On the Role of Communications During Organizational Change

People fear change — now more than ever.

In an organization, change is equated with one thing: job loss. Often, the systems and processes implemented in the “new world” to improve efficiency, reduce waste and integrate  silo’s  equal a redundancy in roles and a shorter list of manual tasks. It’s the law of sport: the better an athlete becomes at running a lap or shooting a basket, the less effort they need to put into the task. The same rings true in an organization; what once required ten employees to do the job now requires three, and one very impressive system.

What’s worse, the manual work that does need to be completed is now entirely centered around the new system and processes. Simply put: organizational change equals the possibility of job loss, and the guarantee of morphing job roles.

So how does communications help change fit?

The most effective kind of organizational (or any, for that matter) communication style is two-way communication. This style seeks to pull, rather than push, the stakeholder’s (i.e. anyone affected by the change) role in the change, encouraging collaboration and reducing the room for misunderstanding or push-back.

The communicator is the pipeline between senior leadership and the stakeholder, and we are constantly pumping and recycling change through this line. It is true that corporate communication is a top-down process, and during times of change, it is also a stethoscope, monitoring the pulse of the organization. We are pro-reactive, anticipating bumps in the road through contingency planning and working in tandem with the stakeholder if and when an unanticipated issue should arise.

When an organization cannot promise job security (and they almost never can), it’s imperative that the communications process acts as a short link between senior leadership and the stakeholder. If the stakeholder has an issue, concern, suggestion, they need to know that this input is not being thrown into a back-seat with child locks. We are a support system, a defender, a networker, a decision-driver, a familiar face, a friend.

~ by Brandon Carlos on February 10, 2009.