How to Lead and Communicate Organizational Change

Speaker A: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Monkey Business Webinar Series with Contact Monkey. My name is Filza. I'm Contact Monkey's content marketing specialist and your webinar facilitator for today. And really excited to talk to you guys about how to lead a— Can you hear me?

Speaker B: Did something just happen? I felt everything— Okay, can you—

Speaker A: can everyone hear me now?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Okay, perfect. Sorry about that, everyone. So just wanted to You guys, to today's format, a bit before we start, we will have time, hopefully have time for questions as Priya talks. Feel free to post your questions in the chat. We will have time at the end as well for Q&A. And don't worry about taking notes because this webinar will be recorded and sent to you through email.

Speaker B: Okay, so before we I'm sorry, Philza, we can't— I can't see your presentation at all, so you may have to put it up.

Speaker A: Yeah, let me just see.

Speaker B: I promise everything was working perfectly a few minutes ago when we tested this.

Speaker A: Um, can you see it? Yeah.

Speaker B: There we go. We'll get the screen up.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker B: There we go.

Speaker A: Okay. So sorry about that, everyone. I don't know what's going on with our tech situation today, but I'm really excited to introduce you guys to Priya, who is an award-winning communications professional. Who's passionate about driving employee performance from the inside out. She's also the president and owner of Inner Strength Communication, and she helps build strategic internal communication, branding, and transformational change plans that help organizations connect the dots between business strategy and employee delivery. She has worked for more than 20 years and has successfully led communication for organizations including blah blah companies, Compaq Canada, and HP. So before I hand it over to you, Priya, we have a question for the audience. I'm going to launch this poll. We'd love to know what is your current role within your organization. And just gonna launch this. So we have a few options here in the multiple choice. In case we haven't covered your role here, feel free to put that in the chat. We'd love to know, you know, what kind of people have joined us today, what are their roles within their organizations. Okay, so I'm just going to end the polling and share the results. So hopefully everyone can see that. So 73% of the people with us today live are internal communication professionals. That's their primary role. 23% are communication professionals. And 7% are change management professionals. So Priya, is that normally the kind of roles that people have, those people who are looking for change communication solutions?

Speaker B: Well, I'd imagine today, because we're focusing on communication within change, that makes a lot of sense to me. But it's always good to know who's out there.

Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Okay. So I'm going to hand it off to you now, Priya.

Speaker B: Okay, well, welcome everyone. It's always, you know, interesting talking to a computer and you know there's people out there who are listening, and I'm trying a bit of a new format today. I want to not go through the usual, here's the change curve and what do you do, but really kind of help you think about the stories and the questions that you tell and ask in the conversations you have when you're out there supporting change. So I've started with this image and you're probably wondering what does that have to do with change. I don't know how many people recognize it. It's a statue called— of the Nataraja, which is a Hindu, the Hindu god Shiva, and it's a wood carving, this one, that was purchased by my mother. when we went to India when I was about 10 years old. And when she died about 12 years later, I was 23, and we gave this statue, which none of us wanted, to an aunt who was a close friend of my mother's, and she kept it in her living room for 25 years. And a couple of years ago, my aunt called me and told me the Natraj needed to come home, and the home was apparently my house, and I accepted it because it was clear that She was not going to take no for an answer. And my husband looked up online. He's redhead with freckles. Looked up online to figure out what this Nataraj represented. And he said to me, do you know that he's supposed to be the god of destruction? Why would anyone want to bring anything like that into our house? And he's the, you know, he's the guy who's lived in the same house all his life. And has worked in the same company for 30 years and hopefully will stay married to me for our entire lives. And Glenn likes things really stable. And so I decided to do some research on my own. And I learned that there was a little bit more to the story. The Nutraj is a dance that represents the rhythm and harmony of life. He triumphs over illusion and ignorance. He tells you to be without fear. His flames represent the endless cycle of birth and death. And his third eye is symbolic of his insight and enlightenment. The Nataraja does represent the inevitable phenomenon of change and transformation as a beautiful act of nature. His dance is a great insight into the universal truth that life is an eternal cycle of changing patterns. And the Hindus believe when change— that when change is inevitable, let us seek the music and beauty in it. We ourselves can evolve gracefully only if we merge with the changing phases of our lives. And I've taken that to heart a lot, that we think about it when we've grown, when we've, you know, really become who we are today, it's because of those things that didn't seem so great in our lives that seemed like changes that we weren't ready for. And I've actually embraced change as part of what I do and realized that even when things don't seem so great, it's because there's a greater cause and greater purpose. And, and that's something that I've really enjoyed You know, personally and professionally in my career. And so that's the first thing that I say to anyone who's involved in change. Unless you're ready to embrace change, it's really hard for you to deliver the communication of the change management that you're supposed to. So let me move this forward. Philza, I'm trying to move the slides.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think you've got it. I can see, it might just take— yeah, there you go.

