.
This is essentially a management activity. If
information-guarding methods (negotiation,
manipulation or coercion) are planned, there will be a
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Implementing the
change
Monitoring and
evaluating the results
small number of managers working on this. If the
information-sharing methods (education, participation
and facilitation) are planned, involving representatives
from work teams in devising a strategy to overcome staff
resistance would make it more successful.
Since staff members are the instruments of change, it is
helpful to address their concerns first. When faced with
change, staff usually ask these questions: Is this change
really necessary? Will the change be successful? What’s
going to happen to me and my job? How will I have to
change? Am I capable of successfully making a change?
In this stage, employees and change agents look at the
change implementation and evaluate it. They
communicate about all stages of the process, what
problems occurred, whether the solutions were
satisfactory, how it could be done better now or next
time, and so on. Recommendations are made about the
process. Evaluation is rarely a single event. The
information gathered at this stage is so valuable that it is
often immediately used to fine-tune the change. Other
issues that might be raised are discussed at further
scheduled management meetings. The communication
is vital, and the value is in management being informed
about the process from those whose experience is firsthand.
Using information-guarding methods
It is up to the change agent or management to decide how much information and support
can be communicated to employees in an attempt to address their major concerns. If not
enough of these concerns are addressed, employees will resist the change.
Using information-sharing methods
A planned program to deliver information, instructions and support via two-way
communication (constructing a shared meaning) in amounts employees can cope with,
should precede the change and continue throughout the change process. The aim is to
satisfy staff information and support needs about the change, and to instruct staff in
required tasks, and to encourage feedback to management about problems and solutions.
Employees need regular feedback about the process and progress of the change, and as
much as possible, they require a degree of psychological safety. Psychological safety
comes from an assurance that they will not be retrenched tomorrow, but will be allowed
to make a few mistakes while learning new tasks, and will be given adequate training in
their new roles.
Feedback can come in the form of regular accessible communication with their team
leader, supplemented by a website, a newsletter or a brief celebratory event when team
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reaches a change milestone. A confidential line of communication to higher levels for
those who feel they cannot discuss a certain topic with their direct supervisor or team
leader should also be available.
Three Basic Communication questions to be answered in any
change process
1. What do you communicate?
2. When do you communicate?
3. How do you communicate?
Example:
What to communicate
The Adko restructure: Case Study
Julie is a personnel officer at ADKO and she has been asked to brief senior management
about the best process for communicating a change that senior management have
planned. Everyone will stay at the same premises. However the four departments, now
under the control of 4 senior managers, will merge into 3 departments when one of the
senior managers retires. Managers feel this will improve efficiencies, save money and
there will be a slight reduction in staff numbers.
Julie recommended the following strategy to manage the change:
1. The CEO would send a very brief email to all staff announcing the fact a change
is planned. This email will not give details of the change. It will announce that
all staff affected will be invited to attend meetings to explain the change.
2. The middle manager who is taking over the largest number of staff from the two
departments would conduct face to face meetings explaining why the change is
taking place, when it will take place, how it will change reporting relationships
and who will be affected.
3. Staff will be encouraged to come to this manager to ask questions and the
Personnel Manager will attend all meetings to answer any problems or queries
staff may have related to job security, hours of work, overtime, etc.
4. Senior managers from the remaining departments would conduct meetings with
their staff to explain any changes that will impact on their departments and
staffing structure.
5. Additional meetings would be necessary during the transition period to check that
everyone knows what is happening. The manager may act as a negotiator during
this period if staff are unhappy with aspects. Training may be necessary in new
work teams and some implementation of new working structures.
6. At the end of the restructure, there needs to be more communication to check
progress
7. Once the structure is in place, some evaluation of the communication program
needs to be conducted. Perhaps an interview with a number of selected staff.
When to communicate
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The communication strategy was planned for three specific phases:
Beginning stage
 At the beginning, the communication was limited to a short announcement
that was an advertisement for the change. People can become anxious
with too much information and no chance to ask questions so the first
announcement was brief.
 A face-to-face information session gave the manager a chance to explain
why the change was taking place, what forces there were that caused the
change to be implemented and advertise the benefits of the change. Staff
were given an opportunity to ask initial questions about how the change
would affect them.
Intermediate Stage
Communication is needed throughout this stage as people find new questions that
they want answered. They gain new understandings of the change as it progresses
and may need counselling if there is a loss of job function. There may be
negotiation of responsibilities, training required and implementation of new work
teams.
At the end or consolidation stage
In this phase, there are further meetings to supply staff with further information
and to build the working teams that have been formed.
Finally some evaluation of the process is completed with informal interviews of
staff.
How to communicate
In the ADKO case, the channels used to communicate the change were email,
face to face meetings and individual meetings.
Communication of a change can be carried out in a number of ways:
Person-to-person
Newsletter
Videos
Email
Advantages and Disadvantages
Takes a long time and does not provide the
same benefits as presenting the message to a
group of people
Can be a good communication tool but there
is always the danger that some people will be
too busy to read it
Are formal but can bridge distance
considerations by providing some
personalisation and a consistent message to a
large group of people. People cannot ask the
presenter questions.
Is quick and easy and may reach most of the
organisation in a computerised environment.
However the written word can be
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Letters
Face-to-face group meetings
Public addresses to a large
group
misinterpreted and it can be easy to ignore
and delete.
Can be personalised but like email are open
to misinterpretation
Are a reliable method to convey information.
You have the benefit of a group hearing the
same message and less likelihood of
misinterpretation. There is the opportunity
of clarifying the message through
questioning.
