Transparency in Change
When it comes to communication about change initiatives, leaders will often say “I want to be totally transparent with my team”. They will then reveal a lengthy presentation draft or email with every detail that went into the analysis for the change decision explaining that they want to show this to employees first.
Now your initial impression is probably “What’s wrong with that? You need to be fully transparent with employees to build trust!” That is true.
To do that, the timing and amount of detail that needs to be right sized when dealing with change communications.
What does that mean?
When facing change, science tells us there are four stages that people generally go through:
Shock/denial
Anger/fear
Acceptance
Commitment
The first broad communication in a change initiative usually starts with the “kick off” content, followed by a series of communications intended to inform and guide leaders and employees through the upcoming change. And while leader communication will always be more detailed and follow a slightly different focus, the general kick off content covers generally what is changing and why it’s changing.
We know that people are busy and often on overload, we expect the first communication to be met with shock as noted in #1 above.
As a leader you know how little is retained when it comes to communication that isn’t change based, and you also know that you need to repeat the message multiple times for it to sink in as it was intended. Now imagine that you add the shock component (generated by what the change is) and even less of the message is heard.
In fact, once people hear what is changing, their mind switches immediately to how it will affect them and they don’t hear what follows.
Knowing this, giving an employee the detailed data collection and analysis that went into the decision to change, who you know will be in shock when they hear it is probably not a good idea.
A better approach is to give them the first two pieces of information (the what and why) and leave them with an invite to a follow up communication in a few days, where you will go into the detail on how you arrived at the decision.
This gives them time to process the shock, ask any fear-based questions and get clear on what impact there is to them personally before they try and absorb any more information.
When it comes to sharing details, I always recommend paring it down to the relevant pieces.
Transparency isn’t sharing every detail you have on something; it is sharing enough of the detail to give people a clear view of what was done and what the intention is.
Too much detail can potentially derail your team and create unnecessary worries about trivial information that has no bearing on future decisions for your change.
With change communication it is critical to consider the objective of the information along with the stage of the change the receiver is in as you build the messaging.
Generally, this will give you a good indicator of how much information to give, how long they might need to process it, leading to what questions they will have next, and when your next communication should be timed as a result (rinse, repeat).
A strong communication strategy and plan are vital to a smooth change process, no matter how large or small it is. If you are in the process of creating a communication strategy for your change initiative or your strategy isn’t giving you the results you were hoping for, as a seasoned change advisor I can help. Learn more.
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