15 - Communicating Change

Embarking on an organizational change can feel like setting sail into a stormy sea. In our latest episode, we navigate these waters, offering you the strategies and lifelines needed to maintain clarity and support within your team during the most tumultuous of transitions.  You'll gain insights into communication, managing reactions, bolstering your team with vital information, and ensuring your ship stays afloat with a consistent approach across your organization.

What if change management felt more manageable? 

If you would like to find more ease in supporting your team through change, join us for this episode.

To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story

Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST.  Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/

Transcript

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Effective Communication During Change Management

Speaker 1 0:00

Here we offer you the chance to learn from real life stories of leadership so you can gain a deeper understanding and level up your own skills From communication to culture , to power and equity , to feedback , to resolving conflict and more . Join us and make sure you're creating the ripples you want . Welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink .

Speaker 2 0:22

Hello and welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink . Today we're going to be talking about change management and , specifically , communication around change management , which is ultimately one of the foundations of how we try to roll out any sort of change within our team . Sc writes in . I'm an executive manager and I've been leading my team for a number of years . For a long time , the organization was relatively stable . Of course , there was change in growth , but we were well established and the day-to-day work felt consistent .

Speaker 2 0:56

Over the last year , there were a lot of changes . It started with a merger , leadership changing , a lot of growth , new staff , more departments you name it . It feels like everything is always in chaos . Now I know my team is getting frustrated with everything shifting . Most of them have also been in their roles for a long time and don't always like the new way of doing things . I feel like I used to be a pretty good communicator , but now I feel like my staff are upset with me or think I'm not doing a good job communicating all these changes . It would be great to get some clarity on what to communicate around these changes and when and how . So thank you so much for sharing your story , sc , because change is hard for everyone , especially if you've been in something for a while and you've gotten really used to a certain stability in the way that you do things and , on top of , I'm sure , having your own feelings about all these changes that are happening , you're trying to support your team , to manage them and help them get to a place where they're comfortable and happy with the new changes . So I really appreciate you reaching out and so we can discuss this a little bit together .

Speaker 2 2:03

I also feel this quite a bit myself because I had this experience . I was with my addiction and mental health program that I worked at . Everything was fairly stable for quite a while when I started and then our funder requested some changes and we went through a huge change where systems were changing and staff were changing and schedules were changing . Everything was up in the air and I can empathize with how challenging it can be to not only manage yourself in that process but also try to support others and , of course , change is hard .

Speaker 2 2:35

Inherently , humans like regular , repeatable , comfortable , predictable patterns . We do very well with them . Our brain likes them because it doesn't have to think as hard . Right , we get to rest a little bit and , of course , there is that comfort of just knowing what's going to happen . So , even in situations where you're changing from something bad , change can be a little bit inherently scary , and even the best change from something bad to something better inherently involves this loss , this loss of what used to be , this loss of the way used to be or how you used to interact with someone , and so our brains aren't always the happiest with change and it takes a little bit for us to get used to it . So we already have this as a base that people already crave , this familiarity or surety .

Speaker 2 3:22

But of course you can't stop change and in a lot of cases you might not have control over it . It sounds , as see , like a lot of the change your experience is coming from the top of the organization and you're not necessarily influencing or creating that change . It's happening around you and you're trying to roll it out and in this whole process also takes some time to reflect on how this change is communicated to you and what you need as you think about how you're supporting your team as well . In fact , I always encourage people to think about what would you have wanted in that situation If you're leading a group of people in any context and you're wondering how would I communicate this ? Part of that is well , did I have this communicated badly to me before ? What would I have liked in that situation ? So let's just start by questioning a little bit about your experience . So how has this change been communicated to you from whoever initiated this change ? Did you have more regular meetings , maybe with the executive team , where you all got to discuss this ? Did you have a one-on-one with a leader where they explained this ? Was it all written in an email and that's all you got ? It could change quite a bit based on how much information you yourself have about this process that you're now communicating to your team , because I've heard from a lot of middle managers , unfortunately , of the challenge of trying to share information that they were expected to share with the team , when they barely got the information they needed to understand it themselves .

