Over the last 10 years, I’ve assisted my two children with their new little ones for the first few weeks to help them get their sea legs for the role. It was a gift to them and me, watching your children take on new roles as parents. I truly relished being welcomed and trusted for my guidance and help. Along this journey, I learned a thing or two about how not enough thought goes into planning for changes, it can wreak havoc with “job” satisfaction as well as one’s stress level.
Let me explain: When my first grandchild was born, I cooked, changed diapers, cuddled a newborn, shopped for groceries, and had a fair amount of time to keep up with my professional work because infants mostly sleep. 
When the second grandchild arrived, I did the same. And, I also played with the firstborn in between naps, so I had to get up earlier to fit in my professional work. And when the third grandchild arrived, I played with the older two. Plus, since the oldest no longer napped, time for my professional work was limited to even earlier morning and late evening segments. Looking back, I might have explored additional resources to lighten my workload—my planning faux pas.
So why am I sharing these personal labors of love with you now? Because this is typically the time of year when most companies plan next year’s initiatives. Some of them are big, some small. Some are internally focused, such as developing a new product and planning its launch, implementing a new CRM system, making an acquisition, increasing or decreasing physical space, etc. Others are externally focused, such as expanding current client relationships, entering a new market segment, creating new marketing campaigns, etc.
No matter the size or nature of new initiatives, planners need to consider how each initiative will affect the people responsible for executing and those who support them as well as how new initiatives dovetail with current work. Without planning sufficient resources, systems, and processes required for each initiative to succeed, initiatives are likely to falter, facing unanticipated bottlenecks, mistakes, and low adoption, leading to lackluster results.
#1 Planning Faux Pas: Overlooking Impact on Employees
#1 Result: Weak Employee Engagement
A CEO of a $6MM, 18-employee provider of outsourced IT solutions for small to mid-size companies shared with us a six-year plan to become a $20MM ESOP organization. He also expressed concern about newer employees who seemed to perform their responsibilities well enough but lacked enthusiasm for the company’s vision and core values. He added that they didn’t understand how the company differed from others in their industry, which had been a key to long-term retention of team members.
This company bestows a rather extravagant onboarding gift to new clients, so I inquired about new-employee onboarding practices. We discussed how to bolster this process so new employees could more quickly build internal relationships across the organization that would make them feel like true insiders and an integral part of the team, as well as build pride in being part of the team. We also talked about how to strengthen their informal, global employee recognition practice with personalization to make it more meaningful and enhance engagement and enthusiasm. The addition of a metric-based recognition would also codify team member contributions.
Another client was planning a team activity to personalize Thanksgiving cards for their clients. Each account executive was responsible for writing a personal note to the people that they directly worked with. Leaders were also asked to do the same with their contacts. This process was in great contrast to how the company would recognize employees at Thanksgiving—with simply a preprinted card and no personal note. This unintended dichotomy sends a message that doesn’t align with the employee-focused values the company believes in.
#1 Solution: Can You Guess? Keep Reading
#1 Result: Preparation, Involvement, Understanding, Adoption
Every initiative, whether led by a task force, ad hoc committee, or executive team, needs to be embraced across the organization to ensure successful execution. That’s why communication is such a critical element of planning. And while this sounds obvious, it can be overlooked by the originating team working on identifying and developing a new initiative that will help the company meet objectives. They’ve no doubt been discussing the initiative for months, and their intimate familiarity can limit their understanding of what the rest of the organization needs to know—the who, what, when, where, why, and how details. Since the initiative is totally new to them, they don’t even know what questions to ask until they have an understanding based on communications.
Obviously, this requires an extensive “waterfall” communication plan—how the information will cascade from the C-suite to department leaders, managers, and frontline supervisors—to reach all employees.
This requires more than a one-off, difficult-to-understand, and too-long-to-digest treatise, a skimpy email announcement, or a single town hall meeting where attendees are so overwhelmed with new information that they are unable to get their thoughts together to ask questions. The plan should include spaced message repetition among multiple communication channels and a steady stream of project updates. Think “gentle pressure relentlessly applied”. Spaced repetition and a content calendar will prevent overcommunication and message fatigue.
To prepare the organization for the new initiative, communications should provide a timeline and discuss how various employees will be affected at certain times. Smaller team meetings are essential in providing a “safe” environment for employees to have a voice and ask questions so supervisors and managers can provide answers and address possible resistance. Larger town halls and departmental meetings later in the process provide a space to build camaraderie and more fully engage employees throughout the implementation.
Although the language and presentation style might be modified for each segment of the waterfall, the message must remain consistent, so everyone has the same understanding about not only how the initiative affects their own work but also how it will impact the company on a big-picture level.
Communication cadence and clarity are critical for successfully taking on new initiatives to and strengthen your organization. Start a conversation with us if you’re looking for a partner to guide you through planning and implementation. Call 800-742-6800 or email us today. Sign up for our monthly newsletter for more information and tips for engaging stakeholders. You can find our newsletter sign-up at Askhillarys.com at the bottom right corner of the page.