Speaker B: Okay, so let's start by describing your role in change programs. Can we do a quick audience poll, and this will be our last poll before we go on with the content?

Speaker A: Okay, so I'm just going to—

Speaker B: Switch the poll?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So we know that many of you, 73%, are internal communication professionals, so Describe your role in change programs. Let me know, Philza, when you have the results, because this will be interesting.

Speaker A: Okay, people are still voting.

Speaker B: Lots of people participating in this one?

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, thanks. I think we're done, so I'm just going to share the results.

Speaker B: Okay, this is, this is actually good news that 55% are invited to the team, but I'm not surprised at all that almost 50%, like almost 50% are invited at the last minute after all the decisions have been made, and we've seen that with change programs and other internal communication programs as well. I love the The fact that some people have told us that they have to fight their way in, and that they also, you know, often we find ourselves watching some of it unfold from the outside and shake our heads. I know. So let's move on. So let's talk about, you know, what's changing in my organization. So there's a series of 10 questions we're going to go through that I want, as communication professionals and people who are out there, to ask. What is changing in my organization? You'll see that there's a lot going on, whether it's, you know, reorganizations and mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, competitive shifts in the environment, technology impacts, tech transformations, you know, all those cultural shifts that people want to aspire to when we're going through labor negotiations, and then just the general things from an HR perspective. new strategies, new values, new benefits, new leaders, new teams. I think you could agree that we're all mired in change. And sometimes, I've got these 2 symbols, sometimes what we're doing is being dragged into the change. Hopefully some, you know, want to be there, but you're called into it. And other times what I encourage people to do is volunteer. There is, for those who are looking in from the outside, who are sometimes called at the last minute to the table. I want to encourage you to be— try to be proactive about what's changing and pick and prioritize those meaningful changes that you can have an impact on. Be proactive about looking at what's changing your organization and put your hand up to be at the table to help out.

Speaker A: Number 2.

