Communicating Change

ELIZABETH HARRIN
COMMUNICATING
CHANGE
HOW TO TALK ABOUT
PROJECT CHANGE
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Communicating Change: How to Talk About Project Change
1st edition
© 2017 Elizabeth Harrin & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-1811-1

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COMMUNICATING CHANGE: HOW TO
TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Contents
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments 6
About the author 7
Introduction 9
1 How Change Makes People Feel 12
2 The Foundations for Communicating Change 22
3 Thinking About Audiences 31
4 Planning Your Communication 42
5 Deliver and Evaluate 53
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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Contents
Further Reading 61
Reference List 62
More Books From Elizabeth Harrin 63

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Acknowledgments
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks must go to my family for their support, tolerance and feedback as I worked on
this book.
I am grateful to the project management professionals who have done so much to inspire
me to be better at my job over the years. And for my colleagues, for teaching me to
communicate more effectively, because it’s worth it.

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE About the author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Harrin, MA, FAPM, MBCS is a program manager working in healthcare. She
also runs a small business, Otobos Consultants Ltd, a project communications consultancy
specializing in copywriting and consulting for a wide number of international project-based
organizations. She has a raft of qualifications that probably don’t mean much to people outside
of project management and she is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management. She
holds degrees from the University of York and Roehampton University.
Elizabeth has over fifteen years’ experience in projects. Elizabeth has led a variety of IT
and projects including ERP and communications developments. She is also experienced in
managing process improvement, and spent eight years working in financial services (including
two based in Paris, France).
Based now in the UK, Elizabeth is particularly interested in stakeholder engagement, team
communications and making the whole collaboration thing easier.
Elizabeth is the author of Shortcuts to Success: Project Management in the Real World,
Collaboration Tools for Project Managers and Customer-Centric Project Management, as well
as a number of book chapters in specialist texts. She also contributes regularly to project
management websites, and presents at international conferences.
She also writes one of the most popular and long-running project management blogs online,
A Girl’s Guide to Project Management.

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE About the author
Elizabeth answers to her name and also pm4girls, her Twitter handle which sometimes
people use in real life too. She enjoys growing vegetables, reading and wishes she had more
time for manicures.
Connect with Elizabeth online

You can find Elizabeth online at her blog GirlsGuidetoPM.com or on these other social
networks:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elizabethharrin
Twitter: twitter.com/pm4girls
Facebook: facebook.com/girlsguidetopm
Pinterest: pinterest.com/OtobosGroup
You can also connect with Elizabeth and a whole group of project managers as part of the
Facebook group, Project Management Café (facebook.com/groups/projectmanagementcafe).
Come along and join the conversation!

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Welcome! Let’s get started.
First though, I should tell you that this isn’t a book about how to get change done. Rather,
it’s a book about how to bring people along with you once you’ve decided that change
is necessary.
You picked up this book because:
• You’ve got an organizational change project happening or about to happen and you
want to know how to talk to people about it.
• You want to better understand change management.
• You want to find out what tools are available to you to communicate about the
upcoming changes.
• You want to bring your people along with you on a project.
• You want a practical guide to how to actually do the communications tasks on
your project.
Congratulations, you are in the right place!
Communicating Change addresses the issues facing managers dealing with project-driven
change in organizations. This book is designed for project managers, change managers and
team leaders who know they ought to be telling people about their projects and the changes
that these will bring to the organization but they don’t know where to start.
This book will step you through the process for identifying the communications work to be
done, thinking about who is going to be affected and how best to reach them. The overall
objective is to use communications to minimize resistance to change, leading to higher
project success rates and happier employees.
You’ll have your project team working to deliver the change.

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From my experience working with project managers and keeping abreast of project management
news, there is a general consensus that stakeholder management in all its forms, including
communication, is something that we could do better. However, there are few books that
specifically focus on practical guides to improving the chances of project success.
How To Use This Book

The book is structured to take you through the process of planning, delivering and evaluating
communications about change on your project. If you’ve got some experience, feel free to
jump to the section that is most appropriate for you right now.
If you are at the beginning of your project, I’d strongly recommend working your way
through the book in the way the chapters are laid out – it won’t take long – so that you
have a solid foundation from which to plan your change communications work.
If your project has already started, that’s fine too. It’s never too late to start improving the
way you communicate with your colleagues and clients about change. Read through the
sections and put the relevant pieces into practice.
The book is full of practical advice so that wherever you are in the project life cycle you
can do something to enhance the way you are communicating with the people who matter.
Chapter 1 covers how people feel about change and introduces the main concepts of change
management. It looks at the impact of what happens when people resist change and how
that can affect your project.
Chapter 2 talks about putting together your communications strategy and getting clarity
on what it is you are actually planning for.
Chapter 3 looks at how to identify who is going to be affected by the change and their
communication preferences. You’ll find out how to make sure the channels you choose
effectively reach the most people.
Chapter 4 covers how to plan your communications activity on the change project. You’ll
learn about the different channels available to you. There are also tips on communicating
through social and collaboration tools.

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Chapter 5 talks about delivering and evaluating your change communications. You’ll learn
techniques for gathering feedback and how to establish whether what you did was successful
or not. These lessons feed into making your next communications even more effective.
Each chapter ends with key takeaways and a ‘Try This’ section. These are activities – the
first steps – for you to do to put into practice the concepts explained in the chapter.
There is also a ‘Share This’ section. There are a couple of statements for you to share on
social media, if you choose to. This is your opportunity to hold yourself accountable for the
learning you’ve achieved and the actions you are preparing to take. Whether your platform
of choice is LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or something else, share the statement and use the
hashtag #changecomms. Tag me as well so that my team and I can repost and share your
progress and successes too.

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE How Change Makes People Feel
1 HOW CHANGE MAKES

PEOPLE FEEL
How would you feel if I told you that tomorrow your company was outsourcing your job
to an offshore facility? Or that from next week all expense requests had to be processed
through a new system that you hadn’t seen yet? Or that the process for allocating car parking
spaces was going to change, when you were top of the list for the next available space?
Workplace change takes all sorts of forms from big, life and business-changing transformations
to smaller changes that might not, on the surface, appear to make that much of a difference.
Whatever size the change you are delivering, there’s one truth to bear in mind: change
makes people feel unsettled. In this chapter we’ll look at why that happens and why it is
worth trying to smooth the way to reduce resistance to change.
Change management is an approach you can use during projects to help address this. Let’s
start by defining what we mean by change management.
What Is Change Management?

A decade ago, change management was a specific role in large organizations. Big projects
may have had their own Business Change Manager whose role it was to integrate the change
delivered by a project into the operations of the company. Change management was largely
focused on communicating downwards and training.
Today, change management is – or should be – embedded in everything we do that shifts

the needle of an organization. Change management is implicit in nearly everyone’s job,
especially those people involved in projects in some shape or form. Training is still important,
but there’s also an appreciation of ‘readiness’: how prepared is the organization to take this
change on? And if the answer is ‘not very’, how can we help them get better prepared?
Communication remains critical in this environment, both in laying the groundwork for
the change and in ensuring people know what is happening.
In this book we define change management as:
The way we facilitate the shift from current practice to new practice in order to achieve
a benefit.

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Change management is a systematic and planned approach for helping individual employees
be successful in their new practice. It does that through building support for the change,
identifying and addressing resistance to the change (more on that below) and helping
individuals develop the knowledge and skills required to adopt the new practice successfully.
In doing all of this you are ensuring that your change has the best possible chance of long-
term sustainability and success. This is seen in the goals of change management, as set out
in the Praxis Framework (2016), which are to:
• Define the organizational change required to convert outputs into benefits

• Ensure the organization is prepared to implement change
• Implement the change and embed it into organizational practice.
Simple, isn’t it?
At least, it’s simple to set out on paper. When you come to start trying to shift behavior
of employees who have done their jobs in the same way for the last ten years… Suddenly
it seems a lot harder.
Fortunately, managers and project leaders have tools available to make this task easier.
Tools For Change Management

The tools we’ve got available to us to ‘do’ change management include:
• Readiness assessments: Understanding where the organization and individuals are

in their preparedness for the change.
• Project sponsorship: Having senior leaders involved and championing the change.
• Coaching: Helping individuals on a one-on-one basis to deal with and adapt to
the change.
• Training: Delivering structured training to support the new behaviours that the
organization wishes to see.
• Change models: Helping people understand their personal reaction to change and
what would assist them in shifting their perspectives to move to the new or coming
status quo.
• Communication: Timely and meaningful interactions with the people affected
by and interested in the change to underpin and support the achievement of the
benefit the organization wants to see.

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In this book we focus on the last point: communication. However, it’s hard to talk about any
aspect of change management in isolation as it is an integrated discipline. Communication
frequently and necessarily overlaps with other change management tools.
Change Management Is Not Project Management

Shifting someone from doing a job one way to doing it another? Isn’t that project management?
No: project management and change management are allied but different disciplines.
¾¾ Project management is about installation.

¾¾ Change management is about implementation.
You can see the differences and one similarity between project management and change
management in Table 1.1.

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Project Management Change Management
Primarily focuses on installation Primarily focuses on implementation
Creates a deliverable e.g. a new software Creates an environment where benefits can be
system realized e.g. new software is used to improve
efficiency
Focuses on the plan Focuses on the people
Has a clear timeline May not have a clear timeline
Has a hard deadline and clear finish Does not have a hard deadline; can be hard to
determine when change management activity
should end
Feels organizational or corporate Feels personal
Led from the executive level Led from the executive level
Table 1.1: Comparing project management and change management
Why Do People Resist Change?

