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The leadership challenge in asking for input from a broad range of employees is not to build unrealistic expectations that all their ideas will be used in the plan. This challenge can be met by clarifying expectations and by dealing with suggestions in a fair and thorough manner. Here are some steps to consider:

? In announcing the call for ideas, make it clear that while employee input is important to any organization, many ideas are never implemented, no matter where they come from.

? Set up a process for recording each suggestion received, along with the person submitting it. Be sure some sort of acknowledgment follows, either from the CEO or from the person in charge of the program. A hand-signed message, even if the message is canned, works best.

? Keep on communicating the invitation to participate and give input, what’s been adopted so far, and how important the effort is.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

“The lesson of systemic reform is to look for those strategies that are most likely to mobilize large numbers of people in new directions.” Michael Fullan.

An organization can get a jump start on building ownership in change goals if it involves a diverse array of people early on. When organizations create broad-based task forces to develop transition plans, they are hedging their bets on subsequent buy-in to the plans.

Many organizations choose to actively involve frontline managers and employees in taking the planning process to the operational level. The process provides a chance for employees to have a say in shaping the new organization.

Almost any major transition gives birth to a “new organization,” and those assisting in the birth can take special pride in their roles. The best way to build ownership in the new organization is to get people working together to define what the new organization should look like.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Figure 7-4. Ways to enhance change communication effectiveness for supervisors.

? Invite, rather than direct, them to play a special communications role in making the transition a success.
? Emphasize the importance of both delivering and receiving (and passing on) critical communication.
? Consult with them early, and let them know you’re seeking their advice.
? Solicit their counsel on means and timing of critical announcements.
? Use them as sounding boards for key message development.
? Provide them with appropriate “speaker support”: charts, schedules, and message points they can use, translate, and embroider.
? Give them access to reliable, current information, including “privileged” information (and let them know it’s privileged).
? Ask them for ongoing feedback on communication effectiveness and provide a channel for it; consider regular focus groups or town hall meetings for supervisors only.
? Thank them: Provide whatever reward and recognition you feel appropriate, but do something.

Change communication needs to be carried out as a shared responsibility among all levels of organizational leadership. It also should be both centralized and decentralized. Communication should be centralized (and broadcast) to reliably convey content and key messages. Communication should be decentralized to make it more understandable and credible and to allow employees to feel more comfortable in asking questions and offering feedback. Broadcast communication needs to reflect what the organization knows about people’s issues and concerns. Decentralized, face-to-face communication needs to be accurate and consistent with key message points so that people don’t get confused.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

In the past five years or so, most companies we’ve worked with agree in principle with giving supervisors a key role in communicating new developments. What they don’t all do, however, is carry out a communication plan to prepare supervisors to want and be able to deliver the news. There are indeed companies that have done this well. In our experience, these include AlliedSignal, American Red Cross Biomedical Services, Levi-Strauss, and SBC.

All provided special orientation sessions for various levels of leadership in advance of a major transition. These briefings often contained some presentation skills training for middle and frontline management. As a communication strategy to align the workforce with an organization’s transition goals, using managers who are closer to the frontline operations of the organization and to the bulk of the workforce just makes sense. See Figure 7-4 for steps that senior leaders can take to maximize the effectiveness of these operations managers.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

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Simultaneously, MidAmerican leadership made a set of promises to its employees. Earlier, employee councils had cautioned leaders, “Don’t go making another set of promises you can’t keep. We’ve heard that before.” Their advice to leadership was to think of this new set of “promises” as commitments, to be invested in seriously. And commitments they became, headed by the statement, “You support the customer. We’ll support you.”

1. We’ll provide you a safe, rewarding work environment.
2. We’ll get you the resources and support you need to best serve our customers.
3. We’ll tell you clearly and reasonably what our expectations are and how you can meet them.
4. As the marketplace and our industry evolve, we’ll tell you what we are doing to prepare and why.7

Top-to-Bottom Alignment
Planning for change typically does not yield a cleanly drawn blueprint, but rather a set of goals and ideas for how to achieve them. The extent to which leadership communication can create continuity and alignment with these goals is usually contingent on which and how many management levels are involved in the communication process. T. J. Larkin and Sandar Larkin cite years of research confirming the value of involving frontline supervisors in communicating change efforts. Given the reasonable potential for distrust in senior management’s communications about change, Larkin and Larkin suggest a different course. Instead of using the traditional top-down methods, organizations should strongly consider letting frontline supervisors deliver the news.8

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

We’ve seen several instances in which business organizations planned a major shift in market positioning (a “rebranding” initiative) but neglected to tell frontline employees until the last minute, or later. The situation is akin to a quarterback calling a play from a playbook that only he has read. It’s a design for a “busted play.” The rebranding strategy has attracted considerable interest since the 1990s, and organizations that succeeded with it did two things well. They described a new value proposition for customers and then they delivered on it. In other words, they made a promise, and their employees successfully kept that promise. Where rebranding has worked, it has involved leaders calling new signals that teammates understood and could execute.

Rewriting the Playbook for Everyone
In the late 1990s, MidAmerican Energy decided that the best strategy for enhancing its competitive status was to reenergize its focus on customers and customer service. “Putting a face” on an energy company is not an easy task, since most customers only consider their energy supplier when something goes wrong or when they have to pay a bill. MidAmerican launched an ambitious campaign
built around a set of specific customer promises:

1. I’ll do the job right . . . and then some.
2. I’ll be here when you need me.
3. I’ll respect your property, neighbor.
4. I’ll respect your time and won’t waste it.
5. I’ll teach your kids about energy safety and help us all stay safe.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

When 3M decided to spin off a part of its data and computer services, a new company, Imation, was born. But giving birth wasn’t
easy. Morale in a workforce containing people who had grown up with 3M had plummeted after plans involving the spin-off were first announced. Many employees were angry.

One of the first tasks that Imation leadership faced was to reshape the operating units it inherited so they could hit the ground
running. Reshaping would involve a reduction in staff, based on business analysis of both present and future requirements. Imation’s leadership chose to make the situation as clear and plain as it could to the workforce in a series of face-to-face announcement meetings at seventy-four work sites around the world. Plans were presented and questions answered directly and honestly. Later, employees (and their families) received a “Welcome to Imation” information kit
that had been sent to their homes. After the launch events, senior leadership continued to deliver updates, with feedback opportunities, to employees electronically.6

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

It’s especially important that communication channels are wide open at these times. Leaders can err on the side of too much talk here, because the opposite, silence, or the perception of silence, erodes credibility and causes needless anxiety among employees. Hands-on, shirtsleeves-rolled-up visibility is critically important for leaders at any level in the organization. Leaders need to be accessible face to face, open to questions, and ready with answers. Where they don’t have answers, they need to be candid and, if possible, promise to get back to the questioner later.

CEO sightings are particularly important here: the more, the better. CEOs might not see this as a good use of their time, but consider the effectiveness of the employee grapevine in spreading any single personal communication to many other ears as well. Such informal, spontaneous exchanges with employees also enjoy a kind of offhand credibility that no memo, newsletter, or video ever could.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator