LONDON — There is an old saying: “if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a noise?”
It’s a cliché. Not least for a Canadian like me. It conjures up images of lumberjacks and all. But in this instance it is actually relevant…
When organisations make significant changes, their people need to know.
Here are just a few of the kind of projects that we have been involved in:
• Merger and acquisition
• Massive restructuring
• Changes to the brand
• Changes to value, mission and/or mission
• Offshoring, outsourcing, etc.
• Change in business strategy
• Change in leadership
• Adapting to a changing business environment
• Lay off, downsizings, etc.
And the list goes on.
More often than not these programmes are called “change and engagement” programmes. They sit alongside the structural, process and/ or system change initiatives.
We see many programme offices that are based exclusively around “ensuring synergies”, or signing contracts, or facilitating hand over. And organisations forget about people.
People are:
• going to usher in the change
• going to be affected by the change
• the ones who ultimately will make the change a success of a failure
As a result, change communication is (at least) as important as any other aspect of change in your business. It’s the difference between success and failure.
/df
