Communicating change: don’t just let your fi ngers do the talking!

People hate change, or so the common wisdom tells us. But maybe it’s not change, but the way we communicate it. Having worked both inside and outside of IT, I’ve always held the belief that the infamous chaos report – saying that 70 per cent of IT projects crash and burn – is really about the significant human resources challenges within the IT profession. Being unkind (and I generalise), many of today’s technologists were probably the studious, albeit slightly nerdy, class of the ’70s-80s, who were attracted to the relatively safe world of the ‘back room’ technology shop. Where once they were ridiculed for their intellect and introversion, suddenly they found that they had respect and now drove better cars than the school-yard ‘jocks’ that tormented them!There is an element of an academic culture pervading IT. It’s not a job – it’s a calling! It almost feels like a campus, and I guess in many ways IT is a meritocracy where knowledge has mana attached to it. As in academia, people appear to be drawn to the opportunities to use and master new or emerging tools and techniques as much as any potential financial gains. You will also find that people have taken quite different journeys into your average IT shop: Some via computer science degrees; many via the business; and others from an eclectic list of other careers.So you have quite a diverse mix of people – a melting pot – that you need to lead! Put all of these characteristics together and you get what I believe is the most challenging group of people to lead, and one of the most difficult environments to introduce change to. Concurrently, you also have a pool of people who are inherently short of natural leaders. Can you see the problem? Fifty per cent of the success of internal communication comes down to leaders as communicators. Can you now see the communication problem IT has? An over-reliance on electronic media to communicate change is one reason why organisations can experience low employee engagement and high turn-over. Even when research tells us that face-to-face communication from leaders is critical, it continues to amaze me how many organisations keep relying on emails and an intranet to have important ‘conversations’ with their employees. But that’s just part of the problem. Organisations commonly let themselves down on three fronts: they rely too much on electronic communication to the exclusion of face-to-face; they don’t adequately equip the lowest-level-of-leader (LLoL) to play a key role in communication; and they often communicate in a foreign language – management-speak.Even with the best intranet and email communication, it’s not uncommon to only get 50–70 per cent cut-through on your electronic communication: people are busy and ignore emails or intranet news; or information is poorly planned and structured and people haven’t the time to get through it. That’s a big chunk of the workforce that misses out. Electronic communication is favoured because it theoretically reaches the entire IT group simultaneously and it’s an easy option (particularly if the leader is an introverted, ex-developer who finds him or herself leading a team of self-indulgent techies). However, most IT groups don’t measure the readership or – more importantly – the level of understanding. If this information were available, the IT management team would appreciate that people aren’t necessarily hanging out for the next email from the CIO.Meanwhile on the shop floor, the ‘lowest level of leader’ – typically a lead developer or team leader – is grabbing the lion’s share of employee attention and getting bombarded with questions. These hierarchically-junior leaders should be the powerhouse of internal communication: they know the people within their team, they command people’s attention and they can tailor the organisational messages for local relevance. But they are not. Typically, many IT shops still overlook these people when planning communication, instead putting the effort into a CIO Forum.  Probably from a combination of lack of trust, ego, or ignorance – on the part of management – these key leaders are effectively ‘unplugged’ from the communications plan. The end result is that although their interactions continue, they’re often wasted opportunities in terms of being a vehicle to deliver key organisational messages about the change. Unscripted, it’s down to the calibre of the leader in terms of how effective these interactions are.Even organisations that actively support these leaders to communicate change let themselves down by providing messages full of hollow corporate-speak. How do you translate classics like “employer of first choice”, “transformational change”, or “an agile organisation” into something that has meaning for a group of people used to stripping down information into things of meaning? These LLoLs are interpreters, converting organisational messages into ones that are locally relevant and comprehensible to the various teams across IT. How can this happen if the CIO foregoes plain English in favour of a stream of Dilbert-esque management buzzwords? Organisational communication should not be another round of ‘management bingo’ or an exercise in academic showmanship. It should be about employee engagement. The end result is typically a poorly implemented change management programme and an IT team not engaged to the level required to successfully implement the change you want.

My advice: ?    Plan your key messages and write them in plain English. Think about the audience, the objectives of the communication and the messages you need to get across. Then write them in a language that your next-door neighbour would understand (I’m assuming they’re not a PHD!)?    Build in time for leaders to digest the communications before your change initiative gets launched. It’s funny how many organisations get me in and say, “Right, we want to communicate this change in four weeks.” Then all of a sudden it’s, “We’re going to do it Friday.” Communicating change is a continuous process not a single event.?    Tailor messages. Run workshops where senior IT managers present the change strategy to the wider group of leaders and then spend time getting these leaders to workshop through how they will tailor the messages for their teams. Have them practise it. This means they go away clear about the messages and the rationale for change, they are prepared and practised and they feel better able to talk in language that's relevant to their people. ?    Provide 1-Up support. Where you have ineffective leaders, provide a senior leader to co-deliver the communication.?    Get out there. Manage by walking around and insist that all leaders do the same. This is the best way to make it two-way communication and test that your messages are being interpreted the way you expect.So don’t always let your fingers do your talking when your message really needs to be delivered from your mouth or through the mouths of your leaders. And remember... you can’t email a conversation!