Speaker B: Oh, I have to forward this. There we go. As soon as we've been brought into a change, whether, whether I was inside an organization or now as a consultant, the first question we ask our clients is, what's the business plan? What are the goals of the change? Not what do you want us to deliver. And this is something that you'll see as a common element in anything that I talk about. Don't start with the tactics and the list of deliverables. Let's start talking about the strategy. And that first question is, what's the business plan? What are the goals, business goals? What's happening? When is it happening? And what does success look like? Having that conversation will be a different conversation that will help create the foundations for any of the information that you're providing and any of the messaging you're providing as well. So those are important questions to ask before you start talking about the tactics. Great. I am constantly amazed at, you know, when my clients and sometimes my internal, you know, executives can't answer those questions, and what I often say to them is, if you don't know, how are we going to explain it to our employees? So we really, really push our leaders and our clients to answer those questions. Answer those questions, even if it's sitting with a briefing template, and having them answer them at the top of their head and then verifying that information. We need to understand what's happening, what— and when is it happening, and why is it happening. 3. Can you move the slide, Philza? There it is. Okay. After we understand what the plan is, you know, from a business perspective, we have to— we ask about the change plan. And I noticed that there are a few change management professionals as part of this team. As part of Inner Strength Communication, we have a lot of internal communication professionals who've created change plans, but I also have a Prosci-certified change management professional on my team. I think it's really important that they've got a methodology that does, you know, follow stakeholders, identifying stakeholders, identifying timelines and milestones, and then we have briefing templates that we use that really help us have the conversation around what's changing. What's changing with people, processes, and platforms, and when I talk about Because those are the 3 main things that have impacts in any change program. You know, what are the people going to have to do? What are they going to feel that's different and how is it going to impact them? What are the processes and new ways of doing things that they need to understand? And the platforms are, are there new tools and technology that they're going to have to use? So we ask them those questions and then we You know, in an ideal situation, we have a change management professional that we're partnering with who has the what's happening to whom and when plan, and what we can then do is create the communication plan to support it. It is not unusual for us to have to create that plan ourselves, and I think we've got the skills to do that when there isn't a budget for a change management professional there, that we can identify the stakeholders, identify all the timelines and milestones, understand what's happening and be able to create a targeted plan to put holistically an understanding to get everybody on the same page. Oh, there we go. The 4th question I always ask is, are people ready? And this one's an interesting one. The conversations People always have different versions of what they call the change curve or the change cycle. This is the one I tend to like, that whenever somebody is going through change personally or professionally, they always first react with shock. They then go into denial. This can't be happening. You know, I think I heard it wrong. Anger, you know, quite angry that I, you know, that the change is happening and it's happening to them because that's what it feels like. They want to resist. They want to see if they can change people's minds and avoid it. Eventually, you know, they'll, most we hope, get to acceptance. They want to learn what they now have to do differently, and then they make a commitment, and then the whole cycle starts again when the next thing changes. And when we think about the, what I say is everybody, regardless of whether you're you know, somebody who likes change or doesn't goes through this cycle. Those that embrace change just go through it faster. It just, the cycle happens regardless. And the big question I tend to have with leaders or big conversation I tend to have with leaders about this cycle in the first place is that often when leaders are ready to share information with their employees, they've already, they've been spending 2 years often. It's not unusual. They've spent 2 years, 5 years, maybe it's 6 months going through this process, asking all the questions, having the conversations, getting their own, themselves through acceptance and adoption and commitment. And it's when they're at commitment that they start sending communication out to employees and expect people already to be at commitment with them. They physically or emotionally and mentally can't understand why employees are going through the cycle when they don't realize that they took a lot longer to go through it and they expect employees to be there tomorrow. So we keep saying where, you know, that stakeholder analysis and understanding where people are at and how they're going to react is really, really important so that executives understand why people are reacting the way they are. And we usually put it, once they understand the timelines and the fact that, you know, we ask them, how did you feel when you first heard about this situation? How long have you been having these conversations around an executive table that your employees have not benefited from? As we go through that change process, you see my, you know, my words. I think that internal communication, the communication that we provide and the key messaging I create usually fall under these 4 categories. We want to know what people need to be aware of. What's happening? When's it happening? You know, Who's it happening to? Those, you know, how is it happening? We then have to help them understand, and that is the conversation about why is this so important for our organization? Why should we embrace this new opportunity, or why can't we stay still and stay the same? We have to answer that why. And then what do people need to do differently? That has to be part of our messaging, and then underscoring all of that is why should you believe this is the right thing to do? the right thing for our organization to do? It's kind of my key messaging framework to, I always answer those questions. What do people need to be aware of? What do they need to understand? What do they need to do, and what do they need to believe? And that will actually help you create the right messaging, and that messaging is often provided at different times because of the cycle. When we first announce a change, what do they need to know, what are the basics? We give them the other information, but there's an opportunity to emphasize different pieces Let me— this conversation kind of helps as well. The question is, what starts, stops, and continues because the change is happening? When I was working with— I've worked with a number of companies through a lot of mergers and acquisitions, and it's a lot of our client conversations that we have today, but the biggest one that you, some people out there might be familiar with, is the merger of GE and S&P. I had a chance to work on the integration team for the Hewlett-Packard Compaq merger in the early 2000s. That just aged me. And what people needed to know is what's going to be different now that things are changing. They've announced this merger. They've announced this acquisition. What does it mean for me? And if we can answer the questions, This is what's going to be now. This is what starts. These are our opportunities. This is what stops. These are the things we have to leave behind. And here's the things that stay the same. What always amazes me is most of, in most companies, you're probably talking about 70%, if not more, of things that stay the same.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: Even when we were talking about reorgs through those, through that major merger, we knew up front that 10% of the workforce would have to But that was 160,000 people around the world where 90% of them would stay in the organization doing something very similar to what they'd done before under a new banner. And really thinking through what does— what starts, what stops, and what continues. If we can focus on here's the things that stay the same, it creates a lot of comfort with the audience that you're communicating with. We're going to, once we've asked all of those questions, we'll create our communication plan. You notice this is number 6 out of the 10 pieces that I've communicated to you today. It's not the first thing you do. You first have to do your research. You first have to understand what's happening. You first have to create all of that, understand who your people are and where they are, and ask all those questions, and once you have that information, you can create your communication plan. You can actually create your communication plan, you know, and that communication plan should start with your business goals. It should then identify your communication objectives, create the tactics that you have and the key messages and how you're going to measure success. There's also, you know, working with change management professionals, we've worked with them on great tools that include, you know, extra tools I'd say, you know, business change forums where we brought people together and helped them understand what's hap— where do we go today and where are we going tomorrow, and this is what this is going to look like. I've always enjoyed wall walks, especially on process and technology changes where we actually map out on a wall, here's where we are today, here's where we're going, and here's how we're going to get there, and make it a visual for people that they can have a conversation together. Lots of conversations and group work, group conversations, one-on-ones, trainings. There's a lot of things that are going on that supplement your your communication plan, and we want to make sure that we highlight those things in our plan and then work with HR and change management and the organization to make it part of a greater communication plan. Any of those, we do have, you know, some communication planning tools on our website, but one of the, you know, my favorite tool from IABC is the Midas Touch Guide on how to create a communication plan. It really guides you through all the different pieces that are required.

Speaker A: Priya, so there's a question in the Q&A from Elizabeth.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: So she's asking, can you give examples of measurement, specifically of internal comms?

