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One of the things that most leaders are grappling with now is the change all around them, all the time. The external environment’s changing. Competitors are coming in, markets are decreasing, increasing, they’re being disrupted and because of that, you have to change your business model and when you change your business model you have to adapt people’s roles and their thinking to that new way of operating.
The Challenge
Most communication frameworks talk about two things:
- The right channel
- The message
I’m going to talk about how to develop the right message to get the change to happen. You can decide on the channel, whether it’s social media, whether it’s face to face, whether it’s you on a mic. Thinking about the right channel is really important and I’m not forgetting about that, but here is a way for you to develop the message.
When people are faced with change, they have two responses:
- First of all, they say to themselves, well, what will I lose? And that’s really the question that drives why many of us resist. The second question they ask themselves is, what will I gain? And throughout the period of the change they really ask themselves is, will what I gain outweigh what I lose?
- The second thing that’s happening is, we’re helping people move away from pain and towards a goal. We have to capture people’s heads, we have to provide them the logic of what they’ll gain and lose. And we also have to capture their hearts. Emotionally they have to believe in it.
Send Messages About These Four Things:
1.The logic
First one is, what is the problem? What are the context and the problem for why this needs to change? Talks to the fact that there is a logical situation that says that there’s a reason why we’ve got to let go. I would argue that that is really what needs to come first when you’re communicating, and it explains it.
2. The head
We need to explain the vision or the destination of where we’re gaining to and what is the logical payoff if we get there. What’s the pain from the problem and what’s the payoff if we achieve where we need to change to?
3. The heart
We’ve got the problem and promise and we know where we’re going to get to, but we need to capture their hearts. The first thing around this is to talk about what’s in it for me. We have to take this big vision and break it down into what’s in it for me for people at different levels of the organisation so that they actually see that the movement will create a gain for them and there’ll be something in it for them.
4. The emotion
We have to also talk about what we need to let go of, and why. That’s a tougher conversation because it’s requiring you to go to that emotional level and saying, you know what, it’s going to require all of us to change.
Summary
Often when we speak about change, we’re multidimensional or kind of monochrome in the way we do it. It’s black and white. And I think there’s more to it. There’s actually another dimension to this which is we need to be able to send messages that talk to the fact that people resist and they’ll find it hard to let go. We need to send messages that talk about what people will gain from going through the change. And we need to connect with their heads, the logic, but also connect with their hearts.
So when you send messages, think about these four things:
- Am I communicating the problem and the pain?
- Am I communicating the vision, the payoff?
- Am I articulating what needs to be let go of?
- And am I talking about the what’s in it for me?
Leave me a Comment or Get in Touch
Most people I talk to are having some element of their operation or the way they’re operation needing to change in the next 12 months. When you talk to your staff at a meeting, you know when you get an opportunity to talk about that vision, cover these four areas and what you’ll find is that people are more likely to rather than resist, they’ll move with you.
If you need help with this, you want me to come in and help you put it together. I’ve done this for a couple of people at the conference since I spoke. Happy to come and do that with you. I hope this is helpful for you. Leave me a comment down below. Send me a note. See you next time on The Reason & The Road.
