How to Positively Communicate Changes to Your Employees

Kathy (host): 

Hello there and welcome back to another episode of Help! My Business is Growing, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that’s healthy and sustainable. I am your host, Kathy Svetina. 

Kathy (host): 

When growing a business, change is a given. It is inevitable. Companies must be agile and adapt to today’s fast-paced, technology-driven role to keep up with the competition, which means change. But in almost every organization, including yours, there will always be unhappy, suspicious, or unsatisfied employees with any changes you plan to make to your systems, processes, and operations in general. It can be very daunting to deal with these types of employees, and this resistance to change can derail your strategic plans and stop growth in its tracks if you do not know how to manage. So the question is, how do you effectively communicate the change to your employees so that everyone is aligned with the overall goals of your business? 

Kathy (host): 

A quick reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast, including this one, come with timestamps for topics that we discuss, and each one has its own blog post too. You can find all the links, the detailed topics, and this episode’s show notes. 

Kathy (host):

Our guest today is Jeffrey Edwards. He is a Founder and Managing Director of The MakeWell Performance Group. Jeffrey is a business consultant, leadership coach, and culture change expert. For over 20 years, he has been helping small to Fortune 500 companies create inclusive teams that thrive from the inside out. He loves to build strong relationships with clients and help them create a positive workplace culture. He lives in Ottawa, Canada. 

Kathy (host): 

Join us.

Kathy (host): 

Welcome to the show, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

Hello Kathy. It’s great to be here. 

Kathy (host): 

Oh, it’s so great to have you here because we gotta be talking about a really important topic, especially in the small businesses that are growing, and that is how do you manage change? Because there’s a lot of change when you grow a company, and I think this is especially visible in small companies, and it’s usually a combination of adding new people and new processes. And I see a lot of companies, especially the companies that I work with, that get really stuck on adding new processes because as a business grows, the way how they have done it before is different than how they’re doing it now. Because as the saying goes, what got you here is not going to get you there.

Kathy (host): 

And when you work with three people in the company when you only have three employees in your company, it’s not a lot different when you have 10 people, 20 people, and it looks different when you have 40. And I see a lot of companies really struggling with this change. And how do they actually communicate that change to their employees, to their team? What have you seen on your end and why do you think this is such a struggle for business owners? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

It’s a great question because I find that it’s easy to take for granted. We use the expression the only thing that’s constant is change, and yet it’s I think there’s two components to change in any business, in any organization in general.

Jeffrey (guest): 

The first one is there’s the operational side of the business. Now, what’s changing there and how we do business and how you do business? It becomes a focal point for a lot of the activity and a lot of the planning to ensure that everyone has the information from them so that they can in the end, perform their role in this new environment.

Jeffrey (guest): 

I think the second part of the change what thing often gets overlooked is the human side to it, and it’s that element of understanding what is this world that we’re entering into this new world, and how do I fit into it. And what’s my place going to be and what’s my value going to be? What’s going to change? Am I going to be an advantage or is it now going to put me at a disadvantage? It’s what do I need to learn? Am I good? Am I smart enough? Am I old enough? Am I young enough? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

It’s all these things go through our heads when we’re faced with this type of change in a company and at the higher levels, they’re at a different point in terms of where they’re at in the change cycle than the people who are following up and learning about that at a later stage.

Kathy (host): 

Yeah, you bring a very good point is because when you start implementing the changes in the business, it doesn’t come from one day to the next that you really, you usually thought this through. It’s been a work in progress for a couple of months, maybe even more than that. You’ve been really working on this intimately for so long, so it becomes like second nature to you. But your employees and your team and the rest of the company, haven’t had that background. They don’t have the background of why are you actually doing this. Why is it important, and how is it really going to affect them? So you of have to almost catch them up to the 3, 4, 5 months or however long it actually took you to get where you are right now, right?