Speaker B: Absolutely. So what we'll do is depending on what the goal is, it's so dependent on the objectives and the goals, right? I'll give you some big ones. When we worked inside, I used to lead internal communication at Loblaws Companies Limited, and one of the We were selling off a part of the business to another business that was focused there, and we had to work on a very, very sensitive communication plan that would involve people moving from one organization to another. Employees at our organization having to say goodbye to long-term employees, those employees that were leaving having to leave a company that they'd worked for for a long period of time and understand what the benefits were of moving on to a new organization. So, We had a very tight timeline based on the agreement, and what success looked like was a business outcome. It was those, I can't remember the number, you know, 20 to 50 sales representatives signing on a dotted line within a 2-week period to join the new company. That's a pretty huge outcome. Yes, we had some measurements which were outputs. Here's all the communication we're going to deliver, and this is who we're delivering it to. Here are the number of, you know, group conversations and management one-on-one conversations we're going to have. Here is, here's what they need to understand. Here's the communication, here's the sentiment and engagement analysis that we're going to do with our employees post-program on how they feel about the company and how the communication was managed. But ultimately for me, the key measurement is the business goal. How did we actually help communicate so that everybody was informed and that those leaders and those sales representatives actually signed with the new company within the period, within the timeline that we needed them to sign on to? So what I'd always say is bring it back to the business goals. What I never want the— yes, we can have measurement that says this is how many people read our messages. But for me, the key opportunity and the key impact that we have on an organization when we're communicating proactively is limited disruption in the organization. I don't know how many of you have worked for organizations where when a change is happening, all of a sudden everything stops and people are distracted and they're actually not focused on the customers and they're not focused on delivering their what they need to deliver because it's an emotional cycle that you need, you go through when you're going through, you know, critical change. And what we want to do is make sure people understand, you know, believe that the company is going in the right direction, that the company has made the right decisions, and use our messaging that way. And then we measure what the organization needed to physically do to signal success. In that case, it was to have all of those reps sign on the dotted line within a 2-week period, and willingly, because they had the choice. I remember with that communication itself that the president of the acquiring company was blown away. He said, I've never seen something like this go as smoothly as it did, and what was great is that there was always an acknowledgement that communication was a key partner. We didn't do all the work. We worked very closely with HR and change and operations, but that they knew that that clear communication helped people make a clear decision and an informed one. I hope that helps.

Speaker A: And we have another question.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Kara is asking, what does the wall walk look like? What is included in it?

Speaker B: What I'll do is I'll go look up some examples and I'll provide them to you, Filza. But the ones that I've been involved in is it literally is You know, a room where we've actually said, here's where we are today, and then here's where we're going tomorrow. This is what tomorrow looks like. I know we used it a lot with the, you know, Canada or the world's largest SAP retail transformation, where we said, this is how we do things today, here's how we do it tomorrow, and here are the behaviors and processes that are going to change. And it really is, it's not, it's more the visual. People, some people are auditory learners, some people like to read things, some people like to see it in front of them in a visual. I love the use of infographics, and so I've seen, you know, some of our change partners and people that I've hired as well do a really great job of helping people visualize where we are today and where we're going tomorrow so that they're ready to learn what they need to in order to adopt the new processes. and new ways of doing things. But it really is that visual of taking you through a path from where we are today to where we're going tomorrow.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And I'll try to see if I can look it up. I don't know if it's there anywhere, but we did a really great like infographic. One of the people on my team at Loblaws did a great infographic based on, it was the yogurt story. Essentially it was It was following the lifecycle of yogurt today versus tomorrow and identifying what that would mean for the customer and how it would change what people needed to do tomorrow compared to what they do today. I'll see if I can find it. I know it was shared in a newspaper story because people seemed to really resonate with that visual, and it was something that they kept coming back to.

Speaker A: Okay, great. So Stacy is asking if we have any recommendations on easy-to-use infographic tools. Stacy, we have like a whole blog post that we've created, Design Tools for Internal Comms Pros. So I will share that with you guys when I share the recording. Priya, do you have any specific tools that you like?

Speaker B: Do you know what? I hire experts. We, you know, we talk a lot about We talk a lot about being respected for our expertise as communication professionals and internal communication professionals. It's the reason that whenever I can, I want to work with change management professionals. It's why I want to work with graphic designers. You know, I, I'd like— I like to, to make the case for having something cut. It's never the same. I find that some of the tools, maybe I don't understand them as well, but a lot of the tools You need that creative mind. I'm not that creative mind. I connect with creative people. So you can find those graphic artists at different price points. The person that I absolutely love out in the UK, if you can look him up, is Alan Oram with Alive with Ideas. So look up his company Alive with Ideas. Take a look at the infographics they have done on internal communication for The way he visualizes things and takes people through a journey through infographics is just phenomenal. I'm sure there are a lot of Canadian suppliers as well, and I know that there are tools. It's not something that I tend to use. I focus on the strategy and I hire the professionals to work on the creative.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Should I keep going?

