Effective Change Management: Communicate to Succeed

Nearly every organization I work with is undergoing some kind of change. There is the smaller change, where two teams merge to form a new team. Then there is the large-scale change, such as the merger of two organizations from different countries or the “once in a lifetime” reform of UK local government The Local Government Reorganisation.

What I’ve found – and what much research backs up – is that organizations who have a well thought out and executed communication plan, and who engage genuinely with staff and stakeholders, navigate the change faster and better than those who don’t.

In this article we’ll explore:

The impact of uncertainty during change
The power of good communication during change
Seven evidence-based approaches that help good change communication

The impact of uncertainty

An important theory for those leading change to know is Uncertainty Management Theory. This suggests that unexpected and negative events are likely to prompt employees to question the values driving the priorities of decision makers, and whether the decision-makers consistently adhere to these values.

Alongside this, research suggests the reasons people don’t get on board with organizational change include:

No clear, unambiguous reasons for the change.
Employees don’t trust the people telling them to change.
Employees are under pressure, and so they choose to trust in the familiar.
The new way is not proven.

The power of good communication

Good communication during change can help reduce uncertainty and its effects. As three studies found, when employees don’t receive timely and detailed explanations for the changes, they are more likely to become cynical and leave the organisation. This isn’t just a case of the already disenfranchised and cynical becoming even more so. The research found that when organizations failed to provide adequate explanations for the change, previously highly committed and motivated employees became as cynical as those who identified less with the organization.

As Professor Robert Sutton suggests, “More than fifty studies show that when employees are given sound and believable explanations for unsettling changes like pay cuts, layoffs, and mergers, they are less prone to become angry and anxious, retaliate, quit, steal, or become less productive” (2017: 155).

For example, researchers looked at how employees in two (nearly identical) manufacturing plants responded to unwelcome and unexpected news. They surveyed employees right after the shock announcement finding increased levels of dissatisfaction, stress, and distrust in both factories. In one factory, the employees received only vague communications during the subsequent three months. The other factory had a carefully developed and detailed change communication plan. As the change went on, employees in the high communication plant felt more secure about their jobs, less stressed, more committed and had better job performance. The same story was not the case for the factory with poor communication.

7 THINGS THAT HELP GOOD CHANGE COMMUNICATION

Recognize that different stages of change need different things

In her work on organizational change, Lynn Isabella explored the phases employees go through during change and the role of the manager in these phases.

Phase one is Anticipation – it is the start of the change. The manager’s role is to pull information together, make sense of it, and communicate it in a coherent way.
Phase two is Confirmation – change is happening and detail starts to emerge. The manager’s role is to help people process, reduce anxiety, draw on relevant comparisons, and set out reasonable actions.
Phase three is Culmination – change is happening and things are finalised. The manager’s role is to confirm what will be kept, what will go.
Phase four is Aftermath – change is at tail end or has happened and is to be evaluated. The manager’s role is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the change, and help people get closure on what was so they can focus on what now is.

ACTION TO TAKE:

Identify what phase of change you are in. Reflect on how well you are doing in your management responsibilities for this phase of change. For example, if in phase two – how have you helped reduce people’s anxiety or confusion?

2. Clarify the purpose and story of your change

Your role as a manager leading change is to provide clarity on the reason for the change, what will happen when, along with specifying the opportunities. In their book, Why change doesn’t work, Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley provide a helpful set of questions the answers to which will help you get the detail you need for your change story.

Goals: Does the entire change team agree on what the main objective of the change is?
Strategy: What is the change team’s approach to influencing people and buy-in to adopt the change?
Behaviour: If behaviour change is a part of the organizational change, is it clear whose behaviour needs to change? How will this be achieved? What training and support is needed?
Evaluation: What outcome is to be achieved from this change? Is it something that can be measured?
Timeline: What is the schedule of change? What are the key checkpoints? If there is no schedule, there is no plan.
People: Who is in overall charge of the change plan? Where are these people coming from? If they are operational, is space being given to them to focus on the change?