Jeffrey (guest): 

Yeah, absolutely. William Bridges, a consultant to who’s known for his work and changed in transition. He talks about that in regards to the marathon effect and use that as an analogy in describing how change in organizations tends to drop off or fail at really preparing the people for that transition. And that transition is more the internal side, the what’s that human side to us that is having to internalize all this information and then try to figure out what’s our place and our role going to be in this new environment. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

And so we talked about the marathon effect. It’s the marathons. I’ve never run a marathon. I think if I did I probably wouldn’t be here because I’d probably be laid up in a hospital somewhere. Yeah. That’s another story. But when we’re looking at running a marathon, it usually has the faster runners up front and then the slower runners at the back and so it’s when you have the people who are right up front and they’re crossing the line they’re celebrating they’re done. You still have a bunch of people in the back who are still running the race, and they still need to go through the process of understanding the roots and understanding what’s going on and adjusting to what they need to do in order to complete the race. And oftentimes organizations at the executive level, at the successional leadership level tend to forget that there’s more time that’s required for people to catch up. And as a result to really to be to accept or be open to what’s going on versus feeling threatened or angry that they were left out of the conversation.

Kathy (host): 

So how do you really prepare the people on your team for that change? Let’s say that you are going through a major change in the way how you’ve been doing things, it’s not really good enough anymore where the company is right now, and there’s going to be a lot of changes in terms of the processes or you bringing in a completely new software that’s going to change the way how people do their day-to-day work. How would you go and prepare the people on your team to accept that change so that they understand what’s going on and how this is going to affect them on a day-to-day basis? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

I think it, the first step is to make it known to people what is taking place, and you think of your PCs when Windows has their when they’ve upgraded their system. We went from Windows, the old Windows to Windows 10, and how much lead time did they put out there in the public for people to get used to it. It gave you samples and some pictures so that you can now start to see what that new look was going to look like for them and how this can, and all the opportunities that you can have. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

So that when the actual change day came, and when everyone had to upgrade, you were ready. You felt informed, you felt confident, you were curious. You may not know everything, but at least you had information that gave you time to process and understand not only what was happening, but also the why and how that was going to be relevant for you and the context of the workplace.

Kathy (host): 

With smaller businesses, it’s really harder because sometimes the owner that’s going through this change doesn’t really know exactly how there is going to look like just yet. It’s almost like a work in process, right? You know that there’s going to be a change, you know that things are happening, but you’re not really completely clear how point B is going to look like. So how would you go about communicating that to the people? Or should you be doing a little bit more homework before you actually do that? What’s your take on that? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

I’ve had experiences in that space and I’ve had two different tracks that I’ve seen. One is the using the coming, the concept of, “Hey, we’re all in this together, so we’re going to learn together.” And this is something, this is the change that we’re making. That is for, and you giving the benefits and the features of what that’s going to be, and knowledge and be upfront and saying, even I don’t know what’s going on and I’m not really sure of the outcome, but together we know that collectively this is going to be for a benefit and we’re going to earn together. And it may not be, and acknowledge that it may be a little rough upfront and we may not have all the answers.

Jeffrey (guest): 

But let’s keep that communication line going and also ensure that you have the support around for everyone for answering questions either in the moment or down the. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

And the other part is also the other side is having your team. The second part is, “Okay, we have a strategy. We have something that’s really in place and you’ve really worked hard to map out a specific timeframe and timeline of how you’re going to get the information out.”

Jeffrey (guest): 

And getting, it’s being very well coordinated. Identifying champions within your company who are going to be a part of that and you want them to bring them on board early so that they are kept informed as much as they can so that they can disseminate that information to the rest of the group.

Jeffrey (guest): 

And I know and small businesses, it is not like large corporations, right? So it’s news travels very fast, and so as a result, you want to ensure that people are kept up to date with changes because as things change, people are going their level of trust is also going to be judged on how much they are always kept in the loop and what is being told to them at the right time.

Kathy (host):

I think a lot of this also goes into the controlling the narrative too, is if you’re seeing that there’s going to be a lot of change coming, you want it to come from you as an owner versus from having people talk about it themselves. What I’ve seen that there’s usually, with change comes fear. Fear of this unknown, and if it goes longer than it should be. People can make their own narratives and what it actually means for them, what it means for the company, what it means for the jobs. Essentially, you don’t want people to freak out for no reason. You want to really control. What’s being said behind closed doors when you are not in the room, so that everyone’s clear, like, how is this really going to affect the company? How is this going to be better? Or, if it’s a negative change, like what are some of the positive things that we can take out of this? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

Yeah, absolutely. And what you said is controlling the narrative, really being clear on what it is that you really want people to understand and also not being afraid to change to share when things aren’t going well or when, and there may be changes to the actual direction or that you’ve taken for whatever reason that may be.

