Do's and Don'ts of Communicating Organizational Change

For the last few months, my organization has been changing. I have a new leader, I'll soon have some new employees. I've been through more org changes than I can count on my fingers, but this is my first as a leader, and the best one yet. I'm not steering the ship - I'm one of those org chart boxes in the middle - but I've learned a few things that I would like to pass on to other leaders and communicators.


When planning an organizational change:

Don't take the surprise party approach. It never works. Employees can smell change in the air, and they notice when certain leaders start having long meetings with Human Resources in conference rooms. It breeds suspicion and fear. Instead, be transparent: "We're looking at our team's structure to see if it's the best approach." Chances are, your employees have already noticed that your department might benefit from some shuffling, and they may have some useful feedback or suggestions.

Do make space to dream. When we first found out that we would be reporting to a new leader and that our roles would be changing, I started by having a lengthy conversation with my employees about our team's work. What was working well? What needed attention? What would they do completely differently if we could start from scratch? These conversations are inspiring and energizing. 

Do ask your people what they want. I manage a small team, and I feel like I know each of my employees well: their strengths, their interests, their career aspirations. We talk about these topics at annual reviews, at goal-setting sessions, and regularly at our 1:1s. However, an org change can stir up new ideas and interests. It's worth asking questions like "What do you most enjoy doing?" and "Where would you like to go next?" even if you think you know the answer.

Don't lie to people. I was once in a conference room, listening to a HR manager explain a new organizational structure. She said, "This is not a RIF" (our internal acronym for Reduction in Force). The problem was, the PowerPoint document on her screen - which was projected for everyone in the room to see - was titled with the name of our department and the acronym "RIF." My job was officially eliminated a few weeks later.


When announcing a decision:

Do tell the affected people as soon as possible. The people most affected by an org change are the ones who are getting new managers, new job titles, or new teammates. Or, of course, severance packages. Once a decision has been made, they should be the first to know. The rest of the "FYI" list can wait. There's nothing worse than finding out about your own career change through the office grapevine.

Do follow a communication plan with clear dates, time of day, and order of notifications. During a layoff at another company, the telecom team shut off voice mail and extensions for terminated employees before HR had the conversation with the affected people. Nobody knew why certain coworkers' extensions were showing as "vacant" - until an hour later, when everybody knew. Time of day matters.

Do bring people together as humans. Shortly after I found out I had a new leader, he invited me to lunch. A few days later, he invited our entire local team to a hockey game. These little gestures went a long way to alleviating my fear of the unknown. Nobody wants to report to an unfamiliar name on the org chart. If you're inheriting new employees, get to know them in a friendly, low-key setting as quickly as possible. If those employees are spread across different offices, invest in the travel if at all humanly possible.


When you don't know any more about what's going on than your employees do:

Don't be Chicken Little. Leaders set the tone. Don't tell everyone that the sky is falling or the department is crumbling, even if you sometimes fear that it is. Remind yourself and your employees: You're smart, you're skilled at what you do, and the best thing you can do each day is show up and shine your brightest and embrace the opportunities around the corner.

Don't make it all about yourself. A friend found out on a Thursday afternoon that half of her team was laid off. When she returned to work on Friday morning, her manager wasn't there. The manager still had a job, but she had spent the morning exercising with her personal trainer and getting a massage. She was so tense, she explained to her employees when she arrived two hours late. So were they, and the support and reassurance of their leader would have gone a long way.

Do acknowledge the emotions that it stirs up. Even a re-organization with no layoffs, no budget cuts, and great opportunities for everybody is still incredibly emotional. Your employees have been working for a boss they know, doing a familiar job, and suddenly everything is thrown into chaos. There's the uncertainty of adapting to a new leader and new coworkers, the merging of different teams' processes and cultures, and often an insecurity about where they will fit in the new world order. For some people, it's an exhilarating time of opportunity. For others, it's a terrifying loss of control. Often, it's both. Acknowledge this. Let your employees know that it's perfectly normal to grieve for the old way, and to be apprehensive about the new one. Soon, the new way will become familiar, and you'll wonder how you ever worked any differently.

Do embrace the positive. Change can be scary, but change can be wonderful. It's a catalyst for creativity. Things that were previously too difficult suddenly become possible. It can bring clarity and insight. It can bust you out of a rut and turn you into a better, braver version of yourself.

The best thing about change is that it always, always teaches us something. I'm here, excited, and ready to learn.

After the tone, please hang up and text me: Why I hate voicemail

"Woohoo, voicemail!"

Do you ever think that? I don't. I see the red light on my work phone and I feel like I've been sternly called into the boss's office.

Voicemail is among my least favorite forms of communication, somewhere between "barely legible Post-It note" and "swift kick to the shins." The good news is, I think it will soon go the way of the pager and the overhead projector, and here's why:

It's awkward. There is something disconcerting about hearing one side of a conversation. It's why hearing a stranger yammer on their cell phone is more annoying than hearing two people chatting nearby. Our brain perceives the gaps and longs to fill them with replies or questions. I'll sometimes say, "Wait, what was that?" while replaying a voicemail, but the person at the other end never pauses.

It's slow. My office phone won't let me delete a message until I've played it all the way through. This is annoying when our school district's auto-dialer leaves a 3-minute recording listing every after-school activity that's cancelled because of the truly awful weather. (All of them. They're all cancelled. Let's move on, please.)

Replying isn't always simple. When you receive an email, you can see who it's from and reply with a click. About once a month, I get a voicemail from an elderly woman who has mistaken my office phone number for that of her adult son or daughter. She begins with "Hi, it's your Mom" in heavily accented English, then switches into an unfamiliar Asian language for a 15-20 minute monologue which ends with "Call me, I miss you." I don't know how to tell her she has the wrong number. Meanwhile, her actual son or daughter is receiving bilingual guilt trips for never returning Mom's calls.*

It puts the burden on the receiver. Is leaving a long voicemail easier than sending an email message? Yes, for the person who's leaving the message. Email requires you to organize your thoughts. Texting requires you to pare down your message to its most essential components. A stream-of-consciousness voicemail is much easier to give than to receive.

It's mostly obsolete. Answering machines and voicemail filled a  gap before email or texting, when you needed to get a message to a person who wasn't available to take your call. Pagers and fax machines were handy, too, but we're doing fine without them.

It's the worst of both worlds. Talking on the phone has some huge advantages over written communication: You can hear tone of voice, express empathy, and engage in warmer dialogue than via email. But much of that warmth dissipates when you're leaving a soliloquy at the command of a disembodied robot voice.


I can think of two scenarios in which voicemail is the best tool available: 1. When you're driving (although, really, 99% of the time, it can wait) and 2. When you need to reach somebody, the only contact info you have is their phone number, and you're not sure if that number accepts texts.

If you can think of another scenario, let me know. Just don't leave me a voicemail.

* This is especially weird, because I also have an immigrant mother whom I don't call often enough. She leaves me sweet voicemails in Polish, in which she introduces herself as my Mom. I'm teaching her to email.