From a communication perspective, further questions to answer for employees include:

What is the plan for getting us from here to there?
What is involved in this change process?
Who will do what, and how will they do it?
What do we have to learn that we don’t know now?
When will we start to see results?
How will we be kept informed of progress?
How will we be involved during the change implementation?
Who will be making key decisions? How will major decisions be made?
What is expected of me?
Is this change the only one planned? Or is it one of many?
What will this mean for me? How will it affect my job?

ACTION TO TAKE:

Take some time to answer the questions outlined in this section. Where are the gaps? How can you bridge these gaps? Set a deadline for when you will fill in any gaps.

3. Communicate every day from the start to end of the change

Many managers and leaders worry about communicating too much. In my experience, during organizational change, you can’t communicate enough. Professor John Kotter emphasizes this in his book, Leading Change, when he suggests that on average, in the first three months of organizational change, information about those changes is typically less than 2% of all information provided!

In fact, a recent study involving three UK councils found that communication and supportive management was key at each stage of the change. The change involved outsourcing of council services to a private sector organization. At the start of the change – before staff transferred to their new employer – communication was often felt to have been insufficient which led to increased feelings of uncertainty among employees. This uncertainty was increased as the information provided was not always understood by staff.

ACTION TO TAKE:

Mark out time in your calendar specifically for change communication. For example, 30 minutes every day you can do something whether that’s pull together an update, check-in with staff, re-send information.

4. Ensure you engage as much as you communicate

As a former head of communication and engagement, I’m keen to emphasise the engagement bit. All too often people in an organisation will refer to ‘comms’, as in “the head of comms will put a message out” or “let’s just get some comms out”.

Communication is just broadcasting out. Engagement is about connecting with and finding out people’s responses, reactions, and ideas. Communication and engagement are two halves of the same coin. Ignore either one at your peril!

Good communication and engagement help to increase people’s commitment to the change. In his book, Terms of engagement, Richard Axelrod suggests that commitment is sustained through:

Positive results
Information sharing and feedback
Providing support
Increasing personal involvement
Walking the talk – role-modelling

How you respond to people’s ideas when they engage is key to securing commitment. Research suggests that the language leaders use can either encourage people to contribute more ideas later or put them off from engaging further. People who spoke up and offered ideas only to have a leader reject their ideas were still prepared to offer more suggestions later if the leader responded well, i.e. sensitively and explaining why the idea is being rejected.

There are some important things to consider before engaging with employees during change:

The invitation to engage must be genuine. People can see through fake engagement, i.e. when a decision has already been made. If a decision has been made, then why not engage on how the decision will be implemented? You must really want to engage and not simply indulge in it, treating it as a tick box exercise.
The problem you are engaging on must be worth people’s time and effort – make clear how it is.
The ‘contract’ for engaging is clear. What do you require from people? How should they engage? What will they get in return for their engagement?
Individuals must have the necessary skills and knowledge to engage effectively. Creating well designed engagement events is key. These consider different preferences – so individual thinking time, pair discussion, bigger group discussion. It also means sending helpful information in advance to help people prepare.
Give feedback on how people’s engagement has made a difference. What has happened as a result? What adaptations have been made to the proposed changes or plan?

COACHING QUESTION:

When you engage with staff, are you factoring in the time at a later point to provide feedback on what has happened from of their engagement?

5. Give people enough time to process information

A common issue I find during organizational change is that people are simply not given enough time to process information. An email is sent out in the evening – often after people have gone home – and there is a deadline to respond in 24 hours. Not only does this have the potential to signal to employees that you’re not really interested in what they have to say, it fails to consider different needs when it comes to processing information.

Research which examined the impact of a merger between two organizations – the smaller one being subsumed by the larger – found that the impact of the merger was moderated by how well employees were able to process the information given to them. This depended on the information being of good quality, being regularly provided, and with employees being given time to process. When people are given sufficient time to process and understand the merger information, they are more likely to be committed to the change.