Jeffrey (guest): 

People will appreciate more is just the honesty and the level of vulnerability and know especially you work with in business and you there’s a certain pride in there’s an identity associated with you with founding a company and building it and growing it. And when things don’t go well, it can be very easy to try and put a strong face and upper lip, whatever expression you want use that to ensure that, “Hey, everything’s good”, when it isn’t, and people can see that. I think the more you can just be upfront and just be honest and also just admit when you may not have the answers and people I think will appreciate that more. 

Kathy (host): 

And how would you go about communicating with this would be in a format of a team meeting, would it be in a format of one-on-one meetings? What do you think it’s the best or is it really relative to the situation? 

Jeffrey (guest):

I think it, depends on the size of the organization, there are lots of different ways you can do it. There’s a reliance a lot on email. That’s one component. I think and especially in this day and age where you have a lot more hybrid remote workers. I think there’s there’s plenty of opportunities to have an online, Zoom meeting, an online meeting. You bring everyone together and you can do it as a webinar. So it’s more of a people can send in answers. You can send out questions ahead of time, and get people at least a context for what the discussion’s going to be all about. And then whoever’s gonna be your champions or leaders in the field throughout the process and to sit down and meet with them on a regular basis to ensure that you have them, they’re up to dates, and they also provide you with feedback and information that will help you and plan your future communications going and ongoing activity going as you continue to grow.

Kathy (host): 

So what I’m hearing is identifying these champions. Do you have any advice on how to pick these champions? Is there like a certain trait that you’re looking for? Someone who’s very close to the owner? Who would these champions be and how would you pick them really? Is there like specific criteria that you should be looking for 

Jeffrey (guest):

 In looking for any champion and gets looking for someone first, who’s engaged? Someone who is there every day shows up and is really makes an effort to remain informed. And also someone who is a good communicator, not only from the point of view of speaking but also from listening. Because again, that’s going to be a really key skill and when it comes to hearing feedback or being very aware of what’s going on around you, and be able to sense whether there might be some tension or might be some nervousness within your team or your peers that you can bring forward to future meetings with the with a planning team or your change team.

Jeffrey (guest): 

The third one that comes to light, we talk about the elements of emotional intelligence and we’re really speaking about just being self-aware, people who know, hey, who are willing to acknowledge, okay, how is this thing going to impact me? And also having that awareness, really being able to articulate that, share with that work, and also be part of that conversation and add their input into what’s going to be important for people to understand and know going forward as well. 

Kathy (host): 

And when do you bring the champions into this conversation? Are they at the beginning of the change when you’re thinking about the change when you’re trying to figure out what the road forward should be, or do you bring them in when you already have a rough plan developed and they’re the one, they’re championing this new path forward? When is that point in time when you are implementing the change? When you bring them in, is it the beginning, more in the middle, at the end? When do you bring the champions in?

Jeffrey (guest): 

There’s always an advantage of bringing people in at the front end so that, not only they’re championed because of the things that, traits that I’ve mentioned, but when they can also be part of the planning, and it gives them a better context for understanding the message, understanding positioning, what is taking place, and then being able to share that with other people so that they can build that level of trust and awareness and they can paint a picture much clearer when they are part of that initial development and understanding and development of that concept, and also how it’s going to impact everyone else in the organization.

Kathy (host): 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Jeffrey, one thing that I always like doing on this podcast too, I like to bring in people’s stories of when what we’re talking about has gone really well, so that we can actually show people, this is like a textbooks example when if you implement this, it can really benefit you. And that’s like a perfect example of what, when things have gone well. So do you have an example of a company that has gone through a significant amount of change and they have done everything, or at least most of it by the book what we’ve talked about so far, and they’ve had really great success with it? Is there an example that you can give us? 

Jeffrey (guest):

 No I’m thinking of a company I’ve done some work with in the past. It was in the area of retail and more in the telephony space, and what was the change was really going more to an online platform. . And so having to look at how do we move from going from being a brick and mortar store where people were constantly looking at people coming in to now having to build more of an online presence. And so that we had, can balance out the competition who are starting to pop up around us, who are just strictly online and speaking with the managed director at the time and working with them was really looking at the first thing they did was really sit down with their immediate leadership team and really map out the whole customer journey.

