The Communication Approach and Strategy – Essential Element 7
Communicate - Communicate - Communicate
Develop the Communication Approach and Strategy – is the 7th of 8 articles based on:
“Profit Improvement Planning Blueprint: 8 Essential Elements for Underperforming or Distressed Companies” – Post dated Feb 24, 2024
The Communication Approach and Strategy – Essential Element 7
Develop the Communication Plan and Strategy –
Essential Element #7
From the start, prioritizing honest, frequent, and transparent communication is crucial, supported by a tailored messaging strategy and method for each key constituency including:
- Implementation Teams
- Employees
- Financial Stakeholders
- Other Business Partners
… remember, the absence of good communication invariably leads to rumors and unfounded assumptions, resulting in reduced confidence and implementation success.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This quote underscores the importance of being intentional in the communication approach, messaging and frequency. Communication clarity and consistency fosters organizational alignment, confidence, ownership and accountability, resulting in the increased likelihood of successfully implementing the developed profitability improvement or turnaround plan.
For Implementation Teams Members:
As team leaders and implementation teams are organized and commissioned, support, encouragement and dialog from company leaders is crucial. These team members are pivotal to the plan’s success, often managing their new responsibilities alongside their regular workload. Leadership teams that openly express appreciation for team members’ value, encourage their input, listen to their concerns, and actively work to eliminate barriers and constraints while providing their input and support, realize higher benefits, sooner. This culture, where support is provided and ongoing success celebrated, creates an environment where success begets success. One where motivation is high, achievements are celebrated, and unforeseen challenges are promptly discussed, addressed, and overcome.
To facilitate this, consistent (weekly, bi-weekly) status update meetings are useful with a pre-formatted agenda are highly effective. Agenda items may include:
- Accomplishments since the last update
- Expected future accomplishments
- Significant issue encountered
- Additional support or resource needed
Ensuring that these fully supported team members remain motivated, productive and accountable is vital to accomplishing change implementation that yields the expected return in a rapid, timely manner.
For Employees:
Effective and ongoing employee communication is critical to implementing successful, sustainable change and enhanced company profitability. It engages employees by explaining the rationale behind the improvement plan, emphasizing its necessity, and highlighting the crucial role employees play in its success. The developed tagline and supporting narrative will serve as an excellent starting point, providing a memorable description of the goal using consistent messaging throughout the company. This creates clarity of purpose and approach, driving improved behaviors, execution and results. Throughout the change process, continue updating the organization, celebrating achieved milestones, soliciting feedback and discussing any necessary adjustments. This ongoing dialog helps maintain momentum and enthusiasm. Additionally, companies are likely to see:
- Outline opportunities, expected outcomes, timeframes, and potential risks of the plan.
- Schedule regular update meetings to review progress and address course corrections.
- Promptly and transparently address any concerns or questions
- Provide interim communications to reinforce confidence in the organization’s ability to sustainably improve profitability
By keeping employees informed and involved, they feel respected, motivated and committed to driving the organization towards its profitability goals, fostering increased ownership and empowerment.
For Financial Stakeholders:
Clear and consistent communication is essential to ensure alignment, trust, confidence and support throughout the profitability improvement implementation efforts. It will be important to:
- Outline opportunities, expected outcomes, timeframes, and potential risks of the plan.
- Schedule regular update meetings to review progress and address course corrections.
- Promptly and transparently address any concerns or questions
- Provide interim communications to reinforce confidence in the organization’s ability to sustainably improve profitability
Financial Stakeholders are both interested and vested in the success of the profitability improvement plan. When they understand the plan, its status, encountered issues and adjustments made, their confidence in the company and its leadership is bolstered and encourages them to contribute insights, perspectives, resources and even additional capital – furthering the likelihood of success.
For Other Business Partners:
When communicating with other business partners, caution and preparation is critical to avoid potential unexpected consequences. It’s conceivable that part of the improvement plan may require supplier price reductions or customer price increases. When executing these changes, detailed planning, message development and communication approach are key to avoid creating new problems. It’s advisable to first test the implementation/communication approach with a less critical subset of partners, allowing for the exercise and adjustment of the approach as needed.
... as this article suggests, there will likely be unexpected issues - having a course correction process will become important as we will discuss next week
* * Essential Element #7 Summary from Original Article * *
7. Develop the Communication Approach and Strategy
Communicate – Communicate – Communicate Frequent and transparent communications help build trust among employees, team members and outside financial partners enabling improved collaboration, problem-solving, decision-making and course correction. Regular updates on progress, implementation successes and delivered results keep an organization engaged and focused on achieving the desired results.
Pro Tip: Don’t shy away from communicating bad news and describe the adjustments underway to address and mitigate potential negative outcomes.