First, it’s important to recognize that resistance to change is a natural response. We are
conditioned to like the status quo because we know and understand it and our place in it.
It’s also the default position for most people because changing takes effort and whether we
know it or not, we often respond indifferently or negatively to having to make efforts for
someone else’s agenda.
Finally, someone’s willingness to take on a new change is influenced by their experience

of change in the past. If they have previously been affected by change that was managed
badly they won’t welcome this change with open arms. Equally, if they have seen lots of
managers talk about change but never seen any results, don’t expect them to believe that
the change is actually coming this time.
These events might have taken place outside of your workplace at a different company or
even in their personal lives, so you could see this type of resistance even if you believe your
company has a good track record of managing change.
All this means that you shouldn’t feel slighted if your initial conversations about your project
or the transformational change that is coming are met with disinterest, apathy or negativity.
It just means your team is reacting normally!

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Recognizing Resistance To Change

In many cases it’s easy to spot the people who are resistant to change. They’ll tell you
directly. They’ll complain loudly to their colleagues at every opportunity.
But sometimes resistance can be more subtle. Those are the cases you need to be alert to
because overlooking resistance can undermine the success of your project.
Watch out for:
• People who don’t turn up to meetings.

• People who don’t respond to emails.
• People who are “too busy” to participate in change or project activities and who
“don’t have time” to implement the changes required.
• People who are silent: don’t take silence as tacit consent.
• People who question the methodology. They don’t go as far as to question the
change openly, but they look to undermine the process of change.
All these are signs of resistance and reluctance to engage with the change process.
What Happens When People Resist Change?

People who don’t implement the required changes, respond to mails or question every
decision? They’re hardly your biggest fans.
When people resist change they have huge impacts on the project, the benefits and the
people around them.
Resistance to change:
• Causes delays
• Creates apathy even in people who once supported the change
• Prevents benefit realization
• Can get projects stopped or cancelled in extreme circumstances.

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Not wanting to adopt a new change is the reason why many projects fail to deliver the
benefits that were expected, even if these were well thought-through and supported by
a robust business case. The use of software is often given as an example, and one of my
colleagues told me this story:
A company recognized that it could be better at credit control and debt collection.
Tightening up those processes would improve cash flow and have an impact of profitability.
The management team put together a business case to get IT to develop a new credit
control application. The software was built, tested and represented a significant investment
but one that the executives were prepared to make because of the downstream benefits
resulting from better cash collection. The project team delivered the software to the Finance
team and everyone felt happy.
A year later, a new manager who had recently joined the company suggested that credit
control and debt collection processes could be streamlined. Wouldn’t that have great
financial benefits for the firm? The management team were surprised: hadn’t they done
that last year? What greater savings could there be on the table?
When they investigated they found that although the Finance team had taken delivery
of the new credit control application they weren’t actually using it. Finance managers
said that even though they knew it was going to be a good thing they hadn’t had time
to implement it.
This shows that resistance to change doesn’t always have to come from a place of negativity.
The Finance team were supportive of the software but they weren’t given the chance to
make it a success because the environment they operated in did not support them when
integrating the change. The priorities they were working to – and were probably heavily
targeted on – didn’t allow them to take the time to integrate new working practices even
though those would have resulted in tangible benefits for the team’s workload, productivity
and the company’s financial results. There was a mismatch between departmental and team
priorities and the bigger picture that change management could have helped resolve.
In short, delivering a solution is only part of the story. It doesn’t matter how “successful”
the project is if the end result is the wrong solution or a solution that is never used. You
don’t get business benefit from a tool that sits on the shelf or a product that never sells.

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Look For The Good In Resistance

Resistance to change can be a good thing.
Resistance creates conflict – on small or large scale – and conflict is a great way to get issues
on the table. It can bring up points that you haven’t considered before and uncover areas of
the project that need greater attention. It’s a fantastic way of finding out what matters to
people. It provides challenge to the concepts and ideas underpinning the change. Talking
to people who have issues with what’s going on can reveal weaknesses in your idea or your
plans to execute your idea, so it can pay back significantly to listen and take onboard the
concerns of people who don’t seem to be on your side at the beginning.
Managed carefully, conflict can be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties and create
supporters who are now deeply invested in the change projects. Working together you can
identify and resolve areas where the project could be managed better and deliver even more
successful results.
It’s far more appropriate to deal with these conflicts as and when they arise than to ignore
them. Let’s look now at the wider benefits of reducing resistance to change.
The Benefits of Reducing Resistance To Change

As we saw above, changes are unsettling. People feel anything from disgruntled and angry
to elated. You’re not going to eliminate those negative feelings completely. Someone who
is going to lose their job as a result of the project you are working on isn’t suddenly going
to feel all warm and fuzzy about it. But if you can help the people affected by workplace
change to be better prepared for what’s coming through great change management and
communication then you’ve got a chance of reducing their resistance to the project.
Reducing resistance to change is important because, as we saw above, resistors can negatively
impact the success of a project, consciously or unconsciously. This limits the benefits that
the project can deliver, potentially reducing them to zero if a resistor is successful in getting
your project stopped completely.
If you can work with the people involved to reduce and minimize the negative feelings related
to change you’ll have a much higher chance of successfully delivering the new practices and
benefits that you were hoping for.

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In addition, companies with high effectiveness in change management and communication

are three and a half times more likely to significantly outperform their industry peers than
businesses that are not effective at dealing with change (Towers Watson, 2013).
In summary, your projects will deliver greater benefit, be more successful and your company is
likely to make more money and be more competitive if you can reduce resistance to change.
So how do you do it?
How To Manage Resistance To Change

The first step in managing resistance to change is to think about it before it happens.
Take some time to consider the people risks related to this project. What could stop your
initiative from being successful? Doing this planning in advance will help you be more
open to identifying resistance when you see it. It also means you’ll have some ideas already
about the kinds of things you can do to head off resistance when it happens. You’ll save
time by being prepared which can make the difference between the resistance being a small
inconvenience or a big problem.
Here are 5 things you can do to manage resistance to change.
1. Acknowledge Resistance
It’s happening, you’ve seen it, so don’t ignore it. Pretending it isn’t happening won’t solve
anything. Like any conflict, it’s far better to address it quickly.
2. Assume One Person’s Problem Is Everyone’s Problem

How many times have you heard someone say something and you’ve thought: “I feel like
that too, but I wasn’t going to say anything because…”
It’s the same with changes. Hearing it from one person is a gift because it’s almost guaranteed
that someone else feels the same way. They aren’t the only person struggling to adapt to the
changes but right now they might be the only person prepared to admit it. When dealing
with their concerns, assume that plenty of others have similar concerns too.
3. Listen To Understand
“Seek first to understand and then to be understood,” wrote Stephen Covey in 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People, and it’s true in a change management situation.

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What is underneath the concerns raised about this change? Your communication practices
come into play here as you create opportunities for people to provide feedback about how
they are responding to the change. However, you’re probably going to have to go further
and unpick their responses.
Are they worried about whether they will still be competent in their jobs in the new world?
Are they going to lose their position as the department expert if the system changes, and
with that the implied power and credibility that comes with it?
4. Allow Adequate Time

Change takes time to come to terms with. While some people will have quick and decisive
reactions, others need time to work through how they feel about it. It’s not OK to ask
people to send in their thoughts by the end of the day or to respond with how their team
is going to adopt these new practices by the end of the week.
Build in enough time to your change plans to allow everyone to reflect on what it means
for them, to raise their concerns and work together to find solutions.
5. Communicate
If you see that resistance is happening, communicate more, not less. Talk more. Listen
more. Ask questions. Research and follow up. The rest of this book will help you plan your
change communications and follow through on them.
The key to managing resistance to change is to understand what is driving the individuals
or groups concerned. By understanding their motivation you can unpick how that will be
affected by the change proposals. When you know what is causing their reaction you can
deal with that, instead of just trying to mitigate the reaction. You’ll get a better result by
working out what is really going on and addressing the root cause.
Key Points
• Change management is the way we facilitate the shift from current practice to new
practice in order to achieve a benefit.
• It is not the same as project management but successful projects incorporate both
disciplines together.
• Resistance to change is common and natural but left unmanaged can reduce or
remove the benefits your project aimed to achieve.
• Manage resistance to change by understanding the motivation of the individuals
involved and adapting your plans accordingly.

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Try This
How does change make you feel? Think about a time when you’ve faced a personal or
professional change. Did you welcome it straight away? How long did it take you to come
to terms with what it meant for you? How did it turn out in the end – did you embrace
the change eventually or reject it?
Identify 5 risks related to the people aspects of your change initiative. How can you use the
techniques for reducing resistance to change to reduce the impact of these risks?
Share This
• I’m reducing resistance to change #changecomms

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE The Foundations for Communicating Change
2 THE FOUNDATIONS FOR

COMMUNICATING CHANGE
Intranet site? Check. Staff newsletter? Check. Actually, let’s back up a bit. This chapter will
look at why it’s important to get your strategy right. We’ll talk about confirming what’s
happening and how you want people to react. Knowing this, all your comms activity can
be more targeted.
What Are We Actually Saying?

