While many project teams mistakenly confuse a Communications Plan with an Implementation Plan, communicating effectively during a business change is important. A good Communications Plan must always include some type of feedback loop and should not rely on top-down delivery vehicles such as email or a website. The plan should focus on influencing behavior change, rather than just providing information. So how exactly do you accomplish this? Here are six major ways that project teams can build a Communications Plan that will enhance the likelihood of implementation success.
1. Use Sponsors as face-to-face communicators
Your
Sponsors are the most powerful influencers for driving behavior change, so use them as much as possible in face-to-face, small group meetings. These small group sessions will be the most effective method for communicating with the Targets of the change, because you can position messages in the Targets’ Frame of Reference, and you will have the opportunity to identify the sources of resistance.
2. Ensure EMR (Express-Model-Reinforce) alignment
We know that using the power of Sponsors to influence behavior change is the single most important factor in the speed and success of an implementation. But to use this power to greatest advantage, we need to ensure that what Sponsors say, what they do, and what they reinforce is consistent. When Sponsors express, model, and reinforce the commitment to the business change, you can implement at speed.
3. Create a shared responsibility
When you base your Communications Plan on two-way communications, you gather important feedback on the sources of
resistance and you reinforce the notion of “shared responsibility” with Targets. If Sponsors don’t have all the information, tell Targets what you know, and be up-front with what you don’t know, but will find out. It’s this candor that will build credibility going forward, and will enable you to ask Targets for what you need from them for implementation success.
4. Create messages that are balanced and truthful
Your Communications Plan messages can support the dual responsibility of Sponsors and Targets when the content includes a balance between the benefits of the business change and the price to be paid to achieve the change. This means that you can’t oversell the positive aspects of a change. Even a
positive change means a disruption at some level, so there’s a cost for the Targets—any change is disruptive. Also keep in mind that what one group of Targets perceives as positive may not be so positive for another group.
5. Check your Communications Plan for F.O.R. fit in both the messages and the delivery vehicles
Too many Communications Plans are built on generic messaging that provides information but is ineffective in influencing behavior change. Influence is greatest when messages are developed in the Frame of Reference of the Targets. That means the message that is right for one group of Targets may need to be very different for another group.
6. Remember that Communications is a process, not an event
We often hear of situations where Sponsors are highly visible for the launch of a project, but disappear thereafter. Other project teams spend all their energies on a project website. A best-practice Communications Plan is dynamic and is being tweaked and adjusted throughout the life of the change. No one event can take the place of a Sponsor who is building on-going credibility through candid, balanced, small group sessions that include as much listening as talking.
Project teams that embed these six critical success factors in their Communications Plans will dramatically increase the likelihood of an implementation that is completed on time, on budget, with all business, technical and human objectives met.