Jeffrey (guest): 

Now, what was going to be impacted for not only, internally, but also by the customers as well? What’s the end spirits that they want to create regardless of whether they went online or went in-store, and how do we simulate them? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

So they took time to speak to the managers. Managers spoke to their leaders in the field and they got a lot of information, a lot of feedback, and that went into the planning. And then once they got that, the initial information, that was having regional meetings and having online, all hands meetings where people, everyone had some input and were kept in form of a rollout of what was taking place. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

And so it left a lot of questions answered and didn’t leave a lot of nuances as to how what was coming up next because people felt that they were part of the process all the way through. And I think that’s a great example I’ve seen where the management recognized upfront that we want to make sure this person right at the ground level know what’s going on. So let’s start early and let’s get people incorporated as soon as possible. 

Kathy (host): 

Yeah. That, that, that’s a great example and I thank you for that. It seems like it really, the number one, what I’m hearing is it’s like having people be involved from the beginning, be a part of the process because the more they are a part of the process from the beginning the lesser is of this unknown factor and as I love the story it’s a great example, but I also, I think when people really learn is from examples that things have not gone so well, and there have been some issues in the whole process of the change management. Do you have an example where things have really not gone so well and people had to call you in to manage that expectation of change and to figure out, “Oh my God, we did this completely wrong?” Like, why do we do this now? Do you have an example of that and how did you fix it? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

One time, I was working with a community organization and they were going through a whole program change. And part of the program change was involved the stakeholders having to access information in a different way and where they used to go and get information updates on their neighborhood, on the programs going on. That had all changed. They became more electronic. It was less paper. All great intentions behind the initiative. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

The issue came when people didn’t get the information. People didn’t feel that they were really informed as to why these changes were taking place, so it started right away. It started with a certain mistrust or they cutting back on services to our neighborhood. And for some people who didn’t even have a computer, it’s how do they get in contact with people because they couldn’t access the information? So there were a lot of different points just in the initial conception that weren’t really taken into consideration. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

And then once things started to roll out, it was then it was who do you contact if they had any questions? They didn’t know where to go because if I didn’t have access to the internet, I wouldn’t have the contact information and then went to generic mailboxes. And so there was really no clear contact point or person that they could really speak to. So it just led to a lot of frustration on both sides because people, the community is all, they’re trying to roll things out and try to be more efficient. And then they have this community, their stakeholders are frustrated because they don’t know. They’re trying to find out what’s going on, and it seems like it, everything’s just out of place. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

So it’s really the where I came into play is more part of the community, but asked help in the management team, the leadership team and just readjusting their strategy. So it really required a lot of time just to get the message out to people and find some champions in the community itself who you can sit. We actually had to physically sit down and talk to them and give them some hard, some data, some actual hard, tangible information that they can take back to the communities that they were serving and at least share the information or at least have on online. 

Jeffrey (guest):

 And then the other part to that too was for the executive team was to come up with new ways of getting the information out and also having a contact person or persons that people can identify with and be able to have a direct line to their needs and ask questions. 

Jeffrey (guest):

It took a good six months just to build back some trust in the neighborhood and in the community. And this is going back a few years ago. It’s much better now, but I remember at the time there were a lot of frustration. A lot of frustration going around across all the whole spectrum of stakeholders in that case.

Kathy (host): 

Yeah, I bet. I Just listening to those, it sounds really frustrating on both parts. What do you think they could have done it at the beginning that they could have avoided the majority of this? I know we talked about having champions in and actually, like you said, having the point person like with the mailbox, but what else they could have done at the beginning to avoid all of this if they did it the right way? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

Yeah, that’s a great question, Kathy. I think initially there were lots of things that you could have done. I think first of all is to have just to publish it ahead of time. They gave some lead time for publishing communication. I don’t think it was enough time and communicate in a way where people gathered and how in a way that where they would be able to access the information as they always did prior to the changes in their communication plans. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

And also along the way is because of it being a community-based organization, is to have a public forum. To have to schedule some time for people to come and to ask questions and to have some materials available in the room as well so they can take them home with them. And so they at least had that first piece of information, some additional contacts for follow-up.

