Perfect Phrases for Communicating Change
Remember what your mother taught you: don’t judge a book by its cover. This book is far more than just a list of phrases. It is a management primer on communicating change based on our 40 combined years of experience leading change and consulting to others leading change in a myriad of organization sizes and industries on 4 continents.
- Get a handbook with practical methods for handling a wide range of change situations: We have compiled an exhaustive list of every possible change situation a leader could face at work. We then crafted indispensable phrases to handle these situations: new structure, new boss, new titles, new peers, new compensation, layoffs, new project (i.e., ERP or other), new strategic direction, or introducing yourself as a new leader.
- Discover concepts to consider before creating change communication: We knew readers would benefit from concepts and tips in addition to phrases (plus our editor told us we had to!). So, we laid out the key ideas and issues to consider in each phase of change (announcing, executing and sustaining change) such as:
- • The 3 elements of effective change messages: information, emotions & action
- • Communicating the business case in 60 seconds or less
- • Clarifying changed roles and responsibilities
- • Articulating short term goals
- • Responding to mistakes
- • Celebrating success
- • 3 critical communication steps to take once the change is implemented
- • Common mistakes leaders make when communicating change
- Find out the 8 factors to consider when Communicating Change Virtually: Given that many leaders are leading change with people who are not in the same office, let alone the same country, we laid out 8 key factors to consider when communicating change virtually. Additionally, we discuss how to decide upon the best media to use for 7 common change communication situations.
- Get a comprehensive Change Communication Checklist: To help the readers create complete and effective change messages, we summarized our foundational concepts into a comprehensive checklist to before sending any change communication, whether written or verbal.
- Receive 9 Best Practices for Communicating Change: As we prepared to write the perfect phrases, we decided we needed to follow a consistent set of best practices. To do this, we reviewed our experience with successful and failed change communications. This resulted in the 9 essential change communication best practices included in the book.
- Have a resource book with 129 pages of Perfect Phrases: The core of the book is hundreds of ready-to-use phrases for managers’, right at their fingertips. No matter the change situation, we included everything managers need to successful communicate as they lead employees through the challenges of organizational change.
- Easily find the phrase you need: Who wants to leaf through hundreds of pages to find the right words? No one! That is why we structured the book so that readers can turn directly to the issue they are facing, and find the words and ideas necessary for successful communication. The phrases are organized in 5 chapters for easy use: new structure, new strategy, new projects, new leadership and handling resistance.
- Learn how to handle 14 of the most common change communication challenges: We identified the main communication challenges during change, and then structured each chapter around these including:
- • Announcing Change
- • Responding to Questions
- • Overcoming Fear
- • Creating Urgency
- • Addressing Power Struggles and Career Issues
- • Clarifying Roles & Responsibilities
- • Communicating Individual Objectives
- • Empowering Employees
- • Keeping People Motivated
- • Coaching Around Emotions
- • Coaching for Skills
- • Coaching for Flexibility and Adaptability
- • Addressing Performance Problems
- • Rallying Teams
- Find out about 8 ways to keep employees motivated during change: One of the most common questions we get is: “How do you keep morale up during change?” Well, you really can’t! Change is disruptive and people will not stay highly motivated all the time. However, there are 8 main actions you can take to make sure you are keeping morale as high as humanly possible. We outline those 8 actions and relevant phrases in each of the Phrases chapters.
- Learn 3 different approaches to coaching during change: Successful leaders coach their employees to success. This is particularly true during change. Leaders need to guide employees through the storm. Recognizing that not all change situations are the same, we include separate approaches for Coaching around Emotions, Coaching for Skills and Coaching for Flexibility and Adaptability.
- Discover 4 keys to rallying your team: Leading change is not all about you and individuals. You need to get your team focused and working together to create results! With that in mind, we outline 4 key ways to rally your team through change communication.
12. Finally, you will learn 7 secrets to Handling Resistance to Change: Knowing that resistance is a major issue for leaders, we created a separate chapter for this topic. It outlines the 3 different kinds of resistance to change and how to handle each. Plus, 4 keys to handling persistently resistant employees.