And a survey involving more than 5,000 people affected by downsizing, in Ireland, during the global recession in 2009/10, found that good consultation played an important part in helping people offset the negative effects of change. The more detailed and helpful the consultation was, the less dissatisfied and exhausted people seemed to be.

DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY:

Think about a recent important message you shared (verbally or in writing).

How many people read or heard the message you communicated?
Of those who read or heard your message, how many UNDERSTOOD the message? Put a specific number.
Of those who understood your message, how many BELIEVED the message? Put a specific number.
Of those who believed your message, how many REMEMBERED the message? Put a specific number.

If your numbers are low or zero, then plan in how you will check for understanding, belief, and remembering for future important messages.

6. Respect difference by communicating and engaging in different ways

Everyone is different. Our personalities, experiences, education, role, personal circumstances, mental and physical health, first language etc. all play a part in how we will respond to change. No single ‘elegant solution’ will address the entire breadth of these differences when it comes to change.

You need to deploy a range of tactics encompassing big picture through to minute detail; the end game through to the step-by-step timetable; the logic of why things are happening as well as demonstrate empathy and compassion for people affected; use a range of communication styles, verbal through to written, large group through to individual meetings.

Underpinning all of this is having a good enough understanding of your own preferences. I’ve seen some change practitioners, chief execs and directors fall into the trap of engaging and communicating with staff in the way that they like to be engaged with. This requires you to dig deep and put aside your own preferences, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. For example, if you don’t like talking with large groups of people well, I’m sorry but that’s tough. Someone needs to do it and that person is probably you

Researchers have developed and tested a theoretical model – a change circumplex – mapped by emotional response to and activity levels during change (Oreg et al, 2018, 2022; Sverdlik & Oreg, 2022).

This offers up a different way of thinking about and working with the array of responses to change. The key takeaways from this are:

Level of engagement and activity is as important as the emotional reactions
Change resistance is better than change disengagement

ACTION TO TAKE:

List different strategies you might use depending on where someone is on the change circumplex.

7. Get feedback on change communication and engagement

By that, I mean pull together a focus group of opinionated, constructive grass-roots staff. People who you can test out key messages and engagement ideas with. Likewise, they can provide you with some ideas for better ways of engaging with their colleagues.

When I supported a department at the BBC with change communication, we used something called a Transition Monitoring Team (TMT). The TMT concept is something William Bridges suggests in his book, Managing Transitions. Essentially, a group of staff act as a test bed for communication and engagement activity. They provide feedback on important communication and engagement before it goes wider – helping to ensure the messaging is helpful. And they provide feedback once communication and engagement have gone live – gathering and sharing feedback from their peers. Contracting is key to get this right but it’s worth it. Interestingly, this change programme was well supported by the various unions and even during the changes, staff morale remained amongst the highest in the organisation. The changes were also implemented either ahead of or on time, meeting all the required financial targets.

ACTION TO TAKE:

Allocate time in your change timetable to get feedback whenever there is a key update. When will you ask for feedback? When will you let people know what you have done with their feedback?

Post author: Dr Hayley Lewis. First published on the HALO Psychology website 10 November 2025.

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REFERENCES

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Boyatzis, R.E. (2024). The science of change: Discovering sustained, desired change from individuals to organizations to communities. New York: Oxford University Press USA.

Bridges, W. (2017). Managing transitions: Making the most of change (4^th Ed). London: John Murray Publishing.

Harney, B., Fu, N., Freeney, Y. (2018). Balancing tensions: Buffering the impact of organisational restructuring and downsizing on employee well-being. Human Resource Management Journal, 28(2), 235-254.

Isabella, L. A. (1990). Evolving interpretations as a change unfolds: How managers construe key organizational events. Academy of Management Journal, 33(1), 7–41.

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Kotter, J. P. (2012). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Lind, E.A., & van den Bos, K. (2002). When fairness works: Toward a general theory of uncertainty management. Research in Organizational Behavior, 24, 181-223.

Mitchell, I., & James, P. (2017). Outsourcing transitions and the employment relationship implications. Human Resource Management Journal, 27(4), 614-629.