Communicating change - lessons learnt

Per Zetterquist

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• Activities and decisions become consistent and predictable

• People can take action on insights

• Changes not always easy to accept

- but respected if there is a plan

Lesson 1

Tell your story - and stick to it

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• Today’s messages must survive the next quarterly report and be in line with already known long-term intentions

Lesson 2

Think around the corner

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Lesson 3

Support the middle management

• Consider they are extremely exposed and with double loyalties

• Rarely involved in discussions and decisions

• In need of simple messages, support from the top and debriefs

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Confident managers

Good internal communication and strong local leadership

Simple messages

Lesson 4

Keep it simple

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• Line managers must feel involved in order to take ownership and deliver tough messages

• Line managers need time to discuss and reflect before and after announcements

• Line managers want to have the briefing packs before their own staff

Lesson 5

Engagement takes time and dialogue

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• In times of change a lot of one-way information from the centre

• …while increased need for local anchoring and reflection

• Don’t forget the language barriers – ”I want to hear the news in my own language”

Lesson 6

It differs between HQ and local company

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Lesson 7

Those who stay are the future

• Attention is normally on those who have to leave

…remember the future of the company depends on those who remain

• Make sure there are energy and resources available to tell about the future to those who stay

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Lesson 8

External media is an important internal channel

• External media is often faster- they can speculate

• They normally have higher credibility

• They “are allowed” to put forward the relevant and straight questions

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Lesson 8

Internal communication = External communication

• More true than ever in times of change

• Secure absolute transparency

• Full and strong contol over messaging is more imporant than ”every one having their say”

…and always with the employees as first priority

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Lesson 10

Get the unions on board

• The earlier the unions are involved the better – craft the reasons for change together

• Facilitate so that unions can act as representatives for the employees rather than having individuals chased by media

• Let the unions take part in the press briefings – joint messaging to avoid opposition in media

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Lesson 11

Get the skeletons out of the closet

• Are there any unknown promises made to the local community?

• Does the headquarter know

what the local site managers

have committed to?

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Lesson 12Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition,repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition

and some more repetition

One time is no time when driving through changes

…senior management must reminded this since they already have their thought in next years implentation

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Lesson 13

Get it over with!

• Change hurts• Small portions of change hurt even

more• Accept internal turmoil and big

headlines for a few days. Then focus on the task.

• A succession of tough announcements means a decrease of trust in management

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Lesson 14

The devil is in the numbers

• ”47.500 employees”, ”2.450 made redundant”, ”1.180 in job training”, etc.

• Detailed levels of numbers are often used to gain the trust of the financial markets

• Internal guess work and worries when numbers don’t match

• “Explain and defend” becomes the main task towards employees and media…and the numbers are rarely accurate to start with!

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Lesson 5

It quickly becomes very Swedish (1)

”What is a varsel?”

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Lesson 16

It quickly becomes very Swedish (2)

”Come on, it’s time to move on!”