Using communication to ensure user buy-in

Communication is a vital but often overlooked element of your change-management toolkit. Planned and targeted effectively, it can help to win over even the most reluctant of users.

By Suzanne Vucurovic

Change is not always communicated effectively. Despite the proclaimed benefits of consultation and involvement, organisations still appear to be selective about who receives information or, even worse, simply impose change for change’s sake. A UK report conducted by business-psychology consultancy OPP Ltd in May 2004 found that more than 40 per cent of employees thought that change was either not communicated at all or only communicated once it was complete. The study identified that:

76 per cent of respondents said that change tended to be imposed, rather than discussed;
64 per cent said that, typically, only the opinions of senior management were sought when change was being planned;
21 per cent of respondents said that change initiatives are not communicated at all and only become known via the grapevine.

Effective communication is one of the most crucial and fundamental elements in your change-management toolkit, yet it is quite regularly forgotten. Innovation and change often mean increased uncertainty and a lack of order, predictability and stability. The more change there is, the more communication is necessary to counter uncertainty. Communication between the project team and staff is an essential element of change management. Another focus of the communication must be to sell the value of the project to management and staff, with the objectives of building realistic expectations and reducing resistance to the new system or technology.

Key points to address

Why it is necessary to change?
Employees are often left in the dark about the business reasons behind corporate change. I believe this is because the staff announcing the change have spent so much time studying the facts and immersing themselves in the project that it never occurs to them that their employees may be hearing about it for the first time. A clear vision for change helps staff see where the organisation wants to go and the value of the change. The vision should be expressed in a way that allows all staff in the organisation to understand, relate to, and see their role in achieving it. Once a vision is developed it must be communicated throughout the organisation so that management and employees can understand and buy in to it.

What is the precise aim/scope of the change?
Some changes may affect only a few individuals within the organisation, while others will have an impact on everyone. In either case, it’s best to end speculation at the beginning and communicate the precise aim or scope of the project. While you may be tempted to sugar-coat news, I would not recommend it. I have heard of many organisations that have tried to do this, only for the rumour mill to ruin what was a very simple change initiative.

When will the change be rolled out?
Staff need to have an approximate date when the change will start to affect them. We are often so focused on communicating the project’s aim and scope to achieve buy-in, that we don’t spend enough time embedding a date to the project or we attach a fluid date that seems to move out. If you can’t stick to the date, communicate why it has changed.

Who will be involved and in what capacity?
Everyone involved in proceedings needs to be completely visible from an organisational perspective. As well as communicating to the members of your project team, you need to think about other elements of the campaign. For example, who is in the steering committee or sponsoring the project.

How will the change affect the way employees currently work?
Along with providing information to staff about how the changes will affect their day to day functions, it is equally important to get their feedback on the project. Staff should be consulted to ensure their input and understanding of important decisions. It is vital that such feedback and consultation is acknowledged and that those consulted are aware of the outcomes that stem from this interaction. Focus groups are very effective, not only for collating frequently asked questions, but also in understanding the areas that staff may have concerns about.

How will this change initiative differ from previous ones within the organisation?
Every organisation has a history of project failures and successes. When answering this question it is important to link past project successes to your current initiative – which, of course, will be equally as successful. I was sent to one organisation to conduct a focus group and collate a list of questions (about a technological development) that staff needed to be addressed. When I joined as change manager, I was told that the whole office was behind the project and that there were no past project failures. I arrived to address a room full of people who were not only resistant to the change, but were also listing examples of previously failed projects. When I drilled down further the staff informed me that they thought the project would never get off the ground, as a similar one two years previously had been such a failure. I have since learnt that staff perceptions are the reality – do not act on the managers point of view alone.

What are the consequences of not implementing this change?
In addition to discussing what is prompting the change, managers should also share the various options that they considered and rejected before reaching the final decision. Often, staff are simply informed about a change and have no concept of the bigger picture that senior managers need to contend with – an increasingly competitive environment that is constantly evolving and changing to meet its objectives.

