Effective Change Communication

Veit Etzold

• Publisher: GABAL Verlag
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9783967401417
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

Change has become a bone of contention in organisations in recent years. The reality is, however, that any business seeking to survive in a VUCA world must master the accompanying challenges: digital transformation, changing customer behaviour and more. Moreover, the success of any new strategy depends on successful storytelling. Only with the right communication is it possible to get all stakeholders in a company - from the body of employees to the board of directors - pulling in the same direction and realising the necessary changes with full force.

This guidebook explains why people are naturally averse to change, how to develop a clear change strategy, how to find the right story for the right stakeholders and how to use metaphors to bring a story to life and convince your audience.

1.Change is a ‘necessary evil’

When it comes to the subject of change, leadership coaches and retired managers are fond of propagating a rose-tinted picture: that employees exist in a state of perpetual impatience for the next organizational change. Unfortunately, this is something of a fallacy. People are creatures of habit, and so long as their current reality is in some way tolerable, they see no need for major upheaval. The saying ‘If it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ is not only one beloved of IT departments around the world. Yet whatever we feel about it, the fact of the matter is that organizations must engage in ongoing change in order to remain viable. Moreover, such change should not only be triggered as a last resort and fire-fighting measure, since if this is the case, it is probable that any willingness for change will be hindered by a lack of resources to actually achieve it. Equally misguided is the belief that change and transformation were made necessary only by the advent of digitalization. Successful companies and organizations have been evolving constantly for hundreds of years, and successful change has been decisive for their survival.

1.1Strategy and change

There is an old saying in the consultancy business that ‘those who refuse to change will be changed whether they like it or not.’ More succinctly: ‘Have lunch or be lunch.’ If a company has a pioneering product, it can dominate the market for many years – but if it clings too steadfastly to its previous accomplishments, it may be precisely this antiquated formula for success that leads to its demise. Consider, for example, how French knights’ heavy armour – so advantageous in hand-to-hand combat – became an instant liability with the innovation of the crossbow bolt. Whenever a bolt would penetrate the metal plating, the knight would be pinned helplessly to the ground due to the metal’s weight.

An uncomfortable world

Thanks to digitalization, the rapid pace of technological advancement, the effects of networking and the emergence of new powers (China and others), the average lifespan of a company is shorter than ever before. Most fail to make it to half the lifespan of the average human (Senge, 1990, p.17). Pentagon strategists speak of a ‘VUCA world’: one characterized by volatility (fluctuating trends, increasing numbers of crises, 1998, 2001, 2007, 2010 …), uncertainty (Trump, Brexit), complexity (global networks) and ambiguity (e.g. Facebook, where the ‘customer’ is also a provider of data, and thus their role is complex and multifaceted).

In a recent interview with the author, Peter Gerber, CEO of Lufthansa Cargo, named what he sees as the greatest challenges for senior managers (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OSjtDNPCjI&t=439s=). These were:

a) the need to set out a coherent strategy;

b) the need to be able to adapt this strategy to a great number of different stakeholders without compromising its coherence; and

c) the need – both before the strategy is implemented, and during it – to be able to make far-reaching decisions on a frequent basis, under high time pressure and without an adequate pool of data.

No-one can deny that we live in uncomfortable times. It is better, then, to effect change of our own volition than to wait for a competitor to serve us up for lunch. Strategy plays a fundamental role in this proactive approach, since it crystallizes the way in which we intend to meet a certain goal.

Strategy as the path to the goal

Strategy lays out the way in which we plan to achieve a goal. If we want to reach the top of a mountain, we can hike there, take a cable car or parachute down onto the summit. Just as with a company strategy, the strategy is based on the opportunities available. The parachute is the quickest method, but is also the most expensive. Hiking up the mountain, on the other hand, is cheap and good for fitness. A good strategy is not just aligned to the goal, but tailored to those who wish to achieve it.

