Let’s focus about people accepting changes in the workplace, any kind of change.
Honestly, not a lot of people will take the risk and do a change without knowing more about what will be the consequences.
And those who do it, usually are called by different ways: visionaries, entrepreneurs, game changers… but also fouls, crazy, kamikaze, Bob the guy of IT that think he can use lemon juice instead deodorant…
Back to our subject… t’s hard to find people who are ready to change without knowing all consequences. A big majority will accept to do a change, a main issue is to well communicate it.
Some examples:
- Explain where we want to go and where did we came from
- Clarify all the questions.
- Explain the benefits and impacts of the change.
Without a good understanding, doubts appeared, doubts brings fear, fear brings rage and at this point anyone can get “blocked”.
A blocked person will no more be willing to heard about the subject with an open mind.
Spoiler alert: Some people get blocked more quickly than others.
Even if the change helps them, their ears got block with their intern voices of rage and fear. Isn’t it, Bob?
There are several ways to unblock them.
- Training : A good way to prepare a small group of people
- Serious games :A fun way to teach
- Coaching : face to face communication
- Webinars, Meet-ups and/or Seminars : Target a large group of people
- SharePoints with a bunch of documents : Please organize them, so it will be easy to find the information. And give files tags to find them with the search bar),
- FAQ : Publish the frequented asked questions with their answers
- Feedbacks : Invite people to share their experience about the changes with others,
- Or the orange clockwork way.
This method, I will explain it in another post… or you can see the movie. This method is not recommended to be use on sensible people and risk to get you in jail so be cautious. That’s why we are crowdfunding to pay Bob a trip to a country where we can apply on him the last method. #BobUseDeodorant
Amazingly in a way companies transformations are done in this way. I mean the change is imposed and it’s expected that everything will be fine.
Conclusion:
Try to invest more time communicating (you can apply marketing basics) and create a complete communication strategy. In my experience, this will brings a better result. And having patience also help.
Do you think a communication strategy can help people better accept a change in the workplace?
What are the other tools that you use to communicate?
Leave your comments.
