Change Management: Communication is vital!

Everyday there are media reports about mergers and acquisitions, reduction in the work force and restructurings of companies. Once an exception, change has become an everyday issue – especially in economically rough times. Today, change is – bizarre as it may seem – an on-going process. It is multi-facetted, involves all parts of a company and may affect anyone at any time. In this process, communication management is vital for the success of the operation.

Human beings are known to be creatures of habit. Usually they react with scepticism when confronted with something new. The reason: Change brings with it incertitude, the familiar coordinates are taken away, people regard a change in their routine as a possible threat. Often, this makes employees less willing to participate actively in the change process. In this situation, a professional communication management is vital for the success of change. There is no “patent remedy”, because every change process has its individual challenges. Nevertheless, there are some basic aspects to pay attention to when communicating change:

Common Mistakes

A survey run by the  German research centre Emnid underlines the importance of communication in change processes: More than 80 percent of change projects are bound to fail due to mistakes in communication. This is not surprising: Very often, there seems to be no common understanding of the challenges, no common set of values and, therefore, there is no common basis for communication within the company.

Moreover, the overall time frame and schedule of change communication seems to be triggering failure: Change is either communicated too early, too late or too soon within the process. When employees get the news about a change directly affecting them from the media first, they tend to interpret this as betrayal. If management decisions are badly explained and remain incomprehensible, people may feel  left out. This atmosphere is a major source for the spreading of rumours that may become harmful to the process and difficult to stop.

So what does this mean – effective communication management in change processes? First of all, it is not only concerned with the hard facts and figures, but includes the “soft factors”. Those affected by change must be prepared by transparent, timely and comprehensive communication.

Social Media – A New Tool in Change Processes

Social Media have been part of change communication for quite a while. Due to a recent survey of the University of Stuttgart more than 40 per cent of the respondents have personal experiences with Social Media (two years ago, it was only 20 per cent). Most popular in the context of change communication are online surveys, virtual communities and wikis.

The advantages of using Social Media in change processes are evident: timeliness, improved networking, user generated contents and dialogue functions get those affected by the change involved into the process. It is the people themselves that become active participants in the change project. At the same time, these new tools provide new challenges: Using Social Media means following their own rules. Only those that stick to the rules of Web 2.0 can profit from the potential of Social Media in change projects.

First of all, one must remember: Not everyone is a “digital native”! There are still quite a number of people around – especially the older members of staff – that prefer classical communication to Web 2.0. Therefore, Social Media cannot replace traditional communication; they are but one tool more within the communication mix. Newsletters, personal interviews and meetings are still – despite all the hype about Social Media – the “agent of choice” in business communication.

Successful Communication

There are three aspects to make change communication successful:

1. Strategy
   What are the overall objectives of the change process?
2. Corporate Culture
   What type of employees are needed in the new company? What kind of environment do they need to be productive?
3. Organisation
   How shall the new company be structured? Which communication instruments are required at which point in time? And what are the main messages?

The more confident a company is and the more it integrates people into the process, the more will employees be willing to trust their employer. And this means that change will be more easily accepted.

Five Success Factors of Change Communication

1.    Timely information policy!
Those in charge and employees must be informed on a regular and up-to-date basis. This helps to maintain the credibility of the board.

2.    Emotionalisation!
Good communication appeals to heart and soul – facts alone cannot counter fear.

3.    Customised Messages!
Define separate messages for individual target groups within the change process.

4.    Communication means Dialogue!
Dialogue must be in the centre of all communication – one-way functions will not do.

5.    Communication is Top Priority!
The will to change must be visibly supported by the whole board and must have a high priority. This includes setting practical examples by individual behaviour.

Dr. Thorsten Hofmann is academic director of the MBA programme “Public Affairs & Politics” of Quadriga Hochschule Berlin (www.quadriga.eu). He is managing director of PRGS consultancy (www.prgs.de) and chairman of the “Crisis Task Force” of the international communication network ECCO International Public Relations Ltd.

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How to overcome the economic downturn?

Talking to some of my friends in the PR industry across Europe the other day, we started comparing notes on the impact the current economic situation is having on our respective businesses. We also talked about how much PR 2.0 is actually being applied in our respective markets.

The economic downturn seems to be a double edge sword. Some agencies have been severely affected, while others, like ours, have gotten away relatively unscratched so far. The effects do not seem to be market specific. There are agencies doing really well and others not so much in any given country. At Marco de Comunicación for instance we enjoyed a stellar year with a 60% billing increase in 2008 following the same growth in 2007. At closure of the third quarter we are actually looking at growth even for 2009, despite a very severe first quarter with plenty of budget cuts.

There does not seem to be a sector specific crisis either. Those with real estate or financial services clients have of course been hit harder, but apart from that it is a quite uneven playing field. Some agencies lost clients or saw budgets being cut in technology and healthcare PR, while others experienced this with consumer campaigns or corporate social responsibility projects. Yet, other agencies have been growing in those same specific sectors. Which bears the question, is it all down to just luck?