Within a strategy, the individual measures that form the path to the goal are the tactical steps. In the above example, the first step might be to look for a pair of hiking boots. The second might be to gather equipment; the third might be to set out on the route. In many cases, the individual tactical steps do not immediately reveal the broader strategic goal. If you boarded an aircraft and jumped out of it with a parachute, onlookers would be unlikely to guess that your intention was to reach the summit. In the business world, such ambiguity might usefully be pursued deliberately so as to confuse your competitors about your intentions. Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and a pioneer of strategy as a discipline, defined strategy as the subtle, long-range management of a system over a lengthy period. Some 2500 years ago, Chinese military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu had already articulated the same idea: “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

Examples of change and strategy

In the context of strategic studies, corporate strategy refers to everything that takes place on the holding level. This could, for example, be the decision to go public (see Uber), the decision to enter brick-and-mortar retail (see Amazon), the decision to rethink a product line (see German meat producer Rügenwalder Mühle’s plans to begin offering vegetarian sausages), the decision to participate in a company acquisition (see Monsanto’s acquisition by Bayer for 50 billion euros in 2016), the decision to found a joint venture (see the partnership deal signed between Lufthansa and Air China in 2016) or the decision to enter a new market (see the US market launch of car rental company Sixt a few years ago). Below the holding level are various strategic business units (SBUs) whose remits are defined by the business strategy. Let’s take the example of an automotive supplier. The ‘Production’ unit may decide to outsource parts of its production operations to Romania, the ‘Procurement’ unit may decide to establish a global sourcing centre, and the ‘Marketing’ unit may decide to introduce a new customer relationship management (CRM) system for its customers.

All of these examples have one thing in common: they involve changes that are uncomfortable and unwelcome for many involved. Because of this, these changes must be decisively and sustainably anchored among the leaders and employees who will be required to carry them out.

The art of persuasion: communicating with employees

In many cases, your tactical steps should be executed such that they are not apparent to your competitors. Within your own organization, it’s a different story – which is to say, it’s vital to take your employees with you. You must always be able to persuade others of what you want to achieve. The Ancient Romans differentiated between potestas, the power held by officials by virtue of their office, and auctoritas, the natural authority possessed by certain individuals that caused others to want to follow them. If you rely on the power of your office to drive people in your desired direction, ‘good’ employees will quickly become frustrated. ‘Bad’ employees will pretend that they have changed, but will actually carry on in much the same vein. So, what’s the alternative?

If you want to win support for a new idea, you have three broad options:

Money: this route is readily pursued in, for example, the investment banking sector, where rainmakers are poached from one bank by another. Long term, however, this is a very expensive approach.

Violence: I call this the ‘Don Corleone approach’ after the legendary Godfather character. Faced with a film producer who refuses to sign a contract, Corleone offers his classic pitch: either the producer’s brains or his signature will be on the document. Of course, such an approach is highly ethically dubious and almost certain not to result in long-term success.

The third way – communication: In addition to being the obvious choice, this is the only one with the capability to deliver lasting success.

Everyone talks, no-one listens

According to a study by academic Henry Mintzberg, leaders spend 80 per cent of their time engaged in oral communication. At the same time, they perceive 80 per cent of this oral communication to be dull and uninspiring. When we multiply these numbers, we find that 64 per cent of a manager’s time is devoted to ‘boring’ communication in which few to no messages are actually heard. Little wonder, then, that many initiatives grind to a halt or fail to pick up speed – and ultimately end up as nothing more than a deck of PowerPoint slides in a cupboard.

Bear in mind: it is quite possible that employees will not listen to you or will not understand what you say. If this is the case, they will inevitably also fail to be convinced by what you are suggesting.

Storytelling as a tool

Irrespective of what you want to achieve, you must tell a story. Communication cannot exist in a vacuum. If you fail to tell a positive story about your project, others will be quick to step in with a negative one. I...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1. Change is a ‘necessary evil’
• 2. The change story
• 3. Allies for your change project
• 4. Explaining change clearly
• You’ve read the book – now it’s time for change
• Fast Reader
• About the Author
• Further Reading