Speaker 2 4:47

You can ask yourself do I have all the information I need to be able to share this with my team so they understand it and I can answer any questions . If the answer to that is no , think about who you might be able to talk to , what resources you might be able to use to understand it better yourself . Hopefully , you have a supportive leader maybe that you could reach out to or even appear on a similar leadership level that you could talk to to make sure that you're understanding solid . It's very hard to answer questions and share information when you don't have all of that information yourself . Another great thing you can do with your leaders is ask them if they have any ideas about the structures or procedures or ways that they would like this change communicated . Maybe they have a plan that they just haven't shared . Maybe it would be really great to prompt them to think of a plan so the rollout of this change is consistent across the organization .

Speaker 2 5:38

How often does your organization get siloed right that this person represents their group this way and they handle it this way and this group represents it this way ? Having a consistent change management process from the top of the organization is very helpful if you want the change to go smoothly . That being said , even if you're asking your manager , they might have some ideas about how you might structure a certain framework that they'd like you , to use specific language , that they'd like you to share in this change process . Often what people get is at least what the change is and maybe the outcomes that they want . That's not always a lot to work with . So if there's some ways to elicit that information , that would be really great .

Speaker 2 6:18

If you are at the top of your organization or the one creating a change process , I really , really hope you're taking this to heart as well , that you could take some time to figure out how you think this change could be best distributed to your leaders , that they would distribute to their team so it is consistent and they have a framework that they can use to help them out as well . On the practical side for SC , what are some of those things that you can do to make change , which is inherently maybe a little uncomfortable , the best situation possible for your team ? We've talked on this show before about leadership and the responsibilities of leadership and , if you remember from an earlier episode , if you were listening , we talked about shield , structure and supply , which are three basic ways that you can be responsible and supportive of your team as you ask them to say , do tasks or embrace a change , and so let's start with shielding . Shielding , in this case , I would say , is probably going to be deciding what information is the best to share with them . So that would be my first question is , let's say , a change process comes to you , think about what information actually makes sense to share with your team .

Managing Change and Communicating With Teams

Speaker 2 7:27

Sometimes teams will just get this download of everything that's happening , this info dump that they suddenly have to figure out and understand , and they're questioning well , what if this is relevant to me ? Is this going to affect me ? Is this going to affect me ? Is this going to affect me Generally ? As a leader , you are going to have more information about what will affect them from that change , and so you can also be a little bit more specific about what you want to share with them . Not that we're trying to hide information that's relevant , but often in a change process , this is affecting maybe a whole organization . Your team's going to have certain pieces that are going to affect them more than others . So really take a moment to break this down . What information is useful ? Why is it useful to people ? What information might be missing ? For my team specifically , and just this process and being able to pick those pieces out will save your team a lot of time and stress ruminating and being worried about all of these different pieces . So now that you kind of have a sense of what you want to communicate and what you're going to shield them from the non-relevant information .

Speaker 2 8:29

Think about what your team might need in order to be able to adapt to the changes in a healthy way . That is what are we supplying them with . So , even in the examples that SC used right , there was a lot going on . There was potentially a merger , leadership changes , lots of growth , new staff , more departments , so a lot of changes . What might help with those ? Well , maybe with a merger , you could think about what your team might need as two different organizations and their cultures come together to form something new . What resources or information might they need to interact with those other people or that different culture in a new way ? What communication channels might they need to be able to interact with people from a merger , or new leaders or new staff ? Do they have any physical resources that are going to be required now , if the tasks that they're asked to do are changing ? What time are they going to need that's a big one to be able to adapt to this change without being expected to take on five new roles at the same time and manage all of that on their own ? These are all things that you can supply your team with , because you've taken the time to think well , what is the information I'm giving them ? What will they need with it ? And then you could actually set them up for that success . And with that comes structure . And this is how you're going to set them up for success .

Speaker 2 9:46

And this one can also be , of course , a little bit challenging if you don't know the details yourself . Can you create this image , this kind of flow of what will happen with this change ? What will things look like ? Will daily tasks change ? Will the way you communicate change ? Will responsibilities change ? What can staff expect to happen with their role , even over the next month , let alone into the future ?

Speaker 2 10:10

Sometimes there's just an announcement that things are changing , this is happening , and there's just an expectation that individual staff will figure out what that means . And figure out what that means to them Isn't probably going to be very efficient . What you can do is create a structure around your team . You know what information they're getting . You've provided them with this . Now you can tell them how they're able to use those supplies and structure in a way that that change will actually happen . That is the actual management of change and change management . How are you going to do that ?