Maybe a bit, but certainly not entirely. When having a closer look at the Spanish PR Agency market one can see an acceleration effect. Those agencies that were doing average in past couple of years with slow, flat or negative growth have been hit hardest, while agencies that are making a difference, that deliver great results and award winning campaigns for their clients seem to continue to grow or are at least stable.

There are agencies that actually take advantage of the crisis to invest: in the quality of their teams, in training and development and in fair bonus based retribution. There are agencies that are broadening their horizons, by incorporating PR 2.0 tools in the communication plans for their clients and that believe in multiplatform strategies. Not just in traditional media relations. In short, agencies that are truly focused on stakeholder relationship building, driving sales and building reputations.

In Spain and in the rest of Europe, especially continental Europe, most PR agencies are still entrenched in traditional media relations. At Marco de Comunicación we left that behind a long time ago. Building key relationships with B2B and B2C bloggers, coming up with clever seeding campaigns in social networks and online forums or delivering surprising viral marketing campaigns, managing online communities, these are all part of a communication outreach that seeks to alter, improve or boost brands or corporate reputations. That seeks to drive traffic and / or  sales.

However not all clients are ready for the so-called digital PR. Some clients have never heard of Twitter, podcasts or social network groups. But that’s OK. It is up to their agencies to lead the way. Not by selling stand alone applications, but by incorporating these tools in campaign styled communication plans. It helps to see a clever strategy being implemented across the board. To see campaign ideas that actually create news in traditional and digital media and with the online communities. And of course, to have a great return on investment. This is why communication plans, while ideally having a yearlong ongoing outreach, should incorporate specific short term campaigns. Campaigns that become drivers to achieve specific objectives.

Because frankly, if there are results, if there is a return on investment, budget cuts will not happen so easily. Even more, budgets might be increased by clever clients who see the current economic climate as an opportunity.

Those agencies that get it right, that deliver results, that go beyond the traditional media relations and incorporate online PR in the communication plans of their clients, are the ones that continue to thrive even in these difficult times. Wherever in Europe. Whatever the industry sector

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An Age of Transformation

Wow, we made it to the end of the year! Never in my professional life I have seen so much value go up in smoke as in 2008 and 2009. The credit crunch and economic crises have hit us hard. Some economies more than others. And now what? Are we going back to the old ways or has something changed? Have we learnt anything? Are we now open to a new level of consciousness, to new ways of thinking? And what are the implications for communications? Content and media. Let me explain.

Last year, I followed the workings of banks and financial services firms in our part of the world closely. Multinationals and local players. My impression is that they are all recovering from near death experiences and heavy injuries. And now their natural reflex seems to be to return to old habits. Shifting product and looking for big margins to satisfy shareholders, playing at being the ‘ big boys’ again. And saying how important it is to regain consumer trust. Their reputations are shattered. Nobody trusts them anymore. Taxpayers across the Netherlands (and in many other countries too!) underwrote and financed the banks’ failures by injecting over €100 billion into the financial system. And rightly, citizens now expect them to serve society. President Obama just said this explicitly in his recent speech to bankers in the USA. It is time to transform and serve. That’s good company practice!

And if bankers, insurance companies and other established institutions don’t change by themselves, they will be forced by business sense or an innate sense of business survival – and transformed over the coming decades. The power is definitely shifting from supply to demand. We’ve seen this coming for years. And now, finally, it’s here. The 21^st century may have begun 10 years late but consumers, citizens and professional customers are now able to organize themselves, to unite their needs and ignite the power of new coalitions. Just one example: non-smokers and vegetarians collaborate to construct a low-cost life insurance for people with the lowest risk of heart-disease. Just think of the potential – zillions of other coalitions! The power of hidden potential. It is no longer the decisive power of numbers and the uninformed. We are racing down the future highway with empowered, informed, techno-savvy individuals who know how to connect. We are moving from the typical 20^th century ‘shotgun in the dark’ approach to the focused, pin-point laser-beam networked economy. Flash insights. Synaptic dimensions. Driving it? The internet of course.  New smart applications, new associations, new groups, new collaborative tools and as much bandwidth as you can handle. It enables individuals to become powerful. Together I am strong. That’s the mantra for the next 10 years. Rabobank, the good old cooperative Netherlands bank, has this at the heart of its strategy.

Organizations, brands, governments and their leaders should facilitate this. Bring the power and competences of their organizations into a totally connected world. Empower people and businesses and you’ll move up the value chain. Acting with a distinctive performance and delivering value in a loosely coupled layer that surfs on top of their generic infrastructures. Almost utilities. Soft humming computer centres, totally efficient and 24/7 reliable. The future is for the ‘connectors’, those individuals, directors and leaders that bring new coalitions to the stage. Social media are great. Guiding and educating people to unleash the potential of this whole new dimension is the challenge for professional communicators. Fully open and fully transparent in what you bring to, and take from, the table. Unfettered access to a world of digital information and practical business opportunities. A respected citizen contributing to society. And that is exactly where it all began. Happy 2010!

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