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There is an excellent Communicating Strategy at the core of any successful change management process. The more change there is going to be afterward the greater the need – and particularly in regards to the strategies, the benefits, the reasons and planned ramifications of the change. It’s important that the effective communication strategy is defined and actioned when you possibly can and then properly maintained for the period of the change management programme.

There are 2 aspects to a change management communication strategy the balance between information content and emotional resonance; and second the phase of the initiative, in other words before and during.

The structural IC campaigns and content facet of your communications

You will gain considerably from the subject of a programme-based approach to handling and directing your change initiative, as your communication strategy will be based around the following:

– Stakeholder map and analysis [everyone who will be affected by the change as well as your evaluations of these impacts and their reactions ]

– Blueprint [ statement and the clear definition of the organization that is changed ]

– Vision statement and pre-programme planning process [ the follow up pre-planning process and also the high level vision to unpack the vision and analyse the impacts ]

– Programme plan [the steps which are taken to produce the changes and get the benefits – a schedule of projects and jobs and initiatives ]

The essential FACTUAL questions your communication strategy need to address

and to what degree of detail?

– What are the key used to disseminate information?

– Who are you trying be supported?

What advice a result of feedback?

– What are the aims?

– How much information is going to be supplied, messages?

– What mechanisms will likely be used

The crucial PSYCHOLOGICAL questions that the communication strategy should address

In terms of the emotional resonance facet of the communications, John Kotter makes the point that great change leaders are great at telling visual stories with high emotional impact. Kotter exemplifies this the anecdote of Martin Luther King who failed to stand up facing the Lincoln Memorial and say: “I have a great strategy” and illustrate it with 10 good reasons why it was a good strategy.

William Bridges focuses on facet of the change and the psychological and emotional impact – and poses these 3 simple questions:

(1) What is altering? Bridges offers the next guidance – the change leader’s communication statement must:- Certainly express the change leader’s understanding and intention

– Link the change to the drivers making it necessary

– “Sell the situation before you try to market the alternative.”

– Be under 60 seconds

(2) What will actually be distinct because of the change? Bridges says: “I go into organizations where a change initiative is well underway, and I ask what will differ when the change is done-and no one can answer the question… a change may seem really significant and very real to the leader, but to the individuals who must make it work it appears fairly subjective and obscure until genuine differences it will make begin to eventually become clear… the drive to get those differences clear should be an important priority on the coordinators’ list of things to do.”

(3) Who’s going to lose what? Bridges maintains that the situational changes are not as problematic for firms to make as the psychological transitions of the people affected by the change. Transition direction is focused on seeing the specific situation through the opinion of the other guy. It truly is an outlook centered on empathy. It’s direction and communicating process that affirms and recognises people’s realities and works with them to bring them.

5 guiding principles of a great change management communication strategy

So, in summation the 5 directing principles of a great change management communication strategy are as follows:

– Exact targeting – the psychological tone and delivery

– Timing schedule – to reach the right individuals with all the correct message

– Feedback process – to achieve timely targeting of messages

Failure reasons in change management are many and changed. But one thing is clear.

The root cause of all this failure is a lack of communication as well as lack of clarity. This is what a Programme Direction based method of change is about and why it so important.