Communicating Organizational Change

Organizational Change integrates major empirical, theoretical and conceptual approaches to implementing communication in organizational settings. Laurie Lewis ties together the disparate literatures in management, education, organizational sociology, and communication to explore how the practices and processes of communication work in real-world cases of change implementation. Gives a bold and comprehensive overview of communication research and ideas on change and those who bring it about Fills in an important piece of the applied communication puzzle as it relates to organizations Illustrated with student friendly, real life case studies from organizations, including organizational mergers, governmental or nonprofit policy or procedural implementation, or technological innovation Winner of the 2011 Organizational Communication NCA Division Book of the Year

Rapid and volatile organizational change is one of the most profound characteristics of our time. How to communicate the need for and the direction of change to stockholders, employees, customers, and management is the subject of this book.

A historic shift is occurring in the nature of management. Until recently, bosses could simply use the power of their positions to direct and order their subordinates. However, in today's workplace, which is significantly different from the remarkably homogenous and traditional business environment of just two decades ago, the approach of command authority no longer works effectively. Winning 'em Over chronicles a revolution. We are witnessing an ancient model of managing built around command and hierarchy give way to a new model built around persuasion and teamwork. Jay Conger demonstrates to managers on all levels how to thrive in the wake of this momentous transformation. Today we work in an environment where people don't just ask "What should I do?" but "Why should I do it?" To successfully answer this "why" question is to persuade. Yet many businesspeople misunderstand and still more make little use of persuasion. The problem? Persuasion is widely perceived as a skill reserved for selling products and closing deals. But in reality, good managers are persuading all day long. As Conger explains with insight and conviction, today's most effective managers are influencing others through constructive forms of persuasion -- and their employees give them levels of commitment and motivation that the managers of the last generation could only dream of. Conger illustrates how three important forces -- new generations of managers and executives, cross-functional teams, and unprecedented access to information that was once the privilege of the most senior levels of management -- are undermining the old Age of Command and ushering in the new Age of Persuasion. He exposes the most commonly held myths about the art of persuasion and shows how to influence others productively, without manipulation. Most important, he outlines the four crucial components of effective managing by persuasion: building one's credibility, finding common ground so that others have a stake in one's ideas, finding compelling positions and evidence, and emotionally connecting with coworkers so that solutions resonate with them on a personal level. In Winning 'em Over, Conger explains how to implement a management style that will succeed in what is becoming a fundamentally and radically different business environment, and he provides readers with all of the new tools they will need to become effective, constructive persuaders.

This book is a practical and theoretical discussion of how to effectively communicate organizational change to management, employees, stockholders, and customers.

Offers prescriptions for effecting successful change centered around three guiding principles: conveying the message through supervisors; communicating face-to-face; and, making the changes relevant to each work area

THE RIGHT PHRASE FOR EVERY SITUATION . . . EVERY TIME Employees respond to organizational change with worry, fear, and sometimes even panic. Your job is to keep them motivated and focused—so you must choose your words carefully during times of upheaval. Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change has hundreds of ready-to-use phrases for ensuring your employees make the transition with clarity, commitment, and skill. Learn the most effective language for: Articulating new company initiatives Responding to questions with confidence Easing employees' fears Clarifying roles and responsibilities Addressing resistance and performance problems Praise for Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change "Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change is a wonderful book, filled with practical, solid advice, suggestions, and examples for how to communicate effectively in a time of change.” John Krajicek, Executive Professor and Assistant Director of Business Communication Studies, Texas A&M University "Communication during organizational change is everything. The right words at the right time can make all the difference between a successful and unsuccessful change initiative. This is a wonderful resource for finding the right words and sentiments to convey any type of change." Robert J. Marshak, Ph.D., author of Covert Processes at Work: Managing the Five Hidden Dimensions of Organizational Change “Finding the right words to communicate change is challenging, even for the best of managers. In this user-friendly text, Lawrence and Antoine provide hundreds of practical phrases to better prepare managers for the task. The book is rich with insightful suggestions on change messaging considerations and construction.” Edward Ferris, Assistant Professor, The New School for Management and Urban Policy "In my over 20 years of running companies and corporate divisions I have seen a direct correlation between the quality of communication of my managers and their success in the business world. If you aspire to be an effective, efficient, and productive leader then I highly recommend this book. It is an outstanding reference guide and road map for pragmatic yet inspirational communication techniques." Mitch Pisik, President and CEO, Breckwell Products

Every leader understands the burning need for change–and every leader knows how risky it is, and how often it fails. To make organizational change work, you need to base it on science, not intuition. Despite hundreds of books on change, failure rates remain sky high. Are there deep flaws in the guidance change leaders are given? While eschewing the pat answers, linear models, and change recipes offered elsewhere, Paul Gibbons offers the first blueprint for change that fully reflects the newest advances in mindfulness, behavioral economics, the psychology of risk-taking, neuroscience, mindfulness, and complexity theory. Change management, ostensibly the craft of making change happen, is rife with myth, pseudoscience, and flawed ideas from pop psychology. In Gibbons’ view, change management should be “euthanized” and replaced with change agile businesses, with change leaders at every level. To achieve that, business education and leadership training in organizations needs to become more accountable for real results, not just participant satisfaction (the “edutainment” culture). Twenty-first century change leaders need to focus less on project results, more on creating agile cultures and businesses full of staff who have “get to” rather than “have to” attitudes. To do that, change leaders will have to leave behind the old paradigm of “carrots and sticks,” both of which destroy engagement. “New analytics” offer more data-driven approaches to decision making, but present a host of people challenges—where petabyte information flows meet traditional decision-making structures. These approaches will have to be complemented with “leading with science”—that is, using evidence-based management to inform strategy and policy decisions. In The Science of Successful Organizational Change , you'll learn: How the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world affects the scale and pace of change in today’s businesses How understanding of flaws in human decision-making can help leaders guide their teams toward wiser strategic decisions when the stakes are largest—including “when to trust your guy and when to trust a model” and “when all of us are smarter than one of us” How new advances in neuroscience have altered best practices in influencing colleagues; negotiating with partners; engaging followers' hearts, minds, and behaviors; and managing resistance How leading organizations are making use of the science of mindfulness to create agile learners and agile cultures How new ideas from analytics, forecasting, and risk are humbling those who thought they knew the future–and how the human side of analytics and the psychology of risk are paradoxically more important in this technologically enabled world What complexity theory means for decision-making in the context of your own business How to create resilient and agile business cultures and anti-fragile, dynamic business structures To link science with your "on-the-ground" reality, Gibbons tells “warts and all” stories from his twenty-plus years consulting to top teams and at the largest businesses in the world. You'll find case studies from well-known companies like IBM and Shell and CEO interviews from Nokia and Barclays Bank.

Effective communication has long been recognized as a vital factor in making change happen. However, despite the need for businesses to change in order to remain competitive, employees still complain about poor communication and managers still claim their people resist change. Communicating Change addresses these problems by providing a framework for deciding what communication is needed and then revealing how this can be achieved. It stresses the need to link a communications strategy to the objectives of a business and demonstrates how this can be done through a series of real examples taken from a wide variety of key businesses. The book also offers advice tips on how to identify the failure of a current strategy and how to make a new strategy work. Communicating Change is aimed at those people who want to improve communication in their company. Written in a clear and informal style, this is a thoroughly readable guide to facilitating change through improved internal communication.