Change Communication: Nobody Wants to Be Changed

By Matteo Cassese. I coach founders and executives on the story their business depends on.

Your announcement is next week. The deck exists, the FAQ exists, the town hall is on the calendar, and the people at the water cooler are already talking about it. Part of the company is made of early adopters, and they love change. The rest is not on board.

I know from experience, people don’t change based on information. Next week you are aiming to change your audience, to make them think and feel in a different way.

Change communication is the moment the room decides whether it can trust the person announcing the change, and it begins where the information becomes an emotion. Nobody wants to be changed by somebody else, ever. When you start talking, people are asking whether this is going to impact them and whether they can trust you.

You told them everything and it changed nothing

Did you wake up this morning and say, “I really want somebody to change my mind?” No. I don’t want anybody to change my mind. I’m old. I have my ways. I want to be safe. We all want to stay the same, and there is something biological about that.

The only reason to use storytelling is if you want to make an impact on how people think and feel. Otherwise I just give you information. This is the new Zoom link, please use this one. Do I need storytelling for that? No.

I have seen a company where nobody took care of dealing with change. They announced it and the all hands turned hostile. They said “this changes.” They didn’t manage the change.

You said “this changes.” Now the real work begins. You must manage the change.

What people are actually asking

Imagine the journey of your audience as a curve. When you start talking: oh my God, what does this mean? I would much rather do my emails. Oh no. This meeting is going to impact me. Now I’m threatened, because this person is going to change the way I work.
Your audience can go into denial, disillusionment, depression. They can become hostile.

It can start with lack of understanding. Sometimes somebody tells you that you have to do things differently, and you don’t understand what, or why. Your audience is anxious at the start, anxious because they don’t understand.

While you explain what is changing, the room is asking:

• Is this going to impact me?
• Do I understand what needs to change, and why it needs to change?
• Can I trust you?

Say the thing everyone is thinking

What will your team push back on? If you don’t get pushback, something is wrong. We think that we need to give a presentation so that everything is fine, and that’s our biggest mistake. Start with resistance. Start with a problem, and then people will pay attention.

If I tell you that from tomorrow everybody dresses in yellow, I understand you don’t want to, and you probably have nothing yellow in your wardrobe. But tomorrow we are on the deck of an aircraft carrier and we are the yellow team, so it matters that we all dress in yellow. I started with the objection, nobody is going to dress in yellow, and from there I built the motivation.

Take every department on a one on one. Set an unusually short meeting, 15 minutes or 18 minutes, and ask them a question: I know that you’re on board with all of the changes, but what do you expect your team to push back on? You get all of the reasons why people would resist. Start embedding those into all of your communication, so that when you open the all hands, the whole meeting is about: I see you.

Four ways change communication fails

1. Reassuring people instead of leveling with them

You tell the room that everything will be fine. It’s very reassuring, like a good aspirin, but it’s not going to cure the disease. It’s just going to make you feel good for a week. The leader who keeps reassuring is usually the one who needs reassurance. If I’m worried, if I’m concerned, if I’m in my head, I will need reassurance. I need certainty. I need confirmation. Walk in worried and everyone will notice.

2. Promising certainty you do not have

We are wired against change, and we want change to be proven, sure, informed, well thought through. I like the Mike Tyson line: everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time. The plan to deal with the change initiative is going to change the moment the initiative is announced. Tyson deals with it, so can you.

3. Telling them everything you know

You have the feeling that you have to give your audience everything you know, so that you will establish trust with them. If you are listening to yourself, let’s say that you are in your audience, you would like to have the most important information, because sharing everything would be overwhelming. The way you distill your message into the key, most important components, determines the outcome of your communication.

4. Passing the message down without equipping anyone

It’s a typical change management situation. And then there is the Zuckerberg mentality, move fast and break things, a motto Facebook itself replaced in 2014, which doesn’t work, because the things you break are people. The change is not about what changes, but about who changes. Your job is to equip them with the reasons, the vision and the tools to make the change happen.

Give people agency, not comfort

Change is coming. Change is hard. I’m going to try to make it easier for you. But it is still change. You can only go forward, and the only way to go forward is to shed everything that belonged to this previous moment.

You can resist a little bit every day, small amounts of pain and friction, forever. Or you can make what I call the lump sum pain payment. Accept the pain today. Ask the hard question today. And become someone new on the other side.

You are telling a story because you’re empowering your peers to accept change. Give them agency, not comfort.

When the message needs an outside voice

If a company books me for a keynote, I ask them: the employees that will come into the room, how are they feeling? Maybe the company says: we had layoffs, and one department lost a lot of people.

I know well that nobody likes change. A keynote about change is an unpopular presentation by definition. The thing I do best is make the room uncomfortable enough to change.

Questions leaders ask about change communication

What is change communication?

Change communication is what happens once the information has been delivered: the audience decides whether it trusts the person who is announcing the change. Stories change the way we see and experience the world, and therefore they can change our behavior.

Why do people resist change even when it is good for them?

Whenever you push a change, you are wrong and they are right, even if your change is good. They have to get off their horse and get on another one, and they would much rather stay on the horse they are on right now.

How do I communicate change to employees who are anxious?

Communicating change to employees who are anxious starts with what they will push back on, said by you before they say it. Anxiety at the beginning is often lack of understanding: say what needs to change, and why it needs to change.

Should I announce a change before I have all the answers?

Yes, because things will change anyway. Then come back with the news: hello, we are back with our change initiative, since we last spoke, here is what has happened, but that is not so important as how it is going with you, and how do you feel?

What if the town hall turns hostile?

Your work starts when your audience changes their minds. And the first thing we do when we change our minds is say, no, not me. Your audience is telling you: now I know, and my opinion is the opposite of yours. Now they know. Already half of your job is done.

When should a leader bring in a speaker or a coach for a change?

When you have a big change in front of you and you want to do the journey with the help of somebody else: coaching for you, a keynote for the room. Before I approach the message, I approach the person.

What to do next. If the announcement is next week, there are two doors. For you, founder communication coaching: we work on your change communication before you deliver it. For the audience, a keynote that makes it uncomfortable enough to change.

About Matteo Cassese

Business coach, keynote speaker, and mythmaker, Matteo helps leaders thrive in chaos and conflict. Twenty years across tech, film and consulting, seven of them at Warner Bros., founding-team at Netflix Italy, and advisory work for Sony, LinkedIn and Heineken. Berlin based. His unique perspective as a queer nerd passionate about mythology and technology creates a safe space for leaders to be vulnerable and reach their full potential. Read more about Matteo.