June/July 2005 IABC / Toronto8

Communicator

by Janice Simpson

With increasing frequency, business communicators face thechallenge of communicating discontinuous change changethat shatters the framework of an organization. Acquiring a com-pany or being acquired. Radical restructuring that puts people innew roles and disrupts working relationships. Strategic shift ormarket downturn that means cuts and layoffs. High-profile scan-dal. CEO-driven cultural transformation to become faster ormore agile or more performance-based.

What these changes have in common is they all involve toughmessages to at least some stakeholders, and they all require youto think beyond your regular patterns and channels of communi-cations. This article will outline some of the fundamental princi-ples I believe hold true about communicating tough change,whether youre communicating to employees, customers, share-holders or the media, in any type of organization.

Sooner Rather Than LaterMost people (there are exceptions) dislike being the bearer ofbad news. Faced with this necessity, leaders often delay, oreven convince themselves that people wont find out. In myexperience, if its something important that affects them,people will find out today more than ever. The rumour millhas always been a powerful source of information, and theInternet has made the grapevine that much more efficient. Itsa simple matter to forward an e-mail to a hundred people,start a blog, or sign on to a chatroom. As corporate and politi-cal scandals undermine peoples trust in authority, peopleare more likely to get proactive about finding out whats reallygoing on, rather than sitting back and waiting to be told.

The Naked Communicator:

Transparency When Change Gets Tough

Not only will they find out, theyll find out faster than you wantthem to through an enterprising journalist, or one of thedozens of people already let in on the secret. Im among thosewho believe that delay, even more than bad news, turns peopleagainst the change. It certainly undermines trust. If the compa-ny is keeping quiet when people suspect theres somethingimportant going on, they are more likely to speculate that thenews is really bad than that its really good, and whatever germof truth is out there will get exaggerated. Correcting misinforma-tion that has taken hold in peoples minds is much more difficultthan delivering the right information in the first place.

There are often good reasons to delay legal or securitiesrequirements, for example but as a general principle, assoon as the leadership team is aligned around the direction ofthe change, the broader communication should begin. Statewhat is known now, what you expect to happen next, andwhen people can expect to hear more. You will always getcomplaints from some about lack of detail, but youll neverhave enough detail to satisfy everyone, and delay will hurtmore than it will help.

Say SomethingI once had a client tell me I was better than anyone he knew atwriting communications that didnt say anything. He meant it asa compliment because I was helping meet their commitmentto early communications, without actually committing them toany content. I had fallen into the trap of stringing together alot of great buzzwords without actually delivering a meaningfulmessage.

T.J. and Sandar Larkin make the case in Communicating BigChange using Small Communications that when youre in themidst of fundamental change, communications about yourvalues, your good intentions, and how youre going to approachthe change just isnt going to cut it. They recommend insteadcommunicating a range of possible outcomes alternate sce-narios, ranges and estimates, working models, hypotheses. In anacquisition or merger, for example, you might indicate that theimplementation teams are exploring three models. In a downsiz-ing or restructuring, give estimates of the number of job losses.

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Communicator

THE NAKED COMMUNICATORContinued from page 8

Such messages must come with preliminary thinking - maychange warning labels, but the Larkins argue convincingly thatif you are not talking about outcomes, you are not communicat-ing at all.

Another piece of advice from Albert Einstein: Make everythingas simple as possible, but not simpler. Its a good thing tokeep in mind when people around you are all saying, Simpleris better. Simple shouldnt mean leaving out important con-text about why the change is happening, and how what peopleare hearing now connects with what theyre heard in the pastand are likely to hear in the future. It shouldnt mean tellingemployees what you think they want to hear, while tellingcustomers or shareholders something else. Remember thatemployees can also be customers and both groups can beshareholders. Most important, it shouldnt mean dumbingdown to the extent that no meaningful content is communi-cated. Getting to a simple articulation of a complex topicactually requires the communicator to get very deep intounderstanding the intricacies and the issues. Only then willyou be able to extract the really critical messages and framethem accurately.

Prepare for the ConversationBroadcast e-mail, used sparingly, is a great tool for getting theheadline messages about a tough change out to everyone atthe same time. And then the real communication starts. Peopleare going to want to talk about what theyve heard, share theirinterpretations with others and try to figure out what it meansto them. Employees are likely to go to their manager to get thereal scoop. An unprepared manager can only say I dont knowanything about it or make something up. In an ideal world,people managers will have been briefed in advance or immedi-ately following an announcement with some additional context,a message board, and some coaching on how to help peopleinternalize whats happening and start to deal with it.

Sooner rather than later, say something, prepare for theconversation all just common sense. But when change getstough, common sense can quickly fly out the window. Theres agolden opportunity for the naked communicator to make avaluable contribution simply by sticking to these simplereminders.

Janice Simpson is a consultant with the Toronto office of Mercer DeltaConsulting, a firm that works with CEOs and senior executives on the

design and leadership of large-scale change.

by Kim Cochrane

I want to take this opportunity to thank the many people Iveworked with during the past four years as editor ofIABC/Torontos Communicator, and provide a warm welcome tothe two new editors that will be taking over for Lisa Kaufmanand me.

A special thanks goes to:

Judy Gombita and Janet Comeau who I worked closely withduring their terms as VP, member communications. I can onlyhope to have as much skill in the areas of planning, develop-ment and project management as they both have.

Co-editor extraordinaire, Lisa Kaufman. Lisa has a keen detail-oriented, editors eye, a great sense of humour and she was alot of fun to work with.

Our fantastic graphic designer, Stan Tywon. He turned aroundour material so quickly and he always provided us with anexcellent finished product.

IABC/Toronto office manager John Chagnon. He is the glue thatkeeps member communications together and he keeps all mate-rials flowing quickly into members mailboxes.

The tireless efforts of current and past IABC/Toronto presidents Alix Edmiston, Amanda Brewer, Jo Langham, ABC and Priya Bates, ABC for their insight and willingness to con-tribute to consistent improvement within member communica-tions at IABC/Toronto year after year.

Another special thank you goes to all of the willing andintelligent contributors who have made Communicator aninteresting read over the years. I know that the new editor,

Big Editorial Changes atIABC/Torontos Communicator!

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