Before you start composing your first email about this new change initiative, just stop for
a moment.
What is it that you want to say?
And does everyone agree that’s the right message?
One of the first communication requirements for the change management and project team
is to ensure that you have a clear communications strategy with an underpinning story or
vision that is agreed by the key stakeholders.
This can be difficult because at the early point in a project stakeholders can have different
opinions about what is to be done and the best ways to do it. Part of your role is to get
some clarity and support for the messages that will be going out to staff and beyond.
Getting Clarity #1: The Messages

What’s the story?
The business case, Project Charter and other documents are a good place to start. Look at
the background for the business change and why it was initiated. Talk to the people involved.
The objective is to get a clear idea about what you can say. Different groups are going to need
different messages at different times, but the underlying story should always stay consistent.
Equally, get clarity on what you can’t say. What – if anything – is confidential and cannot
be disclosed in your communications? And what should you do or say when someone asks
about those areas?

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It’s worth splitting the messages into three categories:
1. The vision: High-level, broad-reaching, possibly inspirational explanations of why

the change was initiated.
2. Informational: Updates and broadcasts, news and information.
3. Actionable: Instructions to be carried out by the group receiving the communication.
At the start of your planning you may not have all the detail but you should at least be able
to gain consensus on the vision behind the change and how you wish to talk about that.
Getting Clarity #2: The Commitment to Communications

The second point to get clarity and agreement on is that the team is committed to communication
activity. They need to understand why adding a strand of change communications to the
project plan is worthwhile.
The challenge you’ll face is that there’s a perception that doing stakeholder engagement and
communication work thoroughly and ‘properly’ adds a lot of time to a project.
Today, project teams don’t have a lot of time. Virtual working, global teams and the increase
in technology that brings us together means that communication timescales are tighter. You
need to send that email today, not once it has been through three rounds of approval at HQ.
Equally, project teams are squeezed for resources. They probably don’t have time to put
together a long document on stakeholder communication preferences or to turn one
presentation into three different artifacts to satisfy the needs of people who don’t much
like presentations. And they might not have someone that they can dedicate to producing
communications material for the change initiative.
I understand: the workplace can be a highly pressured environment. If you have the
commitment to do everything in this book and more, then great. If you only have the
commitment to do something relating to communicating the change initiative that you are
working on, then that’s OK too. The important thing is to understand what authority you
have and what the commitment is going to be. Then you can plan for that.
Note: If you feel that the commitment is not adequate for the change initiative taking
place, then raise it to the project or program manager as an issue. They will document the
fact that you are concerned that the communications strategy and subsequent plan will not
meet the needs of the organization during this period of change.

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It can sometimes help you to ‘sell’ the idea of a communications workstream running
parallel to a larger change initiative if you talk about the risks of what would happen if
you don’t have those communications in place. What would be the impact to the project
if you didn’t let people know what was going on in the most effective way? How would
the change initiative’s benefits be adversely affected?
Building Your Communications Team

Whether you are the project manager, the department head, an internal communications
expert or a business change manager, change communication is not solely your role. Other
people in the business will also be responsible for sharing the messages with their colleagues
and staff – in fact there is probably more onus on other people to be the face of the
communication than there is on you.
360°
Start to think now about who these people might be so that you can involve them early
in the project. Research by Towers Watson (2013) found that companies that are most
.
effective at change management are four and a half times as likely to involve change and
thinking
internal communication professionals at the earliest stage of planning. This is when you are
identifying the problem or opportunity and what you are going to do about it.
360°
thinking . 360°
thinking .
Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers Dis
© Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.
Discover the truth at www.deloitte.ca/careers © Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.
Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.
Discoverfree
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‘Team’ is a loose word to describe the people involved in change communications. You probably
won’t meet up as a team. As the person responsible for coordinating the communication
of change, you will be the central lynchpin, interacting with the relevant individuals at the
right time.
The people involved in your change communications team could include:
• The project manager

• The program manager
• Project/program sponsor
• Directors of divisions affected by the change
• Senior managers
• Team leaders
• Public relations and internal communications staff
• Marketing staff
• HR staff.
The exact composition of the group of people responsible for delivering the communication
will depend on the nature of your change initiative.
Beyond The Communications Team

Mostly we think of change communication as something we do to people outside the team,
and the people listed above will most likely be sharing your messages to those outside of
your core change project team.
But it is important to have the change project team on side. They are ambassadors for
your project and they need to be consistently sharing the right messages about the change
and promoting the benefits. They can do this informally with the people they work with
and meet.
The change team at all levels should be able to champion the project and they need to
believe in the shared vision too.
At least, they mustn’t undermine your efforts, and that’s surprisingly easy to do with a few
off-hand remarks.
Change communications is everyone’s responsibility, and you can set the culture for that
to be the case by working with the project or program sponsor.

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There is a tangible benefit here. Messages count for more if your stakeholders hear it from
their peers and not from you, or another person in a position of authority.
In other words, there is built-in, subconscious cynicism when people hear messages from
people employed to give them. You are supposed to be positive about the change because
it’s your job. The communication, message or story has a greater impact if it is heard from
other people as well. Ask the wider change team to talk about the project informally,
especially when you have hit key milestones or delivered something.
There’s a practical challenge here related to making sure that everyone understands that the
job of communication isn’t just down to the individual with ‘Communications’ in their
title. Make sure that they are told what is expected of them – don’t assume that they’ll
suddenly become communication ambassadors for you. Spell out what you are looking for
and why it is of value. Regardless of their position in the team – from senior managers to
those contributing to individual tasks – they should be as ‘on message’ as you are.
Working With A Project or Program Manager

Large, transformative business change should have a program manager assigned to lead the
change. Programs are collections of related projects which all have outputs that contribute
to achieving a holistic business vision.
For example, digitalizing a hospital would be a program of work. Individual projects would
look at installing computers, scanning historical medical records, introducing new software,
communicating electronically with patients, and so on. Together, all these projects deliver
the capability to digitalize the clinical environment. They are likely to require the same
resources, and they all fit into the same big picture, so bringing the projects together and
running them as a program of work is the most efficient and effective way of achieving
the outcomes.
For your change, first identify whether there is a project or program manager to work with.
If not, ask for one! Change projects have a lot of moving parts and the ability to have
someone dedicated to tracking tasks, managing the budget and ensuring everything happens
in a structured way is invaluable.
A project manager will:
• Work out the timescales

• Plan the resources to do the work
• Help you define the scope of the project overall
• Establish the requirements for the project overall.
And a lot more besides!

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This activity is totally aligned to the change communication work, which is generally
considered a workstream within a larger project. The change communication activity includes:
• Producing the communications messages

• Making sure messages are timely and accurate
• Working with key stakeholders to drive engagement at all levels
• Listening for and facilitating feedback even when that isn’t spoken out loud
• Providing clarity on the background to the change and setting the scene.
These are all tasks that can be integrated into the overall project plan (or project plans, if
you are providing change management support for more than one project in a program).
It’s possible that the change management tasks may be a bit vague in terms of timeline
until your full communications plan is in place. A good project manager will be able to
cope with this level of ambiguity and support you as you define the detail.
How Much Communication Is Needed?

It’s impossible to give guidelines on how much communication is needed, unfortunately.
A relatively small change may have far-reaching environmental consequences and need
sensitive handling with local pressure groups. A change with a significant budget may need
very little communication activity.
The amount of communication you’ll need to take on for your change is going to depend on:
• The level of disruption facing each individual affected

• The level of disruption facing the team (or teams) as a whole
• The culture of your organization
• The success rate of past change initiatives.
If you have a relatively poor track record of implementing change, then building more
change communications into your plan this time may help boost confidence and credibility
in the initiative and make the change more likely to be a success.
The amount of communication you will do as a result of this current change will also
depend on your budget, resource levels and the commitment to change communication
from senior management.

27
Chapter 4 looks more at the detailed planning of change activity so your decisions about
how much communication is required will feed into your communications calendar. This
is also all important information to document as part of your communications strategy.
Writing A Communication Strategy

On many projects, the change communication strategy is wrapped into the stakeholder
engagement (or, as it used to be called, stakeholder management) approaches for the project
overall. If you are working with a project manager – and there’s more on that below – then
they may take responsibility for putting this together.
As the person responsible for change communications (and you might be the project
manager), it helps to have your communications strategy documented somewhere, but it
doesn’t have to be in a dedicated document. Including it in other project artifacts is fine.
As a minimum, your communication strategy should include the items listed in Table 2.1.
Heading Content
Project Background Provide the context for the change initiative and any history of the
project so far.
Scope Detail whether this comms strategy is for an individual project, a

program, or something else. If there are time parameters (for example,
the document only applying to the current year), then include those too.
Provide clarity around the remit of the comms activity so that everyone
understands what it will and will not cover.
This section can also include the scope of activities required. If you know
them, list the tools you will use and/or document the level of employee
interaction and involvement you intend to cater for. A small change
may require a ‘broadcast only’ approach but a larger, transformative
change may have in scope the requirement to involve those affected
in workshops or solution design etc.
It is also helpful to document what is out of scope e.g. in-person briefings

at international offices.
Resources, Roles and List the roles involved in the change initiative and their responsibilities
Responsibilities with regard to communications. If the project has a large external interest
then include media relations here.
If there are additional resources required, you can also list these here –
they don’t have to be individuals e.g. a meeting room for 15 people
throughout March, 6 projectors etc.
Stakeholder Analysis List the key stakeholder groups, noting any that should be prioritized.

