When we're talking about ways to communicate change, there's a few things to consider. One of them is simply to vary the medium. First thing to think about in terms of the medium would be the most popular, which is technology based emails, social media, text messages, whatever it might be. There's an illusion using these particular tools. That communication has been sent the messages out there for, let's check the communication box. And then it's done.

We can put more comprehensive information on websites, you're not going to put a whole bunch of information on the social media sites or emails, web based information can provide an incredible amount of detail. The downside of both of these Well, they give you the illusion that the information is there and available, is that what you're actually asking people to do is work hard for information they may not want in the first place. Some will be motivated to stay On top of their emails and go to the project website, those are generations typically millennials and Gen Xers who are very comfortable with these technologies. And, and of course, maybe motivated to go and find the information they're looking for. a follow up would be paper based information. Now, this is certainly not a requirement in that you're going to write everything down or write out the entire project plan or send it to everyone.

That's not what we're talking about here. It has been proven in studies, that paper based information is most helpful when people have to learn something, so we can print it off, have it beside us as we're trying to learn whatever the new thing is. Also, in some cases, for major news, people like to have updates on paper that they can print out. The last way to think about varying the medium is face to face dialogue. Now, baby boomers, this generation love face to face meetings. In fact, they love to think that it's simple.

Fortunate enough to get everybody together to talk about stuff. Of course, the millennials like to be involved because they just simply like to be involved, but Gen Xers roll their eyes and are saying please, not another meeting. So we're going to be careful about face to face dialogue. Where it's really essential is when we're thinking about the people who are struggling with the changes lots and lots of questions, or, more importantly, people who are significantly reluctant and resistant to change. Sometime, the manager is going to have to show up and have a face to face, Heart to Heart conversation. So there's some things to consider when you're thinking about what medium to use.

Another way to think about this is we need to determine what level of communication is required. Here's an old adult learning theory rolled out when we're trying to learn something, first of all, we need to become aware of it. Then we need to understand it. Then we need to get committed to it. And, of course, then we will act based on what we've learned. What's important here to understand when you're communicating change as a supervisor or as a project team or as an executive, thinking about one particular fairly major change in your organization?

Does everyone need to be in action? Do they need to change their behavior in order for that change to be successful? The answer is probably no. Not every change requires everyone to do something different. Some people may only need to be aware of this, others may need to understand and be aware. But then there's others, of course that will need to be committed based on what they understand, and then move to action.

When you think about awareness, understanding, commitment and action, which of those four dimensions is the hardest to achieve? If you've gone to commitment, I think you're right. But let's break each one of these Down awareness, understanding, commitment and action, and dig into how we can communicate each of those four levels. So when we think about using effective communication channels for awareness, written or oral with very little dialogue overviews, broadcast messages, social media, video presentations, all kinds of simple, quick, expedient things. And that will bring some level of awareness with enough repetition. In order to build a understanding, you're going to need to get people together, have some meetings and project team briefings, bring your project team into a staff meeting, have a special staff meeting, whatever it might be, in order to build commitment here, you're likely as a manager, appreciating, getting together with the senior leaders, so that the senior leaders and the supervisors and all the other levels in between are aligned.

Maybe it's team dialogue and problem solving meetings. Maybe we need to ensure the reward systems in place here. The feedback forums are ongoing, that will build some commitment when it comes to action. As a leader, your behavior speaks volumes and people are watching you. They're not necessarily listening to you, they're unlikely to be reading things that you send them. So you better be walking the talk and all of your managers with you should be demonstrating the appropriate behaviors and attitudes that you want everyone else to take on providing continuous updates sharing the success stories providing ongoing support, progress forward as measured and shared.

So there's some communication channels that you can think about. This idea of awareness, understanding, commitment and action leads us to a really simple and very effective communication tool. I'd like you to find worksheet number nine. Here we have got awareness, understanding, commitment and action in the four colors across The top of the big box on the left hand side of the big box, the column says list audiences below. What I'd like you to do is just push pause for a second and think about a current major change in your organization. And I'd like you to glance at your systems map that you drew earlier, and list out a small handful of audiences that will be involved and be impacted by that particular change.

Don't worry about all of them, just a few. So push pause, lists some audiences. Welcome back. Here's an example. It sales and marketing Midwest customer service finance, you've got your own list there. Now what we're going to do again, through the lens of this one particular change that you've got in your mind, I'd like you to think about awareness understanding, commitment and action.

Are they fully demonstrated partially demonstrated not demonstrated at all, or you currently don't have enough information to know, that gray bar above the big box suggests that if the IT group, for example, is fully demonstrating they're aware of the change, they would get a big black circle, if it was only partially demonstrated half filled in not demonstrated at all, open circle. And if you currently don't have enough information, simply it's a question mark. So what I'd like you to do is for each of those particular groups that you've listed in your audience's go across awareness, understanding, commitment and action, and it's again, stay focused on that one particular change and fill in the boxes, push pause, fill in your assessment. Well done. So your assessment will look something like this. Of course, it's your own variation on the theme.

But what this does is it provides you with a temperature if you will, of the effectiveness of your communication. There's a timing implication here that needs to be considered. If the change that you're focused on is a major change that's in the near future, it would be perfectly normal if you had a number of either not demonstrated or question marks, but I asked you to focus on a current major change. So my hope is you don't have a bunch of open circles and question marks, my hope is that you've got some fully demonstrated and also some partially demonstrated, what you're seeing here is a reflection of your communication habits to date. So if you have a lot of full circles underneath all of the awareness columns, you've probably been relying on technology to communicate the change. But your awareness isn't enough probably for that particular change for all of these groups.

The other thing that's important to understand here is I've asked you to do this Very quickly, and perhaps you're doing it on your own, it would be great if you did this with your group. These kinds of assessments are very quick to do. A little bit of discussion will provide a lot of insight into a, how good a job have we been doing around communicating change and be very quickly focusing on the specific groups and what needs to be done to move them along to fully demonstrated in action if that's what the change requires. So there's a simple tool around communicating change. To help you get better at using a variety of methods.