Can you recall a change that was rolled out in your workplace? If you are like most people we meet, it’s not a good memory. The thing is, it’s relatively easy to plan. Plans and things we make plans about don’t have feelings. But in order to make plans real, we need to involve other people…and people have feelings.

As you may have experienced, it can feel like an insult to find out that a change that affects you was planned without your knowledge or input. At the same time, if you’ve been responsible for planning change, you may know the feeling of dread that accompanies thinking about how people will react that makes you want to keep plans under wraps until the last possible moment.

Ineffective communications are often at the heart of failed change because the plans do not take into account the critical component of shared understanding between audiences and leaders.

Too often, change communication plans center on delivering information to an audience. We tell people what we want them to hear in a way that we hope advances our causes. What we don’t realize is that we need to understand the perspective of those we seek to change. That’s what creates buy-in – the audience knows the leaders took time to understand their concerns and adjusted their plans accordingly. If the plan could not be changed, they need to understand why it was not possible to do so...