28
Heading Content
Objectives Here is where you document the communication objectives for the
change initiative overall and for any specific stakeholder groups.
For example, it might be pertinent to include that employees facing
termination of employment as a result of the change receive adequate
communication about alternative roles in the company with the objective
that they all secure ongoing employment before a certain date. Make
your objectives as specific as possible, although you will probably have
some wider goals in here too like ensuring all employees are kept abreast
of changes that affect them in a timely fashion.
Key Messages If you know them, list the key messages that the comms activity needs
to cover. Include dates where you have them but there is no need to
make this section into a detailed plan for every piece of communication
that needs to be produced or managed. This document provides the
framework for your communication activity, not the plan.
Approvals Required Note who is authorized to approve each type of communication. For
example, a project presentation may be approved by the project
sponsor, but a media release may have to go to the corporate Public
Relations team for approval.
If you do not have this information, this is the time to check and gain
clarification before any materials are produced.
Risks and Issues Document any risks or issues that are currently identified. The project
management team can include these in their overall project risk and
issue trackers and may ask you periodically for updates.
Budget Record the budget available for your change comms activity and how
you will access and track it.
Evaluation It’s good practice to evaluate your stakeholder engagement and

communications activities. Document how this will be done on this project.
Table 2.1: Contents of a change communications strategy
Key Points
• Ensure you know what the key messages are around your change initiative before
you start communicating.
• Gain buy in from senior executives to invest in the necessary change communications
activities.
• Remember that communicating change is not solely your responsibility and start
to create a culture of shared ownership of the relevant messages.

29
• Work with your project or program manager to ensure communications tasks are
adequately planned.
• Document your change communications strategy in a way that makes most sense
within the context of the change initiative: either as a standalone document or part
of a stakeholder engagement strategy.
Try This
Use these question prompts to build out your communications strategy for your change
initiative.
• How controversial is this project?

• What is the impact on each stakeholder group? Do we know yet? When will we know?
• How many people are affected? Are they all employees? Who are they if they aren’t
employees?
• What are the impacts on people’s jobs? The environment? The local area?
• What do we know already about how people feel about this project?
• How complex is the work going to be? What will the communication needs be if
something on the project goes wrong?
• Is anyone outside the company going to be interested in this project? Will the
industry press, local or national media pick up the story?
• Do we have the skills in-house to deal with all the communication needs for this
project? If not, how are we going to source the skills required?
This book doesn’t deal specifically with working with third-party consultants or media/
communications agencies, but if you think your project has a high chance of being politically
sensitive and you do not have a professional media relations team in-house then it is a good
idea to take some external advice.
Share This
• Change comms strategy: tick! #changecomms
• I’ve got my change communications team in place #changecomms

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Thinking About Audiences
3 THINKING ABOUT AUDIENCES

The change is going to affect different people in different ways. In this chapter we look
at who could be affected in your organization and how to engage them. This covers basic
stakeholder management techniques: stakeholder mapping, and power and influence grids.
You’ll also learn about different communication preferences and how these could affect your
audience segments.
Who Could Be Affected?

One of the first things you should do is work with the rest of the project team to establish
who is going to be affected by the upcoming changes.
Depending on the type of change you are implementing, your work could have far-reaching
effects. The people who are affected by or interested in the project are called stakeholders.
Stakeholders could be:
• Highly impacted, for example someone who is going to lose their job as a result
of the change.
• Moderately impacted, for example someone who is going to have to change their
working practices as a result of the change.
• Slightly impacted, for example someone who needs to be aware of how to follow
a new process for a small part of their role as a result of the change.
• Not impacted, for example someone whose job will not change but who should be
aware of what is changing around them so that they can be sensitive to the needs
of those teams at the time.
Stakeholders can be internal to the company or external e.g. regulatory bodies or members
of the public.
Document the different stakeholders for your change project so that you are aware of the
different audiences your communications need to reach. For some stakeholders like the project
sponsor it will be appropriate to record them as an individual. For others, like a regulatory
body, or a particular team, it’s not important to name names. Targeting communications
at groups will limit the amount of audiences you have, but if it makes sense to break your
stakeholder groups into sub-groups for clarity, do it.

31
You can see an example of a stakeholder map with typical stakeholder groupings in Figure 3.1.
Project Sponsor
Project Team Member Finance

Project Team
Suppliers IT
Customer Managers Internal Teams Marketing
Legal
Customer Project Stakeholders
Customer Teams
Sales
Staff Groups/Unions
Senior Managers
Regulatory Bodies
Procurement
Directors
The Public Other
Governance PMO HR
Government Agencies Project Board/Steering Group
Figure 3.1: Common project stakeholder groups
Prioritizing Stakeholders
Now you know who is going to be affected by the project – and is, by extension, your
audience for change communications – it’s time to look at those groups more closely.
In today’s work environment it’s generally impossible to spend as much time as you would
like on communicating with every single group. You have to prioritize. Let’s look at where
you should be spending your time.
First, you need to find out more about your audience, as individuals or groups, whatever
makes the most sense and will help you target your messages more effectively. Be wary of
breaking large groups down into too many subgroups: it’s often more productive to do this
at quite a high level and then break it down if you feel you have the capacity to deal with
more granularity.
For each stakeholder you have to consider three things:
1. Influence
2. Interest
3. Attitude

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Influence
This dimension is about the power that the stakeholder group (or individual) has. Are
they going to be able to influence other groups significantly? This could be as a result of
their position within the hierarchy of the organization or because they are particularly
knowledgeable or credible as an expert.
Score the stakeholders on a scale from high to low.
Interest
How interested is this stakeholder in your change initiative? This will range from being
incredibly interested to not caring much about it at all.
The easiest way to find out their interest level is to ask them. Then record it on a scale from
high to low. If they are not as interested as you feel they should be, also make a note of
where you want them to be on the scale. This will help you identify how much effort you
should be putting in to communicating benefits and so on to this group.
Attitude
Finally, you’ll want to document how they feel about the proposed changes. Are they
supportive? Do they think that the change is a good idea? Or would they block it if they
possibly could?
It’s naïve to think that everyone will support your change project, and it’s far better to
identify the groups or individuals that are likely to have a problem with it as early as you
can. By identifying the people who are going to be highly resistant to change you can tackle
their concerns and objections with your communication approach – and be ready for the
feedback when it happens.
Record their attitude towards the project on a scale of supportive to resistant. You can use
1–5 for all these scales, using your professional judgment to assess where people sit when
you cannot get them to tell you directly.
If they are not as supportive of the project as you feel they should be, note down where
you want them to be on the scale. You won’t need everyone to be a raving supporter, but
identifying where you want to move groups from feeling negative about the change to
feeling neutral about it will inform your communications planning.

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Identifying Your Priority Stakeholders

This exercise will have given you a list of stakeholders and their relative influence, interest and
opinions about the change initiative. You can use this information to prioritize your efforts.
First, look for people who are highly influential, with a keen interest but a negative outlook.
These are the people who will do their best to prevent the change from being a success
and should be on your radar. You can tailor your messages for this audience to tackle their
concerns. As we saw in Chapter 1, change management is about shifting behavior from
one position to another in order to achieve a benefit, and you may need to work with the
wider project team to engage stakeholders who fall into this category to shift their behavior
and opinions to where you need them to be.
Second, look for people who are highly influential, keen to support the change and approaching
it from a place of positivity. These are the people who will help spread the messages about
your project and can be brought into your wider communications team.
Third, look for people who are influential and negative about your project but who are
not showing any interest. These are the people who may spring up later and cause issues,
especially when they realize that they are, in fact, affected by the coming changes.
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34
Then look for people or groups who have the largest gap between where they are on the
scale and where you want them to be. You’ll have to put significant effort into moving these
people and engaging them. Not all of that effort will be done through communications, but
your communication activity will be part of the stakeholder engagement that helps reduce
the resistance to change where you see it.
Keep Your Stakeholder Analysis Updated…

Consider this:
A change leader carried out stakeholder analysis and identified several crucial audiences
for communication. The comms strategy was put together along with a detailed plan and
calendar for various communications to go out.
The project team identified one senior manager in the IT team who was a strong supporter
of the change initiative. They included him in the main communications and updates and
were pleased to have such an influential leader showing support for the change.
At the time of the launch, the team held a Town Hall-style meeting, with over 200
employees in attendance. The change leader opened the floor for questions after a brief
presentation and the IT manager asked a series of challenging questions which sought to
undermine the change team in front of everyone.
The change leader responded, but was thrown by the fact that they were coming from
someone that the team had identified as a strong supporter. Why was he seeking to
challenge the change in such a public forum?
As the team dissected the event later, they realized that they had not updated their
stakeholder analysis for some time. Speaking to the IT manager after the event, they
realized that now he knew more about the change and what it meant for his team, he
no longer supported the idea, but they had failed to notice the change in his attitude.
People change their views as they find out more about the project. That is, after all, the main
goal of change management: to move people from their old behavior to a new behavior in
the pursuit of business benefit.

