Leaders Guide To Communicating Change.

Give your team clarity and certainty.

The quick checklist to communicating change.

When you need to communicate a change to your team, the three most important elements are to share:

• The facts. What you know to be true, as of today.

• What you don’t know yet. Reduce suspicion by owning what you don’t know.

• What this means for them. Be explicit as to what their options are.

• Let’s look at those three steps in detail.

Step 1 - Share the facts.

What’s most important is you outline what the change is in no uncertain terms and how it impacts the other person.

The framing is, ‘here is what’s happening, here is what it looks like’.

Examples:

• “There’s a 80% chance we’re going to land this new client. This means our roles are both going to change.”

• “As you know, we lost our big client recently. This means the biz had to make some hard decisions and your role has been impacted.”

The shorter you keep it, the easier it will be for them to process.

Step 2 - Reduce suspicion.

The curious thing about being human is if someone doesn’t fill in the gaps, we make up our own version of events. Clarify what you do know for sure and what you don’t know yet.

Examples:

• ‘’We know there’s a restructure. We don’t know what roles are impacted yet.”

• “We know the CMO is leaving. We don’t know their replacement yet.”

It also reduces the pressure for you to know all the answers.

Say you don’t know yet but when you do, you’ll let them know.

Step 3 - What this means for them.

All someone wants to know is what it means for them. Have that ready.

Examples:

• “Here’s what that looks like. Step one will be …”

• “What that means is you’ll no longer be working on the account. As of Friday…”

What your goal is in this conversation.

You want the person to leave your interaction knowing with certainty, what the next steps are. Even if they don’t totally understand the change, or like it.

This also means if and when they air grievances with their loved ones about the change, those people can play back the next steps back to them, reminding them of their choices, thanks to you being clear.

Pro tip: it’s normal to worry about letting them down.

Yet, what your team member will value most is honesty.

If you’re tempted to share your personal perspective (e.g. your regret), check in on whether that’s for your benefit (e.g. to feel less bad), or for theirs (e.g. to show you empathise with them).

Lead with the facts, so you’re not centering yourself.

You don’t need to weigh in on whether you agree, or whether you had a hand in making the call yourself to set up the conversation. Start with sharing the facts as the starting point.

During a change, your job as a leader is to help people do three things.

The first is to process the change. Translate it so they understand what it means for them.

The second is to adjust their expectations. Be upfront about what this will mean. Give them advance warning so they get a minute to get their heads around it.

The third is to manage their capacity. The longer they get notice that a change is happening, the longer they’ll be distracted. They need certainty.

If your team member struggles.

There are employees who will struggle to see what they can gain. They’re seeing the change as a personal attack on their freedoms.

It’s useful to remember people need time to process, usually to get over the shock, before they see the upside.

However, if you’re finding your team member is struggling to see the upside after a few weeks or even months, here are ideas on how to handle that.

Remind them of their choices (that they have them) and their agency (that they have free will, no one is trapping them).

This can look like:

• Reminding them what is within their control vs out of their control.

• Outlining what is not changing so there’s some form of certainty.

• Setting them up with support to process away from work (e.g. EAP, annual leave).

Reiterate it’s their choice what they do next.

Recap: your checklist for change.

• Share the facts. What you know to be true, as of today.

• Reduce suspicion by owning what you don’t know.

• Be explicit as to what their options are.

• Confirm what is not changing (to create a sense of certainty).