Speaker 2 10:42

With all of that being said , I'm talking about how you , as a leader , are stepping up and communicating this change to your team , and the balance , of course , with this is that your team will probably want space to communicate with you as well . You don't want to just talk at them and tell them about the change . You want to make this a discussion where they can also feel engaged and like they understand what's happening . Of course , this is a slippery slope , because change can be such a big topic , people can be worried about it . This could quickly devolve into people airing grievances about the change process or getting lost in worry or asking questions that aren't relevant . So I certainly want to encourage you that once you have an understanding of what you're sharing with your team the supplies you're going to give them , the structure that you've created for this you also have a structure about what space you will give them to be able to process this , and that I would say would include both space as a team to process all together and potentially even some one-on-one space if someone's role is significantly going to change , or the responsibilities . You'll need that time as well . Just make sure that it's structured so it doesn't become a long time . That's not very productively used . It's just that emotional dump .

Speaker 2 11:57

You may sometimes also have more questions than you have answers to , and I've kind of been assuming that you have a fair bit of information about these changes . Now , if you're maybe a newer supervisor rolling things out and there's a couple more levels of management above you , or maybe just even as a higher level manager , you haven't been given this information yourself , you might feel limited in taking some of these steps . Of course , if you don't have the information , how are you going to supply , how are you going to structure this ? You can still take whatever information you have and figure out what's relevant for your staff to know , what would really help them to know , and you can share it and give them that structured space to ask questions or talk about their experience with it . That being said , if there are questions , if there are things still up in the air , you can say that . You can let them . If they ask a question you don't know , say that you don't know .

Speaker 2 12:49

Don't put on a false confidence and make something up or correct or pretend like you're not worried at all . The reality is you probably have some feelings about this . This has not meant that you're going to download your worries onto your team and tell them about how stressed you are about this change . But no , you can say I don't know that information . I'll need to ask my lead , or you might say something like that part of the process is still up in the air . We have a meeting in another week where we'll be able to inform you more about this . I just want to start letting you know that this change will become .

Speaker 2 13:21

Make sure that this is a space where you can be vulnerable with your team . Share that you might not have all the answers . Share that the change process might be a little bit more complicated and that things , of course , are going to shift . It's okay for your staff to feel maybe not 100% happy about this , that you can be there as a support and that you're working to resource them so they'll be able to handle it . It won't be quite as scary . Now you are on a team and you're working to solve this challenge . Instead of being a leader above everyone , acting like you're not worried , you want to be with your team on this one , helping gather them as a resource for you as you resource them as well . Create those structures , share and ask questions , but keep everything together and make sure that you are being a little bit , maybe more vulnerable and real with your staff , so they understand that they can also come to you if they're struggling with this .

Speaker 2 14:15

Now , once you have all of these components understood and planned for , hopefully this does make it easier to think about how you're going to communicate change with your team . There should be less information , because you've parsed it down to what's specifically relevant to them . You'll be better supplied because you'll know what you're going to need to provide them to move forward with this , and you'll have a structure and a plan for what that's going to look like and you'll have these opportunities to connect with them , ask them questions , and then you'll have a plan to move forward and you'll have to make sure that you're really aware of what's going on in your team and your staff and your staff are working with you and that they're working with you , and you'll have a plan to move forward with these things and confirm that everything is working . Of course , we know that change is scary because all of these unknowns and there will be extra work that needs to be done to shift things , but if you can resource the things that challenge your team , you'll find that these change processes are much smoother and we'll be able to do that in a couple of days .

Engaging With Listener Questions and Gratitude

Speaker 2 15:17

So I'm going to start with a little bit of a quick question and maybe dive into some of those details that we don't disclose on the show . As a reminder , if you want to share your story or question with the show , we would love to have it engage with you and as part of that , I gift you a session to make sure that we can fully answer it . And just saying thank you for being able to share with us and if you want to join us , live so you can comment and ask your questions . We're listening . So much for reflecting on these pieces for your own life and for your own leadership , because it is so critically important for the people that you lead that you are being aware of these things , that you bring this forward in your leadership . I want to thank you so much for listening and I hope you have a great week .