35
However, sometimes people move in the other direction. Your communications strategy
needs to be flexible enough to cope with a shift in audience as and when people start to
respond to the ideas being communicated around the change. If a group becomes more
positive, the messages they need might change. If a group becomes more negative, equally
they too will need a different set of communication interventions.
Again, communication is not the only change management tool available to the wider project
team, so do not feel that you are tackling this alone. Work with the rest of the project
team to ensure that your communication activities fit with and enhance other stakeholder
engagement tasks and the wider project plan.
…And Confidential
Your stakeholder analysis contains sensitive information about your assessment of various
different groups and individuals. Be alert to the fact that not everyone is going to appreciate
having been subject to such analysis. Keep your documentation confidential and control
access to it as appropriate.
Communication Preferences
How do you prefer to receive information? For me, it’s definitely in written form. I switch
off during long presentations and just want someone to give me the white paper or a
transcript that I can scan.
Other people prefer to receive and respond to messages in different ways – that’s to be
expected; there are no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ styles here. Below are some common communication
preferences and how you can ensure your comms activity hits the spot for each.
The ‘What’
Big picture or detail
‘Big picture’ people like to hear about the business context and the objectives and goals in
their widest form. They don’t want a lot of detail and will probably stop listening if you
give it to them.
Other people prefer the detail and will worry if they only get big picture, broad brush
stroke information. This won’t seem fully thought-through to them and they’ll ask a lot of
questions to get to the level of information that they need.
Address by: Summarize information where you can and point people to more detail if they
want it.

36
Options or steps
Some of your team will prefer to be given options instead of being told what to do. When
dealing with corporate transformative change, this can be difficult. Others will prefer to be
given the procedure and told, step-by-step, what to do next.
Address by: Offer options where you can, perhaps about what order tasks are completed
in or allowing some flexibility over how a team gets where you need them to be. If you are
only able to communicate a ‘what happens next’ step-by-step approach, at least give people
the option to provide feedback on the process or allow them to opt in to volunteer, test or
otherwise be involved somehow.
Problem or solution
Corporate change strategists will tell you that it’s important for everyone to understand the
reason why the company is going through this change. Understanding the problem is essential
for people to be able to see the reasons for the upheaval. And that’s true for some people.
They will want to go over the past situation, uncover the reasons why it wasn’t successful,
discuss the problems and issues that it created and only then will they feel comfortable
about talking about where the team needs to go next.
However, you’ll have some people on your team who don’t need to go through the history
and unpick all the negatives about the previous situation. Solution-focused people can
almost gloss over that and want to get straight into understanding what the future state is
going to be like.
Address by: Ensure your communications attempt to address both preferences. For example,
offer a statement in your presentation about an issue that the old situation created before
giving a statement about how the future state will be different. Avoid listing all the negatives
or all the positives – you’ll lose the attention of people in the audience, so mix it up if
you can.
Reassurance or change
As we saw in Chapter 1, some of your colleagues are going to feel unsettled by a large
business change. This is to be expected, and one way of providing some reassurance to
those who need it is to focus on how the change is a natural step in the journey for the
organization and how it is founded on experience and information from what has been done
in the past. In other words, the change is a thought-though, well-researched evolution, not
a shot in the dark. People who will respond well to this are those who have a preference
for knowing things are staying the same – or are at least going to be a little bit similar or
part of an evolution of what they used to do.

37
There will, however, be others who will reject the past. Knowing what they know of the
current status quo, they could be incredibly vocal about trying something new and different.
They will want to see that the company is taking bold steps to address problems and is not
just edging forward.
Address by: This is probably the hardest set of preferences to address with the same material
and your comms message must be consistent. You can’t tell one audience that this is an
evolutionary step in a process and another that it is a dramatic new change. Think about
how both could be true. Perhaps your internal and industry research shows that a bold new
step is required, but that you will implement it in ways that feel tried and tested for your
business, using experienced staff.
Remember that people are not binary. You can have a preference for big picture information
on one project and want the detail on another. You could want reassurance that the change
is coming from a place informed by prior experience but yet still have a strong sense that
it is important to do something different this time.
Communication preferences are personal: to an individual, to a project and to a moment

in time. The sliding scales represented by Figure 3.2 are only indicative of the kinds of
preference you will meet in the people on your team.
Likes the big picture Detail oriented

Prefers options Prefers step-by-step
Needs to understand the problem Wants to start with the solution
Wants reassurance Keen to forge ahead
Figure 3.2: Communication preferences
Your colleagues – and yourself – are nuanced individuals. The preferences above are not only
not an exhaustive list, but are also not boxes for you to put people into. Use the information
here to make sure that your communications are as engaging and widely-received as possible
by as many people as possible, but adapt what you do to suit your own audience.

38
The ‘How’
As well as working out what language you need to use to meet the needs of the variety
of communication preferences in your team, you also have to consider how to deliver it.
People have a preference around how they prefer to give and receive information. There
are three main preferences:
1. Visionary
2. Auditory
3. Kinesthetic.
Visionary
People with a visionary preference prefer to take in information with their eyes.
How to recognize people with a visionary preference: You’ll hear these individuals talking
about ‘seeing the roadmap for the change,’ ‘picturing what it means for our team’ and
‘visualizing the future.’ The words they use about change will reflect their preference for
receiving information visually.
What to share: Slides, presentations, video, diagrams, cartoons, and pictures are all going
to be well-received by this audience.
Auditory
Team members with an auditory preference for receiving information prefer to hear it.
How to recognize people with an auditory preference: They talk about ‘listening to the
team,’ ‘having their ear to the ground,’ and they might worry that management is not
‘hearing their concerns.’
What to share: Podcasts, audio clips or recordings of presentations will be well received by
people with this preference. They will also be engaged by presentations, but don’t expect
them to watch the screen intently!
Kinesthetic
The kinesthetic preference is defined by the sense of touch. That might seem strange for
business communications, but we can accommodate that if we plan for it.

39
How to recognize people with a kinesthetic preference: You’ll hear individuals talking about
the change ‘feeling right’ (or wrong). You might even hear them use language like: ‘It’s so
close I could touch it’. Listen out for sensory words relating to physical presence.
What to share: You can’t modify most business communications to satisfy the needs of this
group, but you can try. For example you could let people have samples of the new product
to try, create a hands-on model of a new facility, offer tours around a new building, set up
demos or find other ways to get your team members to touch, hold or sample some of the
deliverables of this change initiative.
Other Needs In Your Team

On top of these preferences there might be other considerations for getting your message
understood. Visually impaired colleagues may benefit from large print versions of documentation,
or audio recordings. Hearing impaired colleagues may appreciate transcripts of presentations
or detailed notes. There may be other employees in your workplace community who would
be best served by effectively considering their requirements.
While I am by no means an expert in this area, I would encourage you to reach out to the
individuals or groups with expertise to ensure your messages reach everyone in the most
appropriate ways.
Learn From This

On one of my first projects I was managing the in-sourcing of a product. Everything went
well and we were soon planning on redirecting all the calls and mail into our own office,
so we could break ties with the third party who had been managing the product to that
point. The day came, and the switch over was a huge success.
Or so I thought…
Later that day I had a call from the Mail Room manager. Her team was swamped. They
couldn’t keep up with the additional sacks of mail that were arriving – this was in the days
when email wasn’t so commonly used. Did I, she asked, know anything about this?
My heart sank. Of course I knew about it – I was the cause. I had forgotten to include her
as a project stakeholder and I’d overlooked the impact on her team.
I apologized, we managed the situation, and I vowed to do better stakeholder identification

in the future.

40
When you miss out an individual stakeholder or a group of stakeholders, the impact can
be significant – a lesson I learned the hard way.
Key Points
• Identify as many stakeholder groups as you can.
• Carry out detailed analysis of stakeholder groups to identify priority audiences for
your communications.
• Work with the project or program team. Communication activity is one element of
a stakeholder engagement strategy and needs to be done in alignment with other
project tasks.
• Understand that different people have different communication preferences. Keep
these in mind for when you plan your communications so that you can ensure
the messages are delivered in a way that is as engaging as possible for the widest
possible audience.
Try This
Identify the key audiences for your change initiative. Use Figure 3.1 above as a prompt for
the common stakeholder groups you may have on your project.
Identify the communications preferences for the members of your team. If it isn’t obvious
to you, ask them. You could each share your own preferences as part of your next team
meeting.
Share This
• My comms preference is [insert visual, auditory or kinesthetic]. What’s yours?
#changecomms

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TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Planning Your Communication
4 PLANNING YOUR
COMMUNICATION
Now we know what we’re communicating and who it’s going to, we need to think about how
we are going to talk to people about change. This chapter covers the different channels for
communication, some advantages and disadvantages of each and how to plan your comms
activities during the life cycle of the change initiative.
Given that much project communications work today relies on electronic ways of getting
your message across, you’ll also find tips for incorporating internet-led comms options like
social media.
First let’s recap. Your messages should:
• Clearly explain what employees need to do differently as a result of this change to

their working environment.
• Explain what the change means to them on an individual level, preferably related
back to the impact on their role or department.
Now let’s look at how we can plan out those messages.
The Communication Planning Cycle

Planning your communications is no different from planning any other aspect of your
project. Just as you’ll be working out how to deliver training, or complete the IT changes,
or update the software, you can apply similar steps to planning your communications efforts.
You’ll see from Figure 4.1 that the planning steps are not linear. We call it a cycle because
the final step provides input into the first step when you come to communicate next time.
This gives you a feedback loop that helps improve the efficiency of your communications
every time. Here are the five steps in the communications planning cycle.
1. Identify what it is that needs communicating

2. Work out your desired outcome
3. Decide on the right tool or channel for the communication
4. Deliver the message
5. Review success.

