 |
Web-Based Issue
Tracking
Free 30-Day Trial - Click
Here |
|
|
10.03.05
Research Says Leader Communication Is Crucial To Change Efforts
 By
Shel Holtz
I must live right. I was preparing to conduct a post-session interview for a Conference Board podcast when I heard a remark from one of the panelists that made me sit up straight and lean forward.
Afterward, I approached the speaker and asked to interview him for the conference podcast series. Of course, the focus of my interview was this one remark.
The speaker was Charles Watts, principal of Towers Perrin and
leader of the consulting firm's Change Implementation practice.
Watts notes that the practice focuses on reseach and communication
around change management. Watts referred to a study Towers Perrin
conducted among 40,000 workers in large companies.
The researchers examined nine items that comprise employee engagement
and compared the results to the other 100 or so items included
in the survey. The result: The item that best explained whether
an employee is willing to invest discretionary effort in the
company's success is the one that reads, "To what extent do
you believe senior leadership takes an interest in your well
being?"
As Watts put it, if employees have a sense that their welfare matters to senior management, they are more willing to invest in the company and do good work.
Web-Based
Issue Tracking
Free 30-Day Trial - Click
Here |
|
The channels for this communication do not involve the
immediate supervisor. Interestingly, face-to-face engagement with
senior leaders is the most popular form of communication, according to
another major Towers Perrin study, and technology plays a significant
role through video and webcasts. The results did not vary among
different employee groups; even the employees on the factory floor
indicated that they "want to hear from the source that the right things
are being done to build the success of the company," Watts told me.
This does not mean there is no role for the immediate supervisor; it's just a different
role, Watts said. "Am I getting the rewards I deserve, am I developing
my career, am I getting the learning and development opportunities I
should. These kinds of basics" are what employees seek from their
immediate supervisors, the "bread and butter" issues, according to
Watts.
In his reply to my critique of his belief that the immediate supervisor should be the sole source of communication during change, Dr. T.J. Larkin
suggested that I believe that "communicators should do a little bit of
everything." I believe no such thing. Rather, I believe communicators
should use the channels that will, in combination, produce the desired
results. In communicating change, it is clear that employees want and
need to hear from senior executives for some messages and immediate
supervisors for others. It's not a matter of picking one over the
other, but instead a matter of ensuring the complete message is
delivered through each channel.
Incidentally, Angela Sinickas
sent me some additional research that supports the importance of senior
leader commnication during change; I'll post it next week after I
return to the office.
Reader Comments...
About
the Author:
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology
which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication
capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self. |
