Why Can't I Get Through to Them?
by Janet E. Lapp, Ph.D.

Watson Wyatt Worldwide in 1993 investigated 531 United States organizations undergoing major restructuring. The question: "If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?” The most frequent answer: "The way I communicated with my employees.”

Here are three tips on how to communicate more effectively.

1. Communicate facts, not values.

Communicate face-to-face. Don't count on videos, publications, or large meetings to do your communicating for you. The only effective way to communicate a value is to act in accordance with it and give others the incentive to do the same.

The best way to communicate a major change to the front-line workforce is face-to-face. Do not use videos or video hookups, do not introduce the change in a company publication, and do not hold large meetings with front-line employees. Video has been the fastest-growing medium for communicating with employees even though evidence is that employees don't watch videos. Video ranks eleventh out of 14 communication methods, according to studies conducted jointly by the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) and by Towers Perrin.

Don't gather people into groups to announce changes. When front-line employees anticipate major change, the last thing you should do is gather them into a large group for two reasons. First, group mentality is unpredictable. Second, employees would rather receive information from their immediate supervisors than from senior managers.

2. Get Behaviors and Rewards Lined Up

If you value customer service, then recruitment, performance appraisals, promotions, and bonuses should be based on customer service performance. Create objective measures for performance that are important to you. Live the values, act the deeds. According to a 1993 Wyatt survey, 68% of large companies consider missions and values to be their number one communication priority. Sadly, they attempt to get these across directly in words rather than through actions.

Spending time on rewriting mission statements doesn't seem to help get them across either. Seventy percent of the major companies in a 1992 Jensen Group survey, had revised their corporate missions during recent restructuring. Only nine percent felt that revising their missions helped them achieve the objectives of the restructuring.

3. Make sure that your Deeds Support your Values

According to a Mirvis and Kanter 1989 study, 43% of employees believe that management cheats and lies, and the front-line is the most cynical group of all. A 1994 study by the Council of Communication Management shows that 64% of employees believe that management is often lying. The Wall Street Journal in November of 1992 reported that two-thirds of senior personnel managers surveyed by Right Associates said that employees trust management less after a restructuring.

Employees will infer what you value from your behavior. They will adopt your values only if they are convinced that those values will enable them to attain their personal goals. Propaganda won't help.

A large paper manufacturing company in the mid-west was undergoing major change. Thousands of employees watched senior managers unveil a new mission. The slogan Teamwork Together Tomorrow was on a gigantic video screen behind the speaker's platform. Employees received duffel bags, caps, and coffee mugs inscribed with the three T's. When they returned to work, however, they found a letter from the union accusing the company of hiring private investigators to watch employees suspected of stealing, using drugs, and making fraudulent disability claims. When behavior does not match rhetoric, resistance skyrockets.

Communicating change has never been easy. Many thousands of years ago, orders were passed down in fewer than five or six words, or a simple visual signal was given. These days it may take longer to process a memo describing change than it does to enact the change itself.

Say in the fewest words possible what you plan to do. Put the facts down on paper. This will guide communication between senior managers and supervisors, and between supervisors and front-line employees.

In periods of high stress and uncertainty, people fill communication voids with rumors; rumors end up attributing the worst possible motives to those in control. Any communication lowers employees' stress and anxiety even when the news is bad. Uncertainty is more painful than bad news. Keep information flowing out. People need about tenfold the amount of information you think they do.

• Keep all information short, simple, clear and interesting. People won't read more than seven seconds if they are not highly motivated and/or their interest has not been piqued.

• Start a reverse flow of information, so that the flow becomes bi-directional. If your change is too complicated to communicate simply, then simplify the change. The limits of what you can communicate as facts are the limits of what you can do.

a. Cut out every unnecessary word.
b. Avoid management proclamations.
c. Tell employees, straight up, exactly what you plan to do.
d. Don't lie, fudge or hide.
e. Don't worry about employees leaking information to your competitors.

Your competitors already know. Hackers can infiltrate your most secure material in minutes. Besides, if all you can do is track your competitors, you're in poor competitive shape.

The traditional approach is to launch change from the top and hope that communication about the change will spread like wildfire. But front-line supervisors are the opinion leaders in your organization. Because front-line supervisors greatly influence the attitudes and behaviors of others, they are critical to the success of any change effort. Ameritech, AT&T, Cadbury Schweppes, Exxon Chemical, GE, General Tire, GM, Hewlett-Packard, and Santa Fe have all found that the immediate supervisor is the preferred source of information.

Spend 80% of your communication time, money, and effort on supervisors. Employees will change the way they go about their jobs only if they learn about what is expected of them from a familiar and credible source. Communication between front-line supervisors and employees counts the most toward changed behavior where it matters the most: at the front line.

• Open up communication channels so that competitive and financial information flows down to the shop floor, and suggestions flow up to the chairman.

• Hold small focus groups of workers who have immediate contact with their jobs to determine what problems they have, what their needs are, and what suggestions they have for the company.

• Communicate these needs in such a way as they are heard, through front-line supervisors, progressively up through the layers of the organization, with minimal system delay. Follow information manually to analyze delays and unblock them.

• Act on these needs and suggestions where possible, flowing information back down in response to them with minimal system delay. Follow information manually to analyze blocks and delays.

• Begin 360 degree evaluation. Employees evaluate their immediate supervisors and peers. Feedback sessions should be supervised.

• Reach agreements on the common vision and common goals of the unit. Assess authority and responsibility at each level, and create open agreement regarding levels of delegation. Create a values outline whereby decisions can be made.

• Strengthen those actions in the best interests of the company, and weaken purely self-serving actions. Challenge 'look good' or other symptomatic solutions. Monitor and correct each of the symptoms which creates a non-productive atmosphere.

Making a big company more flexible, does requires a complete change in how people act and think. Make sure you get your message through to the people who count.