Speaker A: I think we're done with the questions.

Speaker B: Those are great questions, everybody. I really do appreciate when you ask them. Number 7 is a question that I want everybody to ask when they're going through communication, and, and that is, what's the tone? And what I want you to do when you've created your plan and understood your stakeholders in a change effort, identify what the tone needs to be with each of them, because it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. I'll give you an example. A lot of the examples I actually share are from my Loblaws days because they're all, they're all public. They were all public situations that were communicated. I wouldn't share some of the programs that we're going through with clients right now because they are confidential. So I am very conscious of making sure I'm sharing things that were publicly shared back then and are now quite a bit older. But when we acquired Canada's largest drugstore, it was Loblaws Companies Limited. Just for those who are from the US and around the world, Loblaws Companies Limited is Canada's largest private sector employer. It has 200,000 employees, and I led internal communication there for 6 years before I started Inner Strength. It acquired the largest drugstore Just a few, I guess a year before I had left, that I had a chance to participate on it, on, and I really took a lot of the experience that I'd had communicating mergers and acquisitions and divestitures with Loblaws and other companies, including Hewlett-Packard and Compaq and in the technology industry, to really inform how we communicated the acquisition. Of an organization that had 60,000 employees across the country. And it was, and what was really, really key for us was we knew that the tone being the acquiring company was going to be extremely celebratory on our end, but when that same conversation was being had by the company that was being acquired, it had to be full of a lot more empathy and understanding because that company was seeing a change. They always believed that, you know, they would be the one doing the acquiring. So it was a, depending on who we were talking to, sometimes if you're talking to certain groups who are being expanded in a change, they're really excited about it. So you can create a tone that's really exciting. When we're talking to another group that's impacted by that change negatively, we have to provide a very, very different tone there. And those are— when we're creating management tools, every change we have, we create manager toolkits so that frontline supervisors can have the conversations with their frontline employees. We make sure that we say, we include tone in that conversation. This is how your people are going to feel. This is, these are the questions they're probably going to have, and this is, and we want to make sure that you're communicating it with the empathy that is required in the situation, and it really made all the difference for that acquisition that the communication was handled in the right tone when we were delivering it on the acquiring company side, but made sure that we answered different kinds of questions on the other side with the right kind of tone so that we weren't going in as the, you know, celebrating something when everybody I'm scared because I think I'm going to lose my job, right? So we really wanted to think about that as we communicated with those organizations, and we always include that in our change communication as well, because I think that's what— the one thing I will say, and I'm trying not to brush everybody with one brushstroke here, but change management in the experience that I've had is a very clear methodology. They bring process and discipline, and they make sure that everybody from a detailed perspective we've kind of identified every single thing that we need to be concerned with. I love, you know, having a great change management professional who really can articulate to me what's happening and to whom and when. But what we as communication professionals bring to the table is that understanding of the stakeholder and the people and how they're going to feel, and what are the messages they need to be on side and adopt the changes and stay and be connected and work together with us through the changes that we need to make. So I think we bring a lot of humanity and trust to the table, and we're able to provide that authentic conversation that people are looking for when they're going through change. Thank you. Some of the conversations that I also have with leaders when they're hesitant, and I know there was a question that came up earlier, Philza, about, you know, what if we have an executive team who's really scared of communicating with their employees? And I always say, what happens, or what's happened before, when we say nothing? And this is something that, because people think that, oh, people are going to freak out and they're going to stop working and we can't tell them or we can't tell them anything. But, you know, the line that I often use with, with our clients and executives I've worked with in the past is that the story they tell themselves in the absence of communication is always 10 times worse than anything we could have told them. And that creates all of those things that the executives feared in the first place. It causes rumours. People are out there, you know, making up stories. They know something's up. They know leaders are going in. Employees are not, you know, they're us, right? Like, I think we have to realize that, that we make this distinction between us and them, and it's not. We are the employees. We can see what's going on. We can see closed-door conversations. We know when there's things that are being kept from us. People have instincts, and then when there is nothing from an organization, even a holding statement, even something that says we don't know right now, but we're making some decisions and we'll let you know as soon as we know, those stories can— I've heard some really crazy things that have been communicated, you know, when people are making up their own stories. So I always say, you know, one of the questions we have to ask leaders is what happens if we say nothing? You know, I think that the disruption is worse, and then when people do know, we're already starting from a position of distrust. When we're starting from a place of trust, it's a lot easier to communicate. It really is. When employees know that our company is keeping them informed when we can, they also, employees also know that from a financial perspective, we can't tell them everything, especially if you're traded publicly, publicly, there are things that can't be told, they can't, the company can't be a completely open book, but that if they trust that you let them know when they need to know, and that you keep them informed so nothing, there aren't a lot of surprises, that's a huge benefit. or huge surprises, it really goes a long way in terms of helping people get back to, back from disruption and back to, you know, delivering from a customer perspective. You know, I joke around, I write sometimes blogs about when I do my job really, really well, the results are invisible. Right? Nothing happens. Like, and that's really hard for us to say, like, you know, claim victory because nothing happened. But what I always tell communication professionals, I tell our leaders, is start that conversation early. Ask our leaders and our business partners, what issues can we avoid if we communicate Proactively. What's happened before that, that really was a nightmare? You know, I work on a lot of reorganization communication, and, and the, the reorganization and workforce reduction programs that we communicate always start with a proactive meeting with, with a team leader or, or an organization at the beginning saying, here's what Here's the disruption that's— here's what's going to happen, here's why we're doing it. As soon as, you know, changes are made, we're going to all come together, and we'll talk about where we're going moving forward, and who and what changes, why we made the changes we did. We work very closely with leaders on those conversations, and whenever we are proactive about communicating workforce reductions and reorganizations, it's amazing how calm everybody is. And that's the biggest surprise that executives tell us about, that first of all, they felt more prepared when originally they were really, really hesitant to have any conversations with anybody, but once they're doing workforce reductions, they have to say something, especially when somebody disappears, is not there anymore. There is a point where people figure it out themselves. I always say that leaders, My job is to make sure leaders lead, that people don't feel like they're hearing from the rumor mill before they hear from leaders, and that they understand why. So again, the issues we tend to avoid is that disruption and things that get escalated bigger to bigger than they need to be, and we try to really create the trust because what we're managing is conversations. Regular conversations with the organization. So if we actually say as part of a roundtable when we're part, when we're invited, when we communicate really well, what happens and what doesn't happen, we at the end of that process can take credit for what doesn't happen. So I encourage you to have that conversation up front so that you can remind people that, you know, we did communicate and these things didn't happen, and that really mattered. And those were important because the entire team acknowledged that they were important.

