Around 70 to 85 per cent of all change initiatives fail – and it is often Internal Communications (IC) that is (partly) blamed for this. Of course, it is true that change projects also fail because of poor communication. But what are the main reasons for failure? And how can communicators help make a transformation a success? Our founder Dominik Faust discussed about effective internal communications live on LinkedIn with Philipp Scherber from Staffbase. So one of the most common causes of change project failure is a lack of understanding by executives of the psychological aspects of change. People have a natural aversion to change. In fact, they often create actual fear. It is crucial for effective change communications to understand this “Anti-Change DNA”. The change curve shows how many people react to change: Initially, after the first shock, motivation rises according to the motto “Now more than ever!”. After a downhill slide with fear, anger and resistance, things eventually start to pick up again. People buy in, recognise the improvements and, ideally, are enthusiastic about the new possibilities.
Chapter
00:00 Introduction
03:28 Main reasons why change initiatives fail (Anti-Change-DNA, overloading of middle management etc.)
08:50 Tip 1: Live the human side of transformation (communicate in line with multiple change curves etc.)
17:17 Summary of tip 1
21:00 Tip 2: If to lead, you have to feel (pulse surveys etc.)
24:49 Tip 3: Pamper your middle management
26:51 Tip 4: Be a sparring partner, not a punching bag
30:14 Tip 5: Turn down the complexity regulator
31:45 Q&A
If you would like to read Domink’s 5 tips for effective change communications in English, you are warmly invited to do so in this blog post: https://viadoo.eu/blog/5-tips-for-effective-change-communications/