Identifying your communication channels
In order to have an effective communications plan you need to be guided by several fundamental principles:

Messages should be clearly linked to the strategic purpose of a change initiative – for example, cost saving or technological improvement. This will help establish an understanding of the need for change, while keeping staff motivated and on track throughout the process;
Communication should be realistic and honest. Glossing over negatives will create a belief that the message is not sincere. If you provide communication that is both positive and negative, staff will be more inclined to believe the message;
Communications must be proactive and not reactive. They should be planned in advance and begin early in the project, not half way through or in response to an outcry. This is why a well-formulated communications plan is in order;
Messages should be repeated consistently through varying channels. The number of communication channels that are at your disposal are limited only by your imagination, and maybe your budget.

Although I have used all of the communication channels that are mentioned in the sidebar, I would like to delve into three in more depth.

Communications group
Many change professionals focus on communicating at the top and hope that news will filter down to staff in the organisation – I’ve yet to see this work. At conferences, whenever I bring up the idea of forming a communications group (comprised of lower level staff within the organisation) I am amazed at the gasp from the audience. It makes sense to involve staff and give them a sense of ownership, as this will enable them to feel part of the project. Believe me, they will be your greatest advocates.

Short video
A ten to fifteen-minute promotional video is another communication mechanism that will capture the hearts and minds of the majority of your staff in any change effort. I have used short videos in three projects and all have been a success. In one, I had all senior management and staff using social networks showing the rest of the organisation how much pain they were in by continuing with the same old system. It was a part serious, part humorous appeal to managers and staff alike, and was talked about for many months after the screening. Did the message that change was needed get through? You bet it did.

Success storyboard
The success storyboard lists all the accomplishments of your project. You can place it as a bulletin board or allow access from your intranet site. The main goal of this communication mechanism is to show the value your project is adding to the organisation. Sometimes, as well as your predicted business benefits, other value-added initiatives can stem from the project. In one project that I was involved with, we didn’t stop at implementing a new system. We also standardised policies throughout the organisation, identified temp staff that had fallen through the system and implemented a reward and recognition program, which had never been done before. It was important to publicise these added benefits to demonstrate the value add that the project had provided.

The change adoption curve
The change adoption curve by Rogers¹ is a model that classifies staff into different categories (see Figure 1). It is good to understand this curve because it is pointless trying to convince all employees of a new change initiative with a quick, mass communication. You will need to formulate your communication plan with the following categories in mind.

Innovators (2.5 per cent)
Innovators will be leading the change in your organisation and are an important communication mechanism. These are the staff who, by nature, always want to try new things. Chances are that they instigated the change so will already be on your side. These staff will be your project champions, so ensure that you communicate widely to this section of your audience.

Early adopters (13.5 per cent)
Early adopters will try out new ideas carefully. They also need to be included in your communication plan because their influence is essential and their resistance will make it very difficult for you to move forward or achieve any kind of momentum. These are typically opinion leaders and have the respect of other staff. Colleagues will tend to check with them to see if a change is actually working. Regardless of their title or position, these staff will hold power based on their character and credibility within the organisation. Early adopters make up the partnership that will guide a change project to the finishing stages.

Early Majority (34 per cent)
These are careful but do accept change more rapidly than your average member of staff – the early majority are a little bit more conservative than the early adopters. They take longer to believe in a project and usually don’t hold a position of power. As I mentioned previously, too many change efforts fail because leaders focus on winning over resistant staff and do not build an incremental strategy that concentrates on gaining momentum with the early adopters. If you can obtain unity among your early adopters, as well as targeting the winning over of the early majority, then you will have more than half the organisation in favour of change.

