Modernizing Change Communications

This is a shorter version of my post for the #ChangeBlogChallenge I skipped the 'change resistance' one because I can't beleive we're still talking about it. You can read the full version here.

“change communication is almost always training and newsletters...what would it take to shift towards modern practices that enable meaningful dialogue?” - This was a statement from a 20+ year change comms professional who attended my workshop this past January.

I propose we retire the phrase Change Communications and change it to Meaningful Dialogue.

The term change communication made sense 20 years ago when you went to the mailbox once a day, and received 2 phone calls a day, but today’s world of instant information exchange has changed that. Back then, what was said to be change communication was simply broadcasting and that made a lot of sense when there were 11 TV channels, 30-minute news segments once a day, and no social media.

As an example, here's the >1000 things that have been vying for my attention in the last week:

There's more things competing for real-estate inside someone's head than your change program.

For the sake of argument, and to frame some of the ideas, practical techniques and thoughts below, here are some things we use change communications strategies and tactics for:

• Informing people of stuff (emails, newsletters, blog posts, posters on the wall etc)
• For governance for a variety of reasons (regulations, CYA etc)
• To show change sponsors/stakeholders that we’re actually doing something
• To collect feedback about the change (surveys sent via email etc)
• Hosting workshops/town halls and other in-person things
• Coaching managers behind closed doors so they can broadcast the message to their people
• Training, support, building momentum through success stories etc

In the longer version of this post, I go into more detail about these ideas, but here's a quick list seperated by times when you need to use broadcasting, and times when you need meaningful dialogue.

Broadcasting

1. Think like a marketer: use marketing automation, click funnels and other marketing flows to find movers and to create a customized user experience with your messaging.
2. Broadcasting should lead to dialogue: Your newsletter is the top of the funnel. People who interact with it want dialogue. In your marketing automation tool, segment people to help you focus on what movers, movables and immovables need.
3. Advertise where people are: We've all seen offices littered with signs, explore how to cut through the noise to get people's attention.
4. False Rumous: Insert false information in to the rumour mill and see what happens. Also use an anonymous forum of Slack to let people ask about whether rumours are true or not.

Dialogue

1. Open Space and Lean Coffee: Use them correctly, don't pre-seed topics or coerce the conversation, which I've seen happen at traditional change conferences. You're not a moderator, you're a facilitator.
2. Visualize your comns plan, if you must have one: A picture is worth 1000 words, so here you go. This shows a timeline, messages, medium, metrics, and target groups. When the team put this up, they removed half of the messages planned in their MS Project file.

3. Don't spin things, or seed questions

At town halls, or other forums, use https://sli.do or something similar to collect anonymous questions people can vote on. Do not let the comms person curate these.

4. Never say "BUT I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT"

I shouldn't' have to explain this.

5. Diversity and Inclusiveness

Invite everyone to open spaces and lean coffees, but let them opt-out. For large events, like #3 above, mix people from different departments, hierarchy, and regions/countries to promote a diverse perspective during dialogue.

6. Social Proof

Encourage stories, use lightning talks to share bursts of content and follow up with world cafe style de-briefs.

Find Balance

There are a time and a place for broadcasting and dialogue. What I’m proposing is to stop using the phrase change communications, because a shift in language can make a big difference in your approach. Now I’m sure someone will make a comment that communication is important, but don’t forget about 2-way communication!

I don’t believe 2-way communication is the same as dialogue. Sometimes what is meant by 2-way communication is taking feedback about what you broadcasted and clarifying the point you wanted to make.

To me, that’s not dialogue so I prefer to shift my language and use the tools I learned when I was a product manager and marketer because that helped me come from a place of making sense of what people really want and need versus what I want them to want and need.

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Read the full post, with more detailed examples and differences between communications and meaningful dialogue.