Delivering Effective Communication

Slide 1: Delivering Effective Communication

Slide 2: Course Overview
I am sure all of you who are on this course today can recognize the importance of communications for some of our
change programs and why communication really matters. How do we lead our organizations through change? How
do we help people in the business feel like they own the change journey, and that they are a part of it?

The demand piece of change is about trying to bring people with you on a change journey and not feel like they are
just having things done to them. This whole piece around delivering effective communication is a very significant part
of driving that demand.

Slide 3: Course Objectives

After completing this course, you should be able to identify how to develop a communication strategy, identify how to
develop a communication plan, recognize how to deliver effective communication, and identify how to evaluate the
effectiveness of communication.

Slide 4: Lesson 1: Identify How to Develop a

Communication Strategy
Slide 5: Lesson Introduction
Successful communication enables people to understand and take