42
Identify
needs
Evaluate Establish
success outcomes
Deliver Define
message tools
Figure 4.1: The planning cycle
The planning cycle can be used at the beginning of your change initiative to provide a
high-level plan for the upcoming communications. You can then repeat the planning work
for each phase, and then again for each individual communication. Each iteration addresses
more and more detail for the content of the messages as these become known.
In other words, your communications planning runs alongside your project plan as you
can see in Figure 4.2. Your comms planning and delivery activity can take place in parallel,
at different levels and there can be quite a gap between the identification of the message
and the delivery of the message. That’s fine: change communication is an iterative process.
Planning early gives you more notice of what is coming up and more opportunity to refine
your message effectively.
Project Management Life Cycle

Initiate Plan Deliver Close
Communications Planning
Identify Identify Identify
needs needs needs
Evaluate Establish Evaluate Establish Evaluate Establish

success outcomes success outcomes success outcomes
Deliver Define Deliver Define Deliver Define

message tools message tools message tools
Communications Delivery
Figure 4.2: Communications planning and delivery fits alongside the project
management life cycle

43
Let’s look at the planning cycle for communications in a bit more detail.
1. Identify what it is that needs communicating

The first step is to work out what the communication need is. In Chapter 2 we saw that
the types of message on a change project split into three categories:
1. The vision: High-level, broad-reaching, possibly inspirational explanations of why

the change was initiated.
2. Informational: Updates and broadcasts, news and information.
3. Actionable: Instructions to be carried out by the group receiving the communication.
At the beginning of your project you might not have much detail for the content of the
messages, but you’ll have an idea of when the key deliverables will be achieved and when
people need to be told about what is happening.
As the project progresses, you can add more detail to what needs to be communicated until
you are at the point of establishing the exact message and the specific details of this piece
of communication.

44
2. Work out your desired outcome

With the message clear, you should then aim to get clarity on what you want people to do
as a result of hearing it. Nothing? Take some action? Pass the message on to their colleagues?
If you want a manager to cascade the message to their team you might have to provide
them with a slide deck, a briefing note or a Frequently Asked Questions document. Tell
them when they have to have done their local presentation by.
Knowing the outcome you are after helps create a more rounded, effective communication
and also informs the next step.
3. Decide on the right tool or channel for the communication

You know what you want to say and what you want people to do as a result of hearing it.
With that information you can decide on the right tool (which we call the channel) for
the job, depending on the audience.
One-way communication tools like sending an email might be appropriate for some types
of message and audience, but they might not generate the type of outcome you are after.
A webinar where you brief managers using the materials they are going to use to brief their
teams is more effective than emailing out a set of slides.
We’ll look more at channels later in this chapter.
4. Deliver the message

Finally, it’s time to deliver the message! Write or produce it, and get it out there to the
people who need it at the right point on your plan.
5. Review success
The very last step is a review step. Here you take the time to look at whether you got the
outcomes you were hoping for. Gather feedback from the people who sent and received the
message and try to find out whether they took the action you desired.
The information you glean here will help you for future communications. If you got the
desired outcomes, that’s great! Do more of that for your next communications as that
technique obviously worked for you. If you didn’t, switch it up a bit next time. Try a different
delivery channel, a different way of crafting your message or reach out to a different audience.
Sometimes only trial and error will help you establish the best communication approach
for your project but if you don’t do this review step you’ll never learn what that could be.

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Channels For Communication

There are numerous tools you can use to get your message across. The skill is in being
able to select the right channel at the right time, for the right people. You’ll have a natural
preference for communicating via one or more channels: for me, as an author it is in writing,
so I gravitate towards emails and newsletters where I can craft the written word. You might
prefer doing a video, or connecting with others via your company social enterprise tools
where you can collaborate online.
The communication preferences we looked at in Chapter 3 will help you identify where
your preferences lie. They can also make you aware of the fact that not everyone will have
the same preferences to you: bear that in mind when selecting communication channels.
Typical Channels For Change Projects

Table 4.1 shows the typical communications channels available to you in the workplace for
communicating change, along with the pros and cons of each option. You can probably
think of other advantages and disadvantages specific to your environment.
Channel Advantages Disadvantages
Email • Quick to reach people • Can feel impersonal if

• Cheap as you already emailing to large groups
have the tools • Need to maintain
distribution lists
• Can be overlooked in a
busy inbox
Newsletter • Attractive, with images • Printing costs can be

and layout expensive
• Good for raising • Needs professional
awareness design to look good
• Space constraints mean
the content isn’t in-depth
Social Enterprise • Quick to reach people • If not in use already, will

Tools e.g. Slack, • Builds the community take a culture change to
collaboration tools • Can promote trust and drive adoption
transparency • Not everyone will use
them so you’ll have
to use other channels
to ensure you reach
everyone

46
Presentations • Slide decks can be • Preparing presentation

delivered by people material takes a lot
outside the core of time
project team, driving • They are only as good
up engagement in the as the people delivering
presenters and audience them
• Can include detailed • Might not get everyone
information and attending
next steps
Podcasts/Audio • People can listen at their • Relies on having the

convenience right technology to
• Provides opportunity to record and then watch
hear detailed information • May need specialist
about the change project skills e.g. interviewer,
• Relatively easy to put or rehearsal time to
together ensure all the key points
come out
Video • People can watch at their • Needs equipment and

convenience skilled staff to put
• Ensures consistency of together a professional-
the message looking video
• Can be time-consuming
to prepare
Meetings: 1-to-1 • A good way to • Time-consuming to meet

build credibility and individually with large
commitment amongst numbers of people
key stakeholders
• Easy to set up; no
specialist equipment or
skills required
Meetings: small • Provides ability to deal • Time-consuming to

with targeted scenarios meet with multiple
and dig into the detail small groups especially
of what it means for when they have similar
that group concerns or questions

47
Meetings: Town Hall • Increases the visibility • Time consuming to put

of the project leader or together
senior stakeholders • Costly to bring people
• Communicates a lot in a together away from their
personable way, driving day job so might not get
trust in the project everyone attending
• Maintains consistency of
the message
Posters • Promote key messages • Can’t fit in much

• Good for raising information so only
awareness of key dates suitable for high-level
or changes messages
Table 4.1: Advantages and disadvantages of major communications channels
Other channels not covered in Table 4.1 include:
• Text messages
• Intranet
• Video meetings or web-conferences
• Roadshows
• Focus groups
• Workshops
• Desk drops or leaflets
• Promotional material like mouse mats and mugs.
And your organization may have access to even more options.
How To Choose The Best Channels For Your Audience

Everything you have read so far will help equip you to choose the right channel for your
audience. Here are some important things to bear in mind when choosing channels.
Your Communications Strategy

Think about what you are trying to achieve with your communications strategy. An awareness
campaign can use posters successfully; if the strategy requires deeper engagement then
posters will not be adequate.
Choose a channel that best fits the overarching strategy supporting your change initiative.

48
Your Budget
While you can shoot decent video on your smartphone, there’s a cost involved with putting
a professional video together, not least in the time it takes for your executives to rehearse
and shoot their pieces to camera. Multi-million dollar projects may have a dedicated
communications budget but generally change initiatives have a more restricted budget for
comms activity.
You can only deliver what you can afford, and knowing that your comms budget is going
to have to last for the duration of the change project you’ll have to choose your tactics
carefully. Blowing your whole budget on one sleek animated video might look good, but it
won’t help you sustain communications across the whole project life cycle.
The Feedback Required

Channels like video presentations lend themselves to one-way communication, which is fine
if your desired outcomes don’t require anyone to respond. If you are expecting feedback
(which you should be), and you do want to promote two-way communication, make
sure that your choice of channel supports that. And that you provide an easy way for the
communication to come back to you.
The People Delivering The Communications

Different channels are available to you if it is project team members doing the communications.
They know a lot about the change initiative and you would expect them to be knowledgeable
and able to handle the questions after any interactive session in a meeting. If you are planning
on using line managers to deliver the communications, you’ll have to provide more in-depth
support materials to help them handle queries from their teams.
Consistency
Be consistent. It is good to communicate in multiple ways to reach those people with
different communication preferences and those who perhaps didn’t see the message the first
time round. But don’t do an audio recording for your colleagues to dial into every month
for three months, then nothing, then pick it up again for a couple of months, then stop for
good. If you are putting out a project newsletter, do it consistently, even if there is hardly
anything to report (in that case, just make it shorter, but don’t drop it totally).
Choose a channel that you can be consistent with and that you can dedicate the appropriate
amount of time to adequately managing on an ongoing basis.

49
The Challenge Of Dispersed Teams

The varied make up of today’s teams present a challenge for the communicator. How do
you communicate to an increasingly dispersed workforce? It’s likely that the people affected
by your change are based in a number of offices, possibly even in a number of countries,
and with some working remotely from home for all or a portion of the time.
It’s important to consider these people in your communications planning. Dispersed and
remote workers are a crucial part of many teams, but they can be hard to reach for corporate
events like roadshows or ‘Town Hall’ style meetings and they certainly won’t get a desk drop
leaflet. Understanding the profile of your employees and the company culture will help you
decide how best to reach out to the people working away from the majority of the team.
Think about the channels you have that would enable you to reach this audience. How different
does your approach have to be to include your remote colleagues in your communications
activity? It could be as easy as emailing out a project newsletter, or scheduling webinars
in different time zones, or even orchestrating an overseas trip for a senior project leader.
One of the options available to you is to use social enterprise tools.
Using Social Enterprise Tools

Social enterprise tools are collaboration technologies (or social media) that enable colleagues
to work and communicate together online. Today, the marketplace is full of collaboration
tools aimed at supporting teams and fostering communications amongst colleagues. In fact,
social enterprise tools are fast replacing traditional intranets, which tend to be somewhat
static – useful for sharing policies and updates but not for interacting with each other.
At the time of writing common tools include Slack, Yammer, Chatter, and Workplace by
Facebook. There are also online collaboration tools aimed at project teams specifically which
have project management capability built in. While these are excellent for getting work done
on your change project, they are less suitable for reaching the organization for the purposes
of communicating, unless everyone has an account and is an active user.
You don’t have to work in a large company to take advantage of social enterprise tools.
You’ll be able to find products that are free to use and that suit small- and medium-sized
businesses.