Late Majority (34 per cent)
These will change only when the majority are in favour of, or are actually using, the new system. Don’t worry too much about winning them over. These staff will go along with change not out of belief in the project, but rather a sense that change is inevitable. You will obtain their compliance over time but generally not their enthusiasm. Target your communication plan to the groups mentioned above and let the late majority come along in their own time – as indeed they will.

Laggards (16 per cent)
Laggards love to stick to the old ways. It can sometimes be helpful to acknowledge (at the beginning of a communication campaign) that there will be people who will not want the new system, but that they will be supported and assisted with thorough training. However, they cannot stand in the way of progress and, as a change leader, you must make that point quite clear.

In the past, people have studied the change adoption curve and said, “Well that’s all very well and good but how do I know where the people in my organisation sit?” This is where you will need to show some creativity. In one project, I was able to elicit the help of staff that had rolled out the old system. Together, we collated a resistance matrix over the course of one day. Staff were positioned on the curve according to their usage of the current system – then an appropriate communication strategy was formulated.

When focusing on bringing staff across, communicate with the 84 per cent of staff that you know will adapt and leave the laggards to move across in their own time. William Bridges, author of Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change² and a consultant to many Fortune 500 companies, has often found that a change process meant to strengthen an organisation actually weakens it, by leaving people confused and resentful at a time when management really needs their commitment. To prevent this, says Bridges, you need to communicate effectively throughout the process.

Gaining buy-in through communication
There is no simple method for overcoming employees’ natural resistance to change. However, I have used the following approaches in all my change initiatives and I have found that, although simple in concept, they work well.

Open and honest communication
Full disclosure works best when you go beyond the data, analysis and reason. Tapping into your employees’ emotions is what enables a change effort to gain traction. It’s showing, not telling; using compelling examples that will harness the emotional energy that propels employees to push along the change process. Change happens at an emotional, not at a rational, level. This is why conducting informal meetings and using your social-network aids are key in gaining buy-in for your project.

Chunking
Breaking communication down into manageable chunks can help mitigate the overwhelming effect a large project can have on staff or managers whose buy-in is essential. By dividing communications into small chunks, you will ensure that staff are not overwhelmed by the enormity of a large project. Sometimes projects can run over years and the staff that are after quick wins or lack patience to wait for a long-term outcome can celebrate small successes and move forward to the next part of the project.

Bottom-up approach
If you drive change from the top downwards and bottom upwards, you will create a dynamic that is hard for middle management to ignore. This is because you have support coming down from your senior managers and rising up from your staff. This means a certain amount of discomfort for middle managers, who tend to be the last to come aboard a change effort and can be the least communicative.But it is discomfort of a positive nature.

Listen to employees
Relationships are as important as ideas in winning support for change There are three broad categories in resistance to change – ‘I don’t like it’, ‘I don’t get it’ and ‘I don’t like you’. The second can be addressed through explanation and reason. The others are emotional reactions. Overcoming this form of resistance requires listening skills and empathy.

Lessons learned over the past ten years

Have a comprehensive communication plan for your project that articulates each step of the project and the communication channels you will use;
Focus on the 84 per cent that you can get across—not on the 16 per cent that will never buy in;
You can never over communicate. Have ‘chunkable’ goals so you can track and communicate your progress towards them;
Form a communication group made up of lower level staff with good social networks and communicate from the bottom-up and top-down. Meet at middle management, which is notorious for not communicating to staff;
Never try to answer questions to which you have no answers, as maintaining credibility is paramount. Tell staff that you do not know the answer but will get back to them – and make sure you do;
Employees are hardly ever swayed by reason. They are more inclined to be influenced by emotion. Build rapport and use those social networks with staff to gain buy-in;
Be creative with your use of communication channels. Try something different to get staff to sit up and take notice. n

References
1. The Change Adoption Curve by Everitt M Rogers

2. Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, William Bridges, HarperCollins, New York, 1991.

Suzanne Vucurovic is EDMS change manager at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). She has worked for Fortune 500 companies and public sector organisations and is currently completing a doctorate in change management.