Speaker A: We do have a question in the Q&A, but I will actually— we'll just answer that during the Q&A because we're kind of getting close to it.

Speaker B: Yeah, okay. That's what I was— I always try to manage my time because I want to make sure we have enough time for questions. When I— when you look at, you know, the program that we shared today, You know, we asked for a business plan, and then we asked for the communication plan, the change plan, and the communication plan. We managed those conversations and delivered what we needed to deliver, and then at the end of it, we measure. You know, what did success look like? And I ensure that we always do a debrief with our team. This is what This is what happened, good and bad. This is what we think we can do better next time. That conversation allows you— I've used the engagement that we get from executives during a change program that they're scared of, a disruption, to make, make recommendations for infrastructure or extra resources, or now as a client, you know, more proactive engagement, bring us in earlier next time and we can help avoid some of these situations that happened. So we have that very clear conversation and debrief. As a consultant, I always did that on the inside when I was an in-house communication professional, and I definitely do that as a consultant. So as a consultant, we're expected to come in and tell a client, what are we going to do for you? Because Time is money and they're paying for, you know, above and beyond their resources, paying for that time and paying for that expertise. We keep them informed with milestones along the way, and then at the end of an engagement we always ask them, you know, here's what we think happened, here's what went well, here's what didn't, and here's what we think we can do better next time, and that usually, you know, leads to a different kind of conversation. that allow us to create improvements moving forward, because this is an iterative process. Internal communication and change management is just starting to grow. They understand, executives and organizations understand that communication and change management is important when they're going through change, but we're delivering it very tactically today, and so any conversations we can have to become more proactive, strategic, tie it to the business objectives, and then take credit for that. At the end, I have a blog post that I wrote that's called Learning to Brag. I want to encourage communication professionals and change professionals and HR professionals to brag about the good work that we do and take credit for it and not be afraid to. And acknowledge the partnerships. I think that we know we can't— internal communication does not work in a vacuum, nor do any of those other groups, but if we can really create a partnership that works and really creates that higher purpose and greater impact, it's a big difference. I use this slide, it's really, you know, I want to encourage internal communication professionals who are used to being behind the scenes to have the courage to change the conversation. Sometimes that means having the courage to say no to certain things. It's the courage to step into a conversation and say, you know, a program that is a little scary and has a business impact that you do have to take some accountability for. I'm discovering more and more that our challenges, you know, communication professionals who are sitting around, you know, looking in those windows and wondering why they're not invited to the table and don't feel like they have the respect, it's not about capability and capacity as it is about courage and confidence. I think we need to step up and have those conversations more proactively, and even if it's, you know, even if your executives don't go with your recommendations, at least they can point, look back at the conversation they had where you made recommendations, and you can come back and, you know, when things do, don't go as smoothly as they expected it to, you can come back and say, remember that conversation we had? I really feel strongly that this tool or this, the resources or bringing us in earlier will make a big difference next time, and it does. create that continuous improvement program and process that you're wanting to have. So with that, Filza, do you want to open it up for questions?

