Delivering First Communication Activities

The BriscoBikes employees impacted by the 4S project want to know what will change, why the change is necessary, which benefits are associated with it and how the change will be implemented. A change story summarizes this information and other relevant facts related to the digital transformation. Thus, it serves as the basis for all project-related communication assets Sandra and Paul are going to develop, ensuring a consistent message. In addition, the elaboration and alignment of the change story with the key project stakeholders helps to create a shared understanding of the 4S project, reduces mixed messages, and fosters commitment.

Sandra and Paul start developing and documenting the change story for the 4S project. As a first step, Sandra sent Paul a canvas with relevant topics that a change story should address. Have a look at the chart below to get an overview.

BriscoBikes already elaborated several aspects of a change story that Sandra and Paul can build upon. Help them by documenting the existing elements.

Take five minutes to complete exercise 14 in your workbook.

As Martin Dabrowski has been responsible for setting up the 4S project and preparing the kick-off speech for Jane Brisco, Sandra and Paul schedule a call with him. They want to learn more about the existing communication content and collect additional input for the development of a holistic change story.

After having successfully conducted the workshop, Sandra and Paul document the change story in a Word file and send it to the project leadership team for a final sign-off. This overall change story can then be further elaborated and detailed to meet the specific requirements and information needs of the different user groups.

Once a project kicks off, employees are interested in learning more. Usually, information gaps lead to rumors. These rumors often assume worst case scenarios far beyond actual implications of the project. This can lead to unnecessary irritations, concerns, and even resistances. Once the misinformation is out in the world, it is difficult to correct it.

Therefore, it is advisable to provide generic project information fast. Setting up stakeholder specific communication activities requires upfront analysis and planning. Therefore, change managers usually start with creating basic communication assets, targeting all impacted employees of an organization.

Sandra and Paul have already aggregated the existing information about the 4S project into a change story. Thus, they can easily build upon this foundation, as they develop some first communication measures. Sandra has provided a list with some possible assets to start with:

As a communication expert, Paul takes over the task of developing the first communication assets. Which assets should he choose to begin with?

Take five minutes to complete exercise 15 in your workbook.

Play the following video to learn which communication assets Paul decided to start with and the benefits he expects.

All-employee meetings are usually initiated by the leaders of the respective business unit. For company-wide meetings, that is the executive board. All-employee meetings allow the direct transmission of important messages to many employees at the same time. Thus, they reinforce a sense of community and belonging, and are an opportunity to showcase and strengthen the company’s values.

The speakers have the chance to directly address the employees and to interact with the audience. Usually, Q&A sessions are an integral part of an all-employee meeting. In many companies, all-employee meetings are conducted in a regular cadence, for example, to provide updates on the current financial situation and other business KPIs. In addition, all-employee meetings can be initiated to inform employees about important management decisions, for example launching a large transformation project.

Jane Brisco has asked Lucy Sheng to organize an all-employee meeting on the 4S project for the BriscoBikes subsidiary. Lucy has set up a meeting with Sandra to exchange ideas and discuss the next steps.

There is a broad range of elements that can be used during an all-employee meeting. As the 4S project has only kicked off recently, some elements are more suited than others. Which elements do you recommend?

Take five minutes to complete exercise 16 in your workbook.

Lucy has already collected some ideas for the all-employee meeting. In the call, Sandra and Lucy discuss some generic questions and elaborate the agenda.

Right after the call, Sandra starts to assimilate the results of the discussion with Lucy to an agenda draft. The following chart gives you an overview of a typical set-up for an all-employee meeting.