Why traditional approaches to change communications need a rethink

The sheer volume of information, different communication channels, and mounting audience expectations have created a dynamic communications environment that is fraught with new risks. If organisations fail to communicate change programmes and new initiatives in the right way, it can create deep disillusionment across internal and external audiences. The impact can be severe, undermining trust and tarnishing the organisation’s reputation. To mitigate the challenges, senior leaders and communications teams can work together to strengthen approaches to communication across change, brand, and reputation management.

In a world where an employee can be both a customer and shareholder (and receive communications for each role simultaneously), there’s a pressing need for greater alignment in communications functions. The traditional boundaries of internal and external communications, upheld by respective specialisms in external affairs and change management, make coordination challenging. But there is a way forward.

Communications practitioners increasingly draw on a common set of tools and systems to gain insights. Shared visibility of data, collaborative insight generation, and consolidated use of tools and techniques derived from behavioural science ensure consistent advice to leaders – and that the interests of one audience are not met at the expense of another.

1. Coordinate data to magnify the power of insights

Every communication practitioner today understands how rapidly audience sentiment can change depending on what’s going on in the world. Accurate, up-to-date insights enable better advice to leaders on how to engage. Consolidated data sources, and an operating rhythm for the coordinated extraction of insights, support better-aligned internal and external communications strategies. This makes for more effective and efficient use of message, content, and channel choices.

As the use of AI grows, the sheer volume of data available and potential for bias highlights the importance of a human ‘balanced jury’ to review AI-informed activity. More effective collaboration, supported by the right tools, processes and ways of working helps achieve this. Partnering with Unilever, we designed and built a real-time, data-driven innovation engine powered by AI. The engine analyses vase amounts of consumer, market, and product data to create a single, invaluable source of insights to inform decision-making. We helped Unilever’s teams to engage with the data, fostering cross-functional collaboration through a ‘one team’ ethos that enabled our client to respond to changing audience sentiment.

2. Lean on lighthouse leaders

In a world where trust and truth are challenged by misinformation, leaders have an important lighthouse role. Whether online or in person, or inside or outside of an organisation, they guide and influence conversations in powerful ways. Their delivery style affects how messages are received, and with the right feedback data they can adjust this. The pace and complexity of today’s communications environment makes an even greater case for continuous insight gathering on audience sentiment, and for this to be supplemented with the right advice and support. The traditional response to a media storm is reactive media training. Proactive programmes, informed by near-real-time audience data, better support leaders to address multiple audiences with congruence and authenticity.

We worked with a major pensions provider that was implementing a new transformation programme, introducing innovative technologies and ways of working. To be successful, the programme needed employee excitement and momentum. We helped the senior leadership team to deliver key messages, and authentically address the needs and wants of internal and external audiences, providing lines to take, skills support, and delivery advice, informed by up-to-date information on audience sentiment. This was crucial in garnering and maintaining support for transformation.

3. Embed strong messages through behavioural science methodologies

Coordinated insights and better-informed leaders help communications teams to build on the effectiveness of each other’s work, and engage with multiple audiences in more effective, sensitive ways. Shared behavioural science methodologies can take this further still. Whether targeting an employee in the workplace or a customer at the point of purchase, changes in audience behaviour are achieved through carefully crafted, tested behavioural messages.

As communications to employees, customers, and shareholders occur simultaneously, there’s enormous potential to magnify the powerful effects of behavioural insight tools through greater consolidation of efforts, sharing approaches, methodologies, and frameworks, as well as co-ordinating deployment. When this consolidation happens, often separate areas such as brand, reputation, and change management are enhanced and aligned and the impact on their target audiences is too.

To connect with increasingly complex audiences, communications teams and senior leaders need more effective collaboration and coordination. The successful communications function of the future will make productive use of both shared data and behavioural insights and use a more collaborative approach to better engage diverse audiences in an increasingly noisy world.