Speaker A: Yeah, so we have 2 questions right now in the Q&A. So one from Maryam, she says, how do you convince your manager that we need to communicate rather than saying nothing, especially if it's your manager's idea Be the ears of the organizations.

Speaker B: You're not going to win every battle, and it's harder to win at the beginning, and acknowledge that this is a growth process. So you provide your recommendation, maybe the manager decides not to communicate this time, then you actually ask, okay, what happened when we didn't communicate? And keep your ears and ears open. ears out, you're listening. Listen to, listen to the water cooler conversations. Be the expert. I always say that internal communication professionals have this opportunity to have a unique point of view, and HR professionals too, where they're actually talking to employees on a regular basis. They know what the rumor mills are reporting back. Have a— I used to have a group of executive assistants when I managed you know, national operations from an internal communication perspective, and those EAs who were the eyes and ears of each of those different offices would report back to me on their impressions, and I was able to go back to an executive or go back to my boss and say, this is what they're saying out there, you know, and this is what we're hearing based on my contacts out there. That has to be done confidentially, but but you provide that feedback and say, here's how we think we can avoid it next time. Look at engagement results. Look at trust results. Executives are starting to care about that right now. Look at reputation. All of those things matter. I had a great opportunity with a consult— with a client of ours where one executive was not keen on being proactive with reorg communication, and one executive in a different location that was happening a few weeks later decided to take all our advice and run our program as is. I think that's gold, for we actually got to compare this reorg with that one inside the same organization, and when those 2 executives talked, we, what was clear was the proactive process worked smoothly, better, and it was better for the employees in terms of limiting disruption. We were able to track that because of the different, the way each executive managed it. So we look for those opportunities that, you know, what happens when we do it, do it the way we think it should be done, and what happens when it doesn't. Be prepared when you're doing that listening and observing that you might be wrong. And I'm, you know, I'm always first to say, okay, this piece you're right on, but I still feel that this piece, we, I'd love for us to have a chance. So track what those baby steps could be and see if you're seeing some improvements along the way.

Speaker A: And Ashley is asking, what advice would you give when an organization is going through multiple changes at the same time and you're the only comms manager in the organization?

Speaker B: Hire us! What I probably, what we usually say is pick your priorities. There's only so much you can do, but make sure you let them know why you can't support everything. I— what I'll— I have on my website, there's a resources section, and I have a matrix, an impact matrix that you can download, and it essentially says, here's everything that we're working on, here is where we have the biggest— like, this is what's going to require more resources and more and have a bigger impact. We want a few things that we're going to invest in long-term. Here are the things that are low-hanging fruit, and here's a bunch of things that we shouldn't be working on because they don't have an impact on your— our organization. So I'd say I often work with executives and say, here's the things that we shouldn't be doing so that we can make room for the things that are the priorities. I ask leaders and executives Because we have limited resources, we've got a few choices. I can only, you know, we want to, what are the most important ones I can work on for you, and with the others, are you okay with we won't be able to support, or we'll need to hire extra resources internally, or we need, these ones are critical, we need to hire consultants externally, and that could sound like a sales pitch, but But what I did on the inside as well as emphasize, you know, communicators, communication professionals do on the outside, as I am on the outside, is use our, you know, first of all, bring in the experts and then use our costs to justify hiring internally when leaders see what great looks like. So you want to start from a position where you're valuing that. Often what I see is on the inside you see consultants come in, and then the conversation internally is, oh, those consultants cost too much. Well, if that's a communication consultant or a change management consultant coming in and you're inside saying it costs too much, you're actually, you're actually having a conversation that says I'm not worth that much, right? So let's say, let's acknowledge that we need the extra hands and the extra work and the expertise, and then eventually make the case for bringing that expertise in-house, because I think that, you know, to build that inner strength, that's what we're about. You need to start by really valuing that role that the organization needs. So try to make the case, but if you can't, if it's a no across the board, prioritize. Pick the ones that you think are going to have the biggest impact.

Speaker A: And we have, I think we have time for 2 more questions, so One anonymous attendee is asking, how do you determine which changes, large or small, should go through a formal change management professional and which can be handled by the internal communications team?

