Change Management is more than sending out a few messages before go-live. However, communicating constant and varied communication is a significant component of any adoption effort, and adoption is a critical component of any implementation.
So often, we fail on our projects because we send the wrong messages to the wrong people at the wrong times. In their recent blog in the Gallop Business Journal, David Leonard and Claude Coltea address this specific issue.
The authors remind us that by over-focusing on front-line employees, who are inundated with many messages from many sources each day, our messages, along with many others, get lost in the shuffle. While it is important to communicate with front-line employees at specific and critical points in a project, we’re better off directing a majority of our communications to the managers, whose primary job is the activity of their front-line employees. These managers can provide an appropriate filter as they already have the front-line employees’ ears, are able to focus their employees on specific actions and are ultimately accountable for delivering on those actions.
Organizations today are challenged to do more with less. While an overused phrase, the fact remains that more things are being hurled at employees each and every day, with change being but one of the many items that are being shot-gunned to end users. However, change initiatives may be the most important (and hardest) of the items for employees to grasp, and so our communications must be powerful, comprehendible, and most importantly, simply received. The importance of sending the right message to the right audience at the right time cannot be emphasized enough.
Do you find yourself in situations where your messages just are not getting through? Are there times where, despite your best efforts, you find that awareness and action by your target audience is just lacking? If so, this message may be an important one for you to consider.
Change Management – Are you targeting the right audience?
by David Chapman on March 24th, 2014 | ~ minute read