Have the benefit of large numbers of people
hearing the same message. There may be
limited opportunity to discuss the issue and
ask questions. This works best if there is an
opportunity for the group to have their
individual concerns addressed through some
other channel.
Strategy Analysis: ADKO Case Study.
3. Analyse ADKO’s strategy in terms of what you have learned about
communicating change.
4. Discuss the elements of the change plan
a. the choice of strategy
b. communication methods
c. likely impact on the stakeholders
5. Make suggestions for improvement and give your reasons.
Overcoming resistance to change
Standard methods used by managers to overcome resistance to change
Approach
Education and
Communication
Participation and
involvement
Commonly used in
situations
Where there is lack
of information or
inaccurate
information and
analysis
Where the initiators
do not have all the
information they
need to design the
change, and where
others have
considerable power
to resist
Advantages
Drawbacks
Once persuaded
Can be very timepeople will often help consuming if lots of
with the
people are involved
implementation of
the change
People who
Can be very time
participate will be
consuming if
committed to
participants design an
implementing
inappropriate change
change, and any
relevant information
they have will be
integrated into the
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change plan
Where people are
No other approach Can be time
resisting because of works as well with consuming and
adjustment problems adjustment problems expensive and still
fail
Negotiation and
Where someone or Sometimes it is a
Can be too expensive
agreement
some group will
relatively easy way to in may cases if it
clearly lose out in the avoid major
alerts others to
change, and where resistance
negotiate for
that group has
compliance
considerable power
to resist
Manipulation and co- Where other tactics It can be relatively Can lead to future
optation
will not work or are quick and
problems if people
too expensive
inexpensive solution feel manipulated
to resistance
problems
Explicit and implicit Where speed is
It is speedy and can Can be risky if it
coercion
essential and the
overcome any kind of leaves people mad at
change initiators
resistance
the initiators
possess considerable
power
Facilitation and
support
Source: John P. Kotter and Leonard A Schlesinger, “Choosing Strategies for Change,”
Harvard Business Review, March-April 1979, p.111
New methods for Overcoming Change
People are now more aware of the complexity of the change management process. They
are now aware that people go through different stages in accepting any change and the
leader has a different communication role in each stage.
New methods of overcoming resistance are concerned with:
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A more holistic view of employees
A higher level of honest and ethical communication with staff
An acknowledgement of the constant uncertainty in our business environment
The need to work with, support and empower employees
Developing independence, initiative, analysis in staff
Use of higher order team and communication skills among staff in order to meet
the challenges of staying in business.
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FAMILY SCENARIO
Imagine that you are married with four children aged 18, 16, 14 and 12. You have
received a wonderful job offer that entails moving abroad for three years. You partner
is very supportive but your four children range from one being strongly supportive to
one being strongly against. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of
using each of the following strategies?
Parents provides information to children and clearly
Education and
communicate the required change to those involved.
communication
Participation and involvement Children who will be affected by a change are allowed
to participate in planning and implementing it.
Participation increases the understanding of the
change, allows employees to offer their own ideas in
making it successful, and frequently improves the final
outcome. This method has a success rate of over 70%.
Parents offers encouragement and help to individuals
Facilitation and support
coping with fear and anxiety associated with the
change.
Parents provide all relevant facts which drive the
Negotiation and agreement
change so that negotiation for an agreement can take
place. In this case, the groups have a considerable
power to resist.
Manipulation and co-optation Parents offers selective information and consciously
structures events. Individuals are co-opted by giving
them a desirable role in the design or implementation
of a change. This is not a form of participation because
the change agents do not want the advice of the coopted, merely their endorsement. This is a risky
process because if people feel forced to change, they
resent it.
Explicit and implicit coercion Here parents force children to accept a change by
explicitly or implicitly threatening them and so on, or
by actually removing them from the family. This is a
risky process because people strongly resent forced
change.
SMALL GROUP EXERCISE
You are a manager of 200 people in large government run organisation. There is a
tradition of people taking a large amount of sick leave. You have been instructed that in
line with a new policy http://snipurl.com/sickie workers in future are to ring a nurse if
they are taking a sick day.
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TIPS FOR OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Work in a small group on a list of your own tips to overcome resistance to change. (5
minutes)
Responding to Change
Just as employees resist change, many managers find that change is difficult to accept,
much less to drive.
Managers’ response to change is related to:
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Their perception of what the change will bring to them
Their leadership style
Their personality
Their skill and confidence level
Their organisational culture
Perception
If managers think change will bring desired events or resources, they are likely to
actively seek change or accept change.
Leadership style
Leadership is often categorised into 4 styles:
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Dictatorial – negative leaders who punish and have total control
Authoritarian – exercises strong control
Democratic – encourages participation in decision making
Laissez-faire – allows workers to do their job without interference.
For change management, a Democratic style of leader is the most suitable because it
encourages the active participation and support of workers. Managers who have both
high people concern and high task concern are good at leading change.
Personality
An optimistic manager with a positive outlook will respond to change very differently to
a pessimistic manager with an active belief in the conspiracy theory. Successful change
managers have good conflict management skills and a personality that
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keeps a balanced perspective under pressure
remains approachable, likable, and worthy of respect
encourages and motivates employees to communicate well and produce good
teamwork
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Personality can be affected by the manager’s skill and confidence level ─ confident
enough to relate openly to staff.
Organisational culture can have a large influence on a manager’s response to change,
dictating through group norms what an employee’s behaviour should be. Organisational
culture can override the influence of other individual characteristics such as personality
or a manager’s behaviour. ‘Groupthink’ is a term used to describe an organisational
culture that may encourage the top executives to echo the views of the boss rather than to
give honest feedback based on their knowledge, experience and skills.