Speaker B: Always think about it as a partnership. So when I come into organizations, I work in partnership with the internal communications and any communication teams and make sure that there's a collaborative relationship that's going on. So try not to just cordon off us and them. I think that's a good start, when you're doing it. I'd say things that we have the— things that seem really critical where there's the largest disruption are a good idea for hiring external for, things that aren't happening every single day. So think of the internal team, you should have hands and feet to deliver the day-to-day infrastructure. The infrastructure you build during the good times, you can leverage will help you communicate during the bad times. So when we talked about creating that communication plan and the tactics, hopefully 90%, you know, maybe it's 75%, but in most cases ideally it's 90% of the information can fit through the infrastructure you already have on communicating with people every single day, right, or every week, or every month, or every quarter. If that infrastructure is already happening, then you're able to to integrate any of those disruptive messages into the existing infrastructure. Really, really important. And then, and then it should be anything that's above and beyond, needs additional creative, it needs additional strategic thinking, it needs, you know, extra hands at a strategic level convincing the executives how to move in a certain direction. We'll work through that. We'll also work on training. Training the communication teams internally on those processes that eventually, I was mentioning that reorg process that we put together for that client, and once they were sold, they just went through another small, you know, workforce reduction on their own using the tools on their own, and their internal teams were able to deliver it. So always think about if you're bringing in a consultant, Think about what can you build and then learn from so that you can bring some of that work in-house as well.

Speaker A: We're getting a lot of questions.

Speaker B: Oh no, we have 3 minutes.

Speaker A: Elizabeth is asking, what are your favorite tools for communicating change, and also what department does internal communications report to in most organizations?

Speaker B: Oh, that's all over the place. I see that I have You know, I have personally reported into human resources, to corporate affairs, to marketing, an integrated marketing communication function, and reported directly into strategy. Where did I have the most impact? Directing report— reporting directly into strategy, right? I also felt that I liked being part of a corporate affairs and integrated marketing communications team, not that I'm saying that it's bad to communicate, that not as bad to report into human resources. The only thing that I'd say if you're a human resources leader is that if what you're asking the communication professionals to do is focus more on the benefits and the day-to-day operational communication and not on the business, bottom-line business communication, that's where I find that that was the difference, the key difference for me reporting into HR versus reporting into the business, was that I got to focus on the business impact programs, and HR was one of those, but really having the impact and being able to really understand how the business worked made a really big difference. I think if somebody went out there and did a survey that the majority of them report into human resources or corporate, like a corporate communications function today. I'm a big believer that it doesn't matter where you report as long as you have access. And you want to make sure that you've got access to the executives. Most of my roles, especially over the last, like, you know, probably 15 years, I was one away from the president or the CEO. So my boss reported directly to the president or CEO, and that made a really big difference in terms of impact. It also, I was very privileged to have incredible leaders who would give me direct access to those leaders when I needed to be there.

Speaker A: And the last question is, what approach would you recommend to communicating uncertainty when the timelines and the actual changes are not clearly defined?

Speaker B: One of the things I often say is that what we're doing is we're not having a bunch of campaigns with our employees. What we're doing is managing a relationship and conversations. that eventually build trust, and so if you're thinking about the conversations you're having, you're letting people know on a quarterly basis if you're publicly traded that you met the goals. You're letting, you're having conversations around here's the opportunities we have and where we're investing as an organization, and here's where we're divesting as an organization because we don't think that there's opportunities there. We talk about, you know, challenges that we have with technology infrastructure and We talk about lack of efficiency. We talk about great efficiency and promote, you know, recognize those employees who are doing a great job and are delivering the way we want to. This is a conversation we're managing, and when we have that conversation regularly, talking about the stuff that's important to the organization, when we all of a sudden have to say we've now decided to sell this part of the business, What should be happening is they actually see a direct line to the strategy and the values and the mission and the vision, because it's all connected. It's when we're not having that conversation that we have challenges.

Speaker A: All right, and Priya, I think you have the slide for the app over here.

Speaker B: Oh, it's just a slide for the— we've got templates in our website. Go to the resources section, you can take a look there. I've been meaning to put up some of our templates change management templates as well. I'll probably get around to it at some point. So, so we're happy for you to go in and download some of those templates to use yourself.

Speaker A: And this, I believe, is how to get in touch with you.

Speaker B: I'm easy to find. So, so I hope you found that valuable today. I hope I answered all the questions that, that we had. I know you had some extra ones, but thank you for spending the time today. I enjoyed being here.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Priya. And for those of you— I know, Elizabeth, you were asking about what tools to use. So, and especially if you're looking for a tool to start tracking your employee engagement, you may want to consider ContactMonkey. You can easily track your emails using our tool from Outlook and Gmail, and it also allows you to build HTML emails and send flawless company newsletters that look responsive across all devices. We would encourage you to go to our website website and download our free guide. It's called The Ultimate Guide to Sending Internal Emails Your Employees Will Love from Outlook, and it outlines exactly how our tool works and how you can start measuring internal communications using email if you have, you know, if you don't even know where to start when it comes to measurement. And thank you so much, Priya, for taking the time out to do this absolutely amazing insightful webinar. And thank you everyone for joining, and see you guys next time.

Speaker B: Thanks everyone.