50
Regardless of the size of your organization, collaboration tools give you a good platform to
reach a wide section of your employee base (although possibly not everyone). If you have
access to these tools it is definitely worth including them in your planning.
Tips For Using Social Enterprise Tools

Here are some tips for using social enterprise tools for your change communications.
Do:
• Be an active part of the online community so that you can answer questions and
spot and counteract rumors. If you do not have the time to dedicate to this, delegate
this task to someone in the team.
• Be authentic. The communication protocols, if you like, for social media are very
different to those in a formal corporate briefing or internal newsletter. Your online
social content should not read like a press release or project report. Use case studies,
photos and get team members to contribute their own content to showcase their
personalities and style.
Don’t:
• Rely on social enterprise tools for all your communication requirements. They
will not reach everyone reliably simply because people work and prefer to take in
information in a variety of ways. Some of the groups you need to communicate
with may be outside your organization and without access to your tool.
• Plan your communications around what the technology can do. Work out what
you need, and then find the channels to best support the delivery of that to the
right audiences at the right times.

51
Key Points
• Plan your communications at every stage of the change initiative so that you can
be more effective.
• Use the communications planning cycle to ensure your actions are thought-though
and deliver the desired results.
• Be aware of and choose the correct channel to best meet your needs every time.
• Pay special attention to virtual team members or those working at different locations.
Try This
Take your audience list from the previous chapter and identify the best channels to reach
each of them. Remember that each audience may require several channels, and that you
might have to break your project stakeholders into several smaller audience groups.
Share This
• My favorite communications channel is [add your favorite]. What’s yours?
#changecomms
• I’m reaching my colleagues with social enterprise tools #changecomms

52
TALK ABOUT PROJECT CHANGE Deliver and Evaluate
5 DELIVER AND EVALUATE

Finally, after all that analysis and planning we come to executing the communications plan
and delivering the messages you’ve crafted. However, you can’t afford to forget to evaluate
the success of the messaging so that the change team can learn how to better reach the
right people and generate even better results next time.
This chapter looks at the options available to you for evaluating your change comms and
how to incorporate the findings from your evaluation into your upcoming plans.
Deliver Your Communications

Get out there and give your communications. Do the presentation. Hit ‘Send’ on that email
broadcast. Record your audio briefing and shoot that video. Update the intranet, put up
those posters and communicate, communicate, communicate.
Executing your communications plan and getting all those messages out there is something
that happens during the whole change project life cycle. You’ll be issuing different
communications as per your plan. While the messages will change over time (and maybe
the audience too) the fact that comms is an activity that you do consistently over time gives
you the opportunity to review and improve how it is working.
As you go through the project, you should be able to gather feedback and refine how you
are communicating with the people who matter so that your later communications are even
more effective.
Evaluating Your Communications

Now those communications and messages are out there it’s time to find out if they had the
desired effect. You set an outcome for each piece of communication and that’s what you
can evaluate against.
It’s worth making the time to evaluate the outcomes of your communication activity because:
• If something isn’t working you can change it.

• You can prove that what you are doing is working and is having the desired effect.
• You can give useful information to the rest of the change project team about the
level of engagement you are seeing from stakeholders over time. This is invaluable
data for the project manager and can shape how the rest of the project evolves.

53
How To Find Out What Worked

It probably isn’t practical to review the efficacy of every single email or newsletter article
you do, especially on a large change program. You’d be trying to gather feedback daily and
you’d get so much of it that it would cloud your ability to be able to do anything with
the results.
That’s why it’s important to work out what you are going to evaluate. You may want to
take a temperature check at various points in the project that align to key milestones. You
may want to review how people are feeling after the most important messages go out, or
after large corporate events like a Town Hall meeting.
Be realistic about how much evaluation work you can do, especially if you are responsible
for other tasks alongside your comms role on this change project. However, don’t use
being too busy with other work as an excuse for doing nothing. Feedback is so important
because it will help you do the other work more effectively and with less effort. If you can
understand how people are reacting to and engaging with the change, you can do more to
prompt that behavior, minimizing resistance and increasing adoption and overall making
it easier to implement your change successfully.
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There are three elements to consider when reviewing your communications, as you can see
in Figure 5.1. You should review the action taken, how that action was executed and then
the outcomes achieved as a result of that action.
Here’s how it breaks down. First, review what you actually did:
• Did you get and communicate the right information?

• At the right time?
• To the right people?
• In the right way?
• And in a way that fit your strategy?
Next, review how it was executed. For example:
• Did the presentation go well?

• Were your presenters confident in the material and in their delivery of it?
• Did the newsletter article reach the editor on time with the right images?
• Could you access the social enterprise tools easily with the right level of access
permissions?
• Did everyone who was supposed to receive the message get it?
Finally, review the outcomes:
• Did you get the outcomes you were expecting?

• How did people feel about the message they received?
• Can you see that behavior or attitudes have changed as a result?
• Are people doing what you need them to do?
Action Execution Outcomes
REVIEW
Figure 5.1: Topics to review
For this final step you are going to need input from your audience. There are a number of
approaches you can use to get feedback from the people who received the messages. Common,
easy-to-use techniques are given in Table 5.1, organized from least effort to most effort.

55
Evaluation Technique How To Do It Considerations
Anecdotal evidence Talk to people as you meet them! Feedback on a small

Ask people how they felt about scale like these informal
your communications and what, if chats is unlikely to be
anything, they are doing differently representative of everyone.
as a result. Use the information
gleaned with caution.
Quick Poll Set up 3 tubs with happy, Quick to do for a

indifferent and sad emoticon faces temperature check but
on. Ask people to drop a card into lacks the depth to allow
the appropriate tub on leaving a you to really understand
meeting/presentation to indicate the motivations for an
how they are feeling. individual’s choice.
An online alternative would be to

ask your audience to vote a piece
of communications up or down, or
‘Like’ it etc. Use the gamification
and social options within your
internal collaboration tools.
Surveys Use online survey tools or your in- You might not get
house equivalent. There are plenty enough responses for
of options available and many an informed and reliable
online tools offer free plans. result. Questions need to
be prepared carefully to
ensure they are impartially
presented.
Structured Interviews A more formal feedback setting These can be time-

than gathering anecdotal evidence, consuming and again,
organize interviews with key only offer a limited insight
stakeholders and prepare a list of into the views of a small
standard questions to ask, while number of individuals.
being prepared to be flexible if the
interview takes an interesting turn.
Focus Groups/Small Either set up a specific focus You can influence the
Meetings group or use some time in a attendees to get a
small group meeting to review broad representation
communications. but be aware that some
individuals may not have
the confidence to express
their true thoughts in a
group setting.
Table 5.1: Common options for evaluating change communications

56
Evaluating Your Success

Armed with all of this information you can evaluate the success (or otherwise) of your
communications activities. Taking everything into account, answer the following questions:
• Which of your communications channels were the most effective? Why?

• What would you do again?
• What wasn’t cost-effective (in terms of hours spent on the comms activity as well
as in pure cash terms) and shouldn’t be repeated?
• What would you change next time?
• How can you reach more people next time?
Be Brave!
It can be difficult to take a long hard look at what you have done and evaluate it, so if it
helps you to have some impartial assistance from someone else in the Project Management
Office or the Internal Communications team, then get it.
It can also be difficult to accept that something didn’t work as you expected. If you truly
feel that result, or the feedback you received, was a one-off, by all means try whatever you
did again. But evaluate it again and be open to the fact that it might not work that time
either. If that happens, it’s time to cut it loose and try something else.
Be courageous in your outlook and brave in your decisions. Take bold steps to introduce new
channels or ditch those that aren’t working. They might work again on a different project.
They might not work at all for your organizational culture. You have learned something
useful. Share it with the project team and focus on the activities that drive the best results.
At the end of the day it is about delivering change and supporting your colleagues through
what could be quite a difficult project. The more effective your change communications,
the better a service you are providing for them and the easier you are making it for them
to be successful in the changed organization.
Incorporate The Learning

All of this review and evaluation so far has been a useful learning experience and you have
probably got some notes written down to record what you have found out.
But writing down notes doesn’t change behavior.

57
You must incorporate what you have learned into your forward plans so that you capitalize on
that evaluation, doing more of what works and avoiding making the same communications
mistakes again.
Review your upcoming comms plans for the next portion of the project and look at where
you can incorporate the learning. Intranet page wasn’t a success? Cross that off the plan
for next month and come up with a different way to reach your audience. No one read
that well-crafted email bulletin? Scratch next week’s email update and get your message out
there in a different format.
This is the step that will make the most difference to the efficacy of your change communications.
Do the work and weave the lessons learned into your approaches for tomorrow and onward.
Next Steps: How To Boost The Culture Of Communication In Your Team

As you’ve seen, communications isn’t a one-off activity. You are planning for and delivering
change communications all the way through your project, from the first announcement that
the change is going to happen through to publicizing the success when the work completes.
Communications is such an important part of successfully delivering change that it pays to

make it a fundamental part of your unwritten, informal ‘contract’ with the change project
team. In other words, by building communications as a guiding principle into everything
you do you can create a team of communicators and a culture where communication is
planned and inherent in everything you do.
Here are 5 tips on how to achieve that.
1. Create a sense of ownership around change programs. The team should feel
like they each own the change and are responsible for seeing it through. Building
commitment to the vision will help you develop this level of engagement. An
engaged team is more likely to feel like they have a stake in the successful delivery
and be keen to engage with others outside the team about their work.
2. Promote transparency. Share what you can with others in the team. If you can’t
share something for confidentiality reasons, say as much. Being transparent in your
communications with the team will hopefully encourage that in your colleagues. As
the project leader, or the key team member with responsibility for setting the tone
for communications, lead by example and communicate in ways that you wish the
team to communicate with each other.

