How to Communicate Clearly During Organizational Change

While sending the right signals to our followers is important at any time, it is especially important during times of strategic change. There are three main ways in which leaders too often send confusing signals to their organizations. First, leaders often aren’t clear enough about what they want the change to achieve, or about what it entails. Leaders too often express what they want in terms of tasks, not of outcomes; and they rarely, if ever, make clear the full extent of the change they are asking for. Second, leaders often fail to change how they spend their own time. When leaders don’t live the change, the rank-and-file assume it must not be that important. Third, leaders fail to allocate the right resources to support the change, and fail to measure the change. These failures sew — at best — confusion; and at worst, the opposite of the strategic changes you’ve asked for. Signaling matters to your employees, so make sure it matters to you.