Communicating Change To Internal Audiences

Developing a succinct message for any form of communication is one of the most important factors of success. But even a well-crafted message won’t work if you’re aiming it at the wrong people. Regardless of your role and the kind of nonprofit organization you’re with, you need to be able to plan and deliver a clear, convincing and powerful message in all of your interactions.

This is especially important when communicating new initiatives to your staff, board and volunteers. They are your biggest ambassadors and agents for positive change. If you fail to get them on board, you’ve created an obstacle that will hinder your ability to achieve success. There is even greater risk when the very people who are on the front lines of your organization are misinformed or disengaged, which according to recent Gallup reports, represents an estimated 54 per cent of employees.

While the relationship between employee communications and individual career motivation is complex, we do know that the top two reasons for disengagement are poor relationships with and lack of clear communication and direction from managers. So investing more time in improving your interaction is well worth the effort.

Here are the most common traps organizations fall into when communicating change or significant news:

• Too busy – the reality is most effort is typically focused on the external announcement or event and spending much time on the internal announcement can become an afterthought.

• Using the same message for all audiences – whatever the message is, it needs to be meaningful and inspire a specific reaction. Staff will have different interests than media would, for example.

• Leaving more questions than answers –failing to anticipate questions and to prepare responses is a common pitfall.

• Giving the wrong message – what could be great news to one group can be cause for concern for another.

• Failing to segment your internal audiences – staff is not a single entity.

• Not giving enough time for your internal audiences to digest the information – expecting the audience to get up to speed too fast.

The simplest way to avoid sending the wrong message is to spend time in the early stages to consider your audiences and what will appeal or be meaningful to them, and to ensure good delivery and follow through.

Step 1: Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Planning is a journey, not a destination. The simple act of planning will bring forward issues and ideas you hadn’t thought of. Here are some tips:

• Start with your objective in mind – although obvious, it’s easy to forget. The first step to any strategic communication is defining your objective. Each message you deliver should have a specific audience and purpose.

• Make a list of all of your audiences. Divide your internal audiences up as much as appropriate to the project. This can be done by function, by role, by department or whatever works for your situation.

• Identify the role each group plays in your initiative – will they be go-to people for inquiries once the project starts? Are they a link in the chain? Do they just need to know, but won’t be directly involved? Are they responsible for training other staff and volunteers? This helps identify what information each group will need. This might mean carefully ordering when you plan to give information to each group, for example, brief department leaders or go-to people first.

• Identify the issues or concerns for each group – anticipate any positive or negative reactions, and make sure you have answers for each. Remember the first question is always, how will this affect me?

• Identify the action you’d like to inspire in each group – each audience needs to know their responsibility in the process and what you are asking them to do.

Step 2: Develop winning messages.

• Consider each audience and develop a statement that addresses your intended action/response and the audience’s issues or concerns.

Step 3: Watch your tone and body language.

• An average of 90 per cent of verbal communications is transacted by your tone and body language, rather than words. This means how you say it is more important than what you say. This can be disheartening, but remember that your goal is to inspire. Be aware of the hidden messages you may be sending; get out from behind the table, uncross your arms, and make eye contact, for starters.

Step 4: Follow through.

When rolling out an internal message, there are other important things you should do.

• Follow up with a written summary – if you’re presenting information at a meeting, commit to sending out a summary to all before the day’s end (tip: write this in advance; it will give you extra practice at staying focused on the message). This will cover anyone who couldn’t attend, as well as fill in the blanks for people as they process the information.

• Make information accessible – ensure you have multiple methods of making information available to the organization. Distribute it, post it, store it centrally, and list contact people.

• Provide more than one go-to person for questions and make sure they are available and equipped with the information needed.

• Commit to future communications – let people know how and when they can expect to get updates.

• Remember to keep it simple, and repeat, repeat, repeat.