How can you use communication skills to build support for a culture change initiative?

A revamp of the vision is usually critical to the culture change process. Some organizations don’t have a vision at all while others have a vision that is older than most of the employees there. When a vision statement is revamped it is relevant and current to times but also it creates a unique level of buy-In that motivates the drivers of change to keep it going.

I challenge the starting point to be the strategy. Rather, start with a group vision presented by a diverse group. This group would understand the compassion and the truth that is being sought after. The desire to collaborate for the good is built internally based on the different beliefs and values aligned in the group. Natural cultural differences will evolve out of the dialog. The starting point is different and will address the cultural differences to define a combined truth as the vision. A change in cultural strategy will be the outcome and strategy desired. Most of our cultural change is not achieved due to Good Intent and the Exclusion of diverse cultures designing the outcome.

Often stakeholder do not worry about tangible things like facts or money or others. In my experience the concerns are mostly emotional. It is about fear, anger, jealousy. Try to find out what their emotional drivers are and it will be much easier to fulfil their needs.

Involve them from the start so they will not block your initiative later on. It is key to have stakeholders close, make them feel a participant. If you can turn them into your change agents in the organisation, the culture change will go much quicker than without their support.

Every person has their own preferred way of communication. Some like to have regular status updates, some prefer discussing progress during coffee. Others don′t care too much as long as there is not too much noise generated. Simply ask them how they would like to communicate, they know best.

Reinforcing the behaviors expected in a new culture require consistency and being able to use a communication framework that activates emotions and cognition. I personally use the Answer Intelligence (AQ) framework [created by Dr. Brian Glibkowski]. The AQ framework helps emotionally connect and give answers that embed the why, what and how of the cultural outcomes. The research behind the framework is built on improved anchoring of messages built by logic and subjectivity in our brains.

Have regular reviews with the objectives and metrics set in the beginning. For example, every month, with the core team, look at how metrics are impacted by the actions of last month. If any metric is not progressing according to expectations, adjust.