Jeffrey (guest): 

And also even before all that is understanding the group. And there are a lot of assumptions made. It’s you think of today when you think of how many people don’t have the internet at home. You would think it’d be very few. But actually, there require a number of people. And especially if you’re looking in certain groups and certain communities and particularly, in, in racialized and minority communities were accessing internet might be a little more of a premium or they might not have, they might have access, but they don’t have the hardware access to computers and such. It makes it even harder to get that information now for them to access it. And so they always feel like they’re on the outside of what’s going on instead of being included. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

There are different elements that we can take for granted as well, that we need to check. Those assumptions with the people that we serve and or the people who are going to be impacted by those changes. I would say that’s a big starting point, a big lesson for me, coming out of that experience, as well.

Kathy (host): 

Yeah. And you also, as you were talking, that’s also a bigger point to the business community too, that the changes that you’re making in the company might just not be the changes that affect the company and the employees. It could also be that affects the customers like you’ve had in this example, the greater community. It could affect the customers as well. A small change the way how. Gathering data, you might be implementing new software data that it’s going to go and affect the customers and how they interact with your company as well. So really thinking about it more broadly, not just how is it for the business, but also for the community at large, right? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

Yes. And I think you can just think of an example where you’ve might have gone to a bank and how you used to do banking, and how you do banking today. And there was a point in time where you had to go into the bank itself to make a deposit or withdraw money. Now you can go online and you can transfer money anywhere in the world and put money in different accounts. But if I don’t have a computer at home, or I may not be all that tech savvy, then that may put me at a disadvantage or I might feel threatened by technology, which then holds me back from doing the things I want to do, or the freedoms that I felt that I have are now taken away from me. 

Kathy (host): 

Yeah, that’s a good point. Jeffrey, this has been an absolutely fabulous conversation and I loved all the success stories that you gave us and also the cautionary tales of what not to do. But if someone is implementing a big change in their business and they know that they have a lot of work to do in a change of change management, make sure that they’re communicating that to their team and also to the greater community when if it impacts them. But what is the one small step that they can take in the next week or so to get them more closer? To be that success story versus the story that you gave us when things went wrong. 

Jeffrey (guest): 

The question to ask themselves or oneself, Kathy, is to say how this going to change the way people work with us or work here in our organization, might be internally or externally. And what’s the journey that we have now that we’ve created? How’s that changing for people in terms of their touchpoints information so that we can ensure that we’re building on that and not taking it, not breaking it down, but really building on it to a better level of customer care and also employee engagement and support as well?

Kathy (host): 

Jeffrey, where can people find you? 

Jeffrey (guest): 

Find me. I’m in Canada. If you happen to know someone in the province of Ontario, you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m listed there. I’m also my company is you can find me online. It’s the MakeWell Performance Group. You can just check out the website there.

Jeffrey (guest): 

We going talking about change. We’re going, going through change as well, and it’s always easier when you’re helping other people than it is for yourself. And so it’s always a learning process in terms of the impacts and learning and growing with each new change and a new direction that that I take on that I like to then share with others and help them to their next steps as well.

Kathy (host): 

Awesome Jeffrey you have a lot of great material on your website and you are also active on LinkedIn too, so I highly recommend people go check that out. And we are going to put all of these in the show notes as well so that you don’t have to manically scribble this down. It’s all in there for you. And there’s also going to be a blog post on this as well. So go check that out. Thank you so much, Jeffrey, for being here. I really appreciate it. 

Jeffrey (guest):

 Kathy, thank you and to all your listeners. A great show. Love your podcast, and I’ll look forward to more episodes with you and the great guests you bring on as well.

Kathy (host): 

Thank you so much. Take care.

Kathy (host): 

Thanks so much for joining us today, and I hope that this episode has given you fresh ideas on how to successfully communicate the change to your employees. Also, if you love this episode, you can find all the timestamps, show notes, blog posts, links, and more on the website, newcastlefinance.us/podcast. 

Kathy (host): 

And before I go, as always, I do have a little bit of a favor to ask. If you are listening to this on the Apple podcast, if you could please go to the show, and tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves because this helps the algorithm and it helps other people find the show as well, and of course benefit from it. 

Kathy (host): 

Thanks so much. Until next time.