Organizational Change
Part 3
Steven E. Phelan
July 2005
Plan
•
•
•
•
Merger Plan Simulation
Communication strategies/skills
Broadway Brokers
Recap
The Merger Plan Simulation
• Task
 Develop a formal integration plan (with
decisions on branch closures, systems
conversion, product alignment, layoffs,
and communication strategy) that will
maximize shareholder value while keeping
as much support as possible from the
stakeholders at the two banks and external
organizations.
 5 minutes = 1 news cycle = 1 day
Roles
•
•
•
•
•
Integration manager
2 HR directors
2 CEOs
2 Heads of retail banking
Rest to choose from:
 Largest customer, newspaper editor, funds
manager, regulator, banking union, CIOs,
CFOs, branch managers
Communication Strategies
Communication Strategies
• The way change is communicated is important to the
success of the change program
• What the change manager thinks is possible in
communicating change (e.g. ability to control rather than
shape information about it) will depend on their image of
managing change
• There are many problems can disturb the process of
communication:
 message overload
 message distortion and
 message ambiguity (see Nelson & Coxhead, 1997)
• Use of language, power, gender and emotion also
impact on how information about a change will be
received.
Approaches to Communicating
• It is possible to overload employees with too much
information on change – especially where the
communication is one way and does not allow input by
the recipient.
• Communication strategies will vary depending on whether
the focus on “getting the word out” versus “getting buy-in”
• A communication strategy continuum includes five
approaches:





Spray and pray
Tell and sell
Underscore and explore
Identify and reply
Withhold and uphold (Clampitt et al., 2000)
• These approaches vary in effectiveness of
communication and the amount of information transmitted
Contingency Approaches
• Contingency approaches to communicating
strategy vary depending:
 on the type of change e.g.
•
•
•
•
Developmental or incremental
Task-focused
Charismatic
Turnaround (Stace & Dunphy, 2001)
 on the stage of change e.g.
•
•
•
•
•
Planning
Enabling
Launching
Catalyzing
Maintaining (Reardon & Reardon, 1999)
Communication media
• Varies in “richness” depending on how
personal is its ability to communicate
change
• For example, an email or memo is less
personal (and less “rich”) than a face to
face meeting
Communication processes
• How change gets communicated needs to take
into account issues such as:
 Message
 Timing
 Channel
• The communication of change in large
organizations will vary and draw upon a range of
processes
 Tag teams, supervisor briefings, value propositions,
checklists (10.6)
Communication Skills
Communication Skills
• These skills are aimed at involving people
and encouraging commitment to the
change process
• It may not be possible to overcome some
change issues through communication –
at times the differences between intended
outcomes and internal and external
pressures can be too deeply embedded
Key Communication Skills
• Four key skills for communicating include:
 Listening: There are four types of listening skills –
suspending judgement, identifying assumptions,
listening for learning, and reflecting. (Gerard & Teurfs, 1997)
 Telling stories: This is an effective way of helping
employees learn from past changes & painting
pictures of the future.
 Selling change upward: Issue selling is a way of
gaining senior management attention to changes
initiated from below.
 Toxic handling: Some people in organizations take on
a role of handling the ill-effects of change processes
and absorbing these as a way of shielding others
from their negative impact. (Frost & Robinson, 1999)
Change Conversations
• Different change conversations should be used
at different stages of a change process. There
are four types of conversations:
 Initiative conversations: these draw attention to the
need for change.
 Conversation for understanding: this communicates
the type of changes needed and allows for a greater
appreciation of why this type of change.
 Conversations for performance: this focuses on the
actual change that is intended and how progress will
be monitored.
 Conversation for closure: this signals the end of the
change (Ford & Ford, 1995)
Linguistic Modes & Imagery
• Need for a balance of linguistic modes.
 Ideals, appeals, rules, deals
• The use of metaphors influences the images of
change. These change images include:
 Machine: this is based on the “fix and maintain” view
 Developmental: this is based on the “build and
develop” view
 Transitional: this is based on the “move and relocate”
view
 Transformational: this is based on the “liberate and
re-create” view (Marshak, 1993)
Communication with external
stakeholders
• Communicating with external stakeholders
is an important (albeit often neglected)
aspect of communicating change.
• Research on communication of change
with stakeholders has focused on:
 crisis management
 impression management
 corporate reputation
Some tactics
• Impression management
 Excuses, justifications, disclaimers,
concealment
• Crisis management
 Competing accounts, statement of regret,
dissociation (scapegoating)
 Mortification, corrective action, bolstering
image, denial, shifting the blame
Broadway Brokers
• Fill out your evaluation of each suggestion
• Meet with your team to discuss your responses
and reasoning
• Report back on the items you reached a
consensus on and those that you disagreed
about