the communications imperative – messages, media and practices

Executive Summary

1.     Excellent internal communication channels are essential for successfully driving cultural change. The consensus among culture change specialists is that you cannot communicate enough.

2.     Discrete communication mechanisms must be mutually reinforcing, ie, tell the same story.

3.     Communication must be open, honest and clearly support the intended cultural ethos.

4.     Communication, the research finds, must be two-way, thus enabling constructive feedback around change ideas and progress.

5.     Research finds that companies recognize the fundamental importance of internal communications in a culture change effort, but are mixed in their assessment of its effectiveness.

6.     It is critical that senior management leads the communication effort to support the change programme. Indeed advisers state that the failure of senior managers to communicate is a major cause of change failure.

7.     Bad news, our research finds, must be communicated quickly and honestly and preferably delivered by senior management.

8.     A well thought out internal communications plan with tailored (but consistent) messages to discrete stakeholder groups is a vital aspect of change roll-out.

9.     Frameworks such as the balanced scorecard are proving powerful for communicating strategic objectives.

10.   Numerous communication mechanisms are being used today. Indeed it is judicious to use a variety of techniques as people receive messages in different ways.

11.   According to the research, however, face-to-face communication is still clearly the most powerful mechanism.

12.   Electronic mechanisms such as corporate intranets and e-mail are proving invaluable communication mechanisms.

13.   A case study on Ernst & Young demonstrates best practice.

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