It is crucial for you to start each of your major change communication programs by showing how the changes are caused directly by pressures in the external business environment. This conveys important authenticity to your employees. They can perceive these pressures for themselves, becoming aware of what is happening elsewhere. Otherwise, they will invariably have doubts about your messaging when you start communicating at the team and individual level. Therefore, you need to set ...
Read moreThe ultimate objective of most communication activities is to change behavior. To achieve an employee behavior change, many communicators work on the principle that they need to change employee attitudes first. It is therefore mostly better to focus on attempting to directly change employees’ behavior. Even if attitudes are changed, habits may be too strong to break and therefore behavior may not change. And if behavior does change, it may take a while to ...
Read moreThe global financial recession affected corporations in every country. Global corporations have been hit by the economic downturn everywhere. To survive and pave the way for future success, corporations tightened their belts and try to change strategy in order to ride out the pressures. DuPont is one of those corporations. The company was really hit in September 2008 when the financial system in the United States came close to collapse. Sales in some DuPont ...
Read moreGood communication is essential to successful mergers and acquisitions. The communication role needs to begin during the preliminary stages to set the scene. Too often the communication starts too late and doesn't deal sufficiently with the post-merger integration issues. Mergers and acquisitions go through three broad phases. As part of an AT Kearney global survey, the question, "Which phase bears the greatest risk of failure?", brought the following response: Strategy development, target shortlisting, due ...
Read moreThe past few years have seen organizations everywhere struggling with tough economic conditions. As a result, almost every industry has its draining experiences of restructuring, cost saving and efficiency programs intended to prepare organizations to return to growth. One of the toughest tasks for internal communicators is trying to translate organizational strategy to dispersed workforces – in other countries, states, regions, cities, functions or business units. Employees need to understand how their own efforts ...
Read moreSenior insurance executive Rob Borden thought he had all the bases covered in his plan to make sweeping changes to his company’s health insurance policies and procedures. New legislation meant it was important to make the changes. He had carefully briefed all managers about the changes and had launched the program with a catchy slogan. But it became obvious a large number of employees were resisting change – the program was heading towards a ...
Read moreSummary of article by Morten Hansen - "Ten ways to get people to change" - in the Harvard Business Review, 21 September 2012. Professor Hansen is an expert in change management. How do you get leaders, employees, customers — and even yourself — to change behaviors? Executives can change strategy, products and processes until they're blue in the face, but real change doesn't take hold until people actually change what they do. Some recent ...
Read moreThese days we all recognize that we have to change individually and organizationally to keep abreast with the forces of change. This is a continual requirement in our world today. Some top communicators even say the most important role of communicators is to aid change. Change management is notoriously hard to achieve. To use ourselves as an example, it is extremely difficult to break the habits of a lifetime. I’ve just experienced that at ...
Read moreMost professional communicators are aware of the downsides of downsizing. The employees who leave are usually disgruntled and those who remain are often unproductive. Dealing with low staff morale is a major issue for management and the PR staff. Unfortunately, research shows that many retrenchment ('reform') programs aren’t successful. Companies speak of the need to reduce costs, but many find that cutting costs through layoffs is a fruitless strategy as the organisation loses many ...
Read moreThe findings of a study into organizational downsizing indicate the types of communication that employees prefer during troubled times. The research was valuable because few studies have investigated the perspective of those affected while they are in the midst of turmoil. Downsizing is the planned, intended reduction in personnel in an organization. Retrenchments take place, the organization shrinks and is restructured. The purpose is to change processes and decrease size to improve efficiency and ...
Read moreBias may seem a vague concept for business, but people's biases cause massive errors in business decisions, including communication decisions.
Testimonials are a classic way to create perceptions of authentic value to customers and clients. Sample testimonial: Other thoughts for
Presenting to senior executives is a daunting proposition. They are extremely busy and have to make many decisions under