58
3. Build a culture of trust. Successful, high performing teams trust each other.
Good team communication is a big factor in promoting a trusting, collaborative
environment. Watch out for conflict and deal with it early, and make it clear that
gossip and rumors are unacceptable behavior.
4. Follow through, and be honest when you can’t. If you tell someone that you are
going to do something, do it. They will be expecting you to follow through and
you’ll let them down if you don’t deliver. This erodes your integrity and they’ll
start to question your future communications: if you don’t do what you say you
will this time, why should they believe what you say next time? However, there are
situations where you will not be able to follow through for one reason or another.
In this case, go back to the individual and explain the situation. Either provide a
new delivery date that you can definitely respond by or state honestly why you can’t
meet their request. This level of follow up is important for building good working
relationships with your team and key stakeholders, and once they see that this is
the standard you hold yourself to, you can start requesting it of others.
5. Create team ground rules. This won’t work for all project and organizational
cultures, but where you feel your team will be open to it, setting the ground rules
for working together is a good idea. Consider these your rules of engagement. Create
these as a team, as the change project kicks off. Then hold each other accountable
to these ways of working. Communication, of course, should be in the list!
Key Points
• Deliver your communications as planned.
• Evaluate the success of your messages, focusing on key messages at key points in
the change project to make the evaluation work more manageable.
• Change comms is an ongoing activity and an ongoing approach to evaluating what
is working will help you to better target and refine your messages going forward.
• Foster a culture of communication in the team to promote change communication
at every level.

59
Try This
Pick at least 5 points in the change project life cycle where you are going to evaluate the
success of your communications. These could be aligned to specific project milestones or
the delivery of key messages.
Choose 3 ways of gathering feedback from your audience and make plans to implement
these for your next evaluation point.
Make time in your next meeting for the team to share what they have learned or found out
this week. This will promote a culture of sharing information and positive communication
in the team.
Share This
• I’m evaluating my #changecomms
• Want to know what is working? Evaluate your #changecomms and find out

60
FURTHER READING
Want to take this subject further? Here are some additional books that will help you delve
deeper into communication on projects and change initiatives.
Collaboration Tools for Project Managers, Elizabeth Harrin (PMI, 2016)
An in-depth look at how to set up and get the most out of social enterprise and collaboration
technologies at work to boost communication and cooperation on project teams.
Communicating Projects, Ann Pilkington (Gower, 2013)
This detailed book covers the whole communication life cycle on a project and is aimed at
managers responsible for communication in a project environment either as their dedicated
role or as part of the project team with additional responsibilities for communication.
Communication Skills for Project and Programme Managers, Melanie Franklin and
Susan Tuttle (TSO, 2008)
This short book maps key communication skills to different points in the project management
life cycle.
Message Not Received: Why Business Communication is Broken and How To Fix It,
Phil Simon (Wiley, 2015)
An enjoyable read, this book highlights key stumbling blocks in effective workplace
communications, framing the challenges leaders face in today’s business context and evolving
technological landscape.
Project Management Communication Tools, William Dow, PMP, and Bruce Taylor (Dow
Publishing, 2015)
A giant book, this one will be a desk reference! This book maps the communication tools
available to project teams against project management good practice knowledge areas and the
life cycle. Full of detailed worked examples for project management documents and more.

61
REFERENCE LIST
Praxis Framework, praxisframework.org
Towers Watson (2013) 2013–2014 Change and Communication ROI Study Report, https://
www.towerswatson.com/en-GB/Insights/IC-Types/Survey-Research-Results/2013/12/2013-
2014-change-and-communication-roi-study (accessed 2/11/16)

62
MORE BOOKS FROM

ELIZABETH HARRIN
Shortcuts to Success: Project Management in The Real World
BCS, 2013
Anything from an office move to the Olympic Games can be termed a project but it takes
time to gain the experience required to be confident on the job. Not any more: this book
contains the wisdom of project managers totalling over 250 years of professional project
management experience in a highly accessible format. This practical and entertaining book
will help project managers get up to speed quickly with good practice, avoid pitfalls and
deliver business value.
“Packed with hard-won insights on how to make projects work in today’s pressurised business
environment. Apply what it suggests and you’re likely to save your company a fortune and
yourself heaps of frustration!”
Dr Penny Pullan, Director, Making Projects Work Ltd.
Customer-Centric Project Management

Routledge, 2012. Co-authored with Phil Peplow
There has been a sea-change in the focus of organizations away from a traditional product
or service centricity towards customer-centricity – and projects are just as much a part of
that change.
Projects must deliver value and the authors demonstrate convincingly that stakeholders are
the ones who get to decide what ‘value’ actually means.
This short guide explains the importance of customer-centricity to project performance and
demonstrates the tools and processes to guide customer-centric thinking in your project
teams. The book provides a straightforward implementation guide to delivering engagement,
even on difficult projects.

63
“[This approach] allowed us to achieve fantastic results in terms of customer satisfaction. It

enabled us to channel our energies into precisely what our customers were looking for – a
consistently excellent service.”
Neil Harrison, CEO, Travelex
Collaboration Tools for Project Managers

PMI, 2016
Today’s project leaders face the challenge of managing projects effectively using tested and
reliable methods, while also trying out the new methods preferred by some global and tech-
savvy team members and stakeholders.
Information travels faster than ever before. Project teams are called upon to produce relevant
and up-to-date project information, increase productivity and deliver results through top-
notch communications.
With us you can

shape the future.
Every single day.
For more information go to:
www.eon-career.com
Your energy shapes the future.

64
Social media and online communications tools have rapidly changed our world outside the
workplace. These platforms and other tools like wikis and big data repositories offer exciting
possibilities to improve project team collaboration and stakeholder communication in the
workplace as well.
Since project managers rely on communication and effective team management skills, they
need to keep up with the fast pace of change, technology trends and the latest business
drivers that help move organizations forward.
This book builds on Elizabeth’s 2010 book, Social Media for Project Managers and is fully
updated. It provides the latest information, success stories and an easy-to-follow guide to
implementing online collaboration tools successfully.
It’s time for project teams to explore how online collaboration tools can help them to
communicate faster, work virtually with people across the globe, and get better business results.
“As project managers, we can no longer just manage our project details; schedule, budget,
quality, scope. Yes, they do need to be managed, but it is becoming much more than that.
One must, as Elizabeth says “create collaborative environments where people can do their
best work….” That environment will not only make the project manager more effective, but
will make the project more successful, something we all strive for. In her book, Collaboration
Tools for Project Managers, Elizabeth does just that; help the project manager use all the
collaborative tools available. She defines the tools, provides the reasoning behind their
effectiveness, and how to use them for their maximum value. Elizabeth also provides a
roadmap to a myriad of resources as well as inviting the reader into the conversation. This
book is a must read for all project managers who want to be more effective, and I believe
that is what we all want.”
David Shirley, PMP, author, educator, and

Cleland Project Management Literature Award Winner

65

Communicating Change

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Communicating Change

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﻿

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About the author 7

1 How Change Makes People Feel 12

2 The Foundations for Communicating Change 22

3 Thinking About Audiences 31

4 Planning Your Communication 42

5 Deliver and Evaluate 53

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More Books From Elizabeth Harrin 63

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Connect with Elizabeth online

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You picked up this book because:

Congratulations, you are in the right place!

You’ll have your project team working to deliver the change.

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How To Use This Book

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1 HOW CHANGE MAKES

What Is Change Management?

Today, change management is – or should be – embedded in everything we do that shifts

In this book we define change management as:

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• Define the organizational change required to convert outputs into benefits

Simple, isn’t it?

Tools For Change Management

• Readiness assessments: Understanding where the organization and individuals are

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Change Management Is Not Project Management

¾¾ Project management is about installation.

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Project Management Change Management

Primarily focuses on installation Primarily focuses on implementation

Focuses on the plan Focuses on the people

Has a clear timeline May not have a clear timeline

Feels organizational or corporate Feels personal

Table 1.1: Comparing project management and change management

Why Do People Resist Change?

Finally, someone’s willingness to take on a new change is influenced by their experience

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Recognizing Resistance To Change

Watch out for:

• People who don’t turn up to meetings.

What Happens When People Resist Change?

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Look For The Good In Resistance

The Benefits of Reducing Resistance To Change

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In addition, companies with high effectiveness in change management and communication

So how do you do it?

How To Manage Resistance To Change

Here are 5 things you can do to manage resistance to change.

2. Assume One Person’s Problem Is Everyone’s Problem

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4. Allow Adequate Time

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1 How Change Makes People Feel 12

2 The Foundations for Communicating Change 22

4 Planning Your Communication 42

1 HOW CHANGE MAKES

2 THE FOUNDATIONS FOR