(highlight:: Propogating Change Through an Organization: The Importance of Buy-In from Middle Managers
Summary:
Research shows that employees prefer to receive information about change from their direct managers.
It is crucial to equip managers with sufficient information and a supportive mindset to effectively convey the change message to their teams. Managers need to first understand the change themselves, overcome their biases, and build their own buy-in before coaching their teams through the change process.
They also need to address various emotions and perspectives within their teams, making middle management vital in effectively communicating large scale changes throughout an organization.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
I know in change research, it states that the majority of employees want to hear about change from their direct manager. It's a very, it's a very common communication kind of statistic that people understand. You're always going to hear messages from your CEO or division heads or whatever level that is about big changes. And that's right. But the next step is how do we then equip managers or people who are directly managing employees with enough information that they can then help continue to carry that message forward With a supportive mindset. Understand it for themselves first, because you have to remember they're going through the change sometimes too. So they have to understand it, be able to build their own set of buy in and get through their biases and reject what they might want to reject. Right. They have to go through their change process as well. Then they have to be able to have the conversation with their teams and coach them as well. And when you have an entire team of people, they're all not going to think about the change the same way either. So you have to have that ability to coach. So when, and listen, absolutely, I'd be empathetic. So when Maddie comes to me and says, I don't like this change. And here's what I'm kind of afraid of as it relates to this change, I can have that dialogue with you. And I can say, okay, so tell me more about that. What is it that you're, you know, what is it that you're experiencing or what is it that you're maybe fearful of? Or what do you think you're going to lose from this change? What are you going to gain? But the next employee might come in and be like, I'm so excited about this. I want to be part of this change. Please let me be a part of this change. You have to be able to address all of those different emotions and all of those different things happening. So middle management in large scale changes becomes one of your most important set of communicators. And they're usually the ones they get forgotten.)
- Time 0:02:13
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(highlight:: Tailoring Communication About Change To Different Levels of the Organizational Network
Summary:
Different levels of the organizational network go through the change curve at different paces.
Leaders are the first to know and are excited about the change, so their messages are usually portrayed in a positive light. Middle managers find out next and also go through their change process.
The rest of the employees are the last to find out and their reactions are varied.
It's important to understand where people are in their change journey to appropriately tailor the messages and avoid alienating or turning them off.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
The other thing too is that I'm going to say the mismatch of messages. So we haven't talked about the change curve yet. No. But if you think about change in the aspect of I'm going through, I hear about it. I mean, a little bit of shock. I'm a little bit like, Oh my gosh, what's this change about? I might drop into that little bowl of okay, I'm just going to not think about it for a while until maybe like it packs me, maybe it'll go away if I stuff thinking about it. But then when you start to come back up the other side of the change curve and realize, okay, this is happening. They're going to give me some training. I'm hearing some communications. I'm feeling a little bit better about this. Everyone goes through that change curve at a different pace. And that includes leaders and leaders are the ones driving the change so they know about it first. Middle managers maybe find out next, right? So they're the next in line and they're going to go through their little change process as well. Then the rest of the employee base is going to find out the leaders that are driving the change, they're excited about it. They came up with it. They think it's a great idea. They think everyone should be excited. That's how their messages are going to be portrayed. But if an employee is hearing about it for the first time, we need to make sure that we understand where people are out in their changed journey so that the messages are appropriately Phrased so as to not alienate people, turn them off, what have you.)
- Time 0:05:52
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