Why do transformations often fail? Part 4 of my mini-series.
Paul Meredith
Building a start-up fintech in the SRT space | Programme Director | Operations Director | SaaS | Blockchain | Building smarter digital workflows for capital risk management
Reason 4 - Communication
There are 3 common patterns:
?? A solid vision is developed, but isn’t effectively communicated. The group holds a single meeting with employees or sends out one communication, and is then surprised when few people understand the approach
?? Leaders spend a lot of time giving speeches to groups of employees, but most still don’t understand the vision. This is because transformation-related comms are a small fraction of the total comms put out by the business to employees
?? More extensive comms are distributed through speeches, newsletters and so on, but senior executives visible actions don’t align with the vision they claim to support. Employees become cynical
Successful transformation often involves thousands of people. Those people often need to make sacrifices to support the change. They won’t do that unless they believe meaningful change is possible.
Transformation leaders need to capture hearts and minds with credible and extensive communications, visibly supported in words and actions by senior leaders.
Partner at Protean - Programmes & Projects | Process Improvement | Operational Maturity | Strategic Deployment | GRC | Business Integration | Transformation | Change | Digital | IT Implementation | Trustee
1 周Great post Paul Meredith I refer to this as the four C's: Clarity, Consistency, Creativity and Congruence. Your insights on leader behaviour alignment particularly resonate, which is where congruence between actions and words becomes the ultimate credibility test. In my experience, communication doesn't always receive the attention it deserves in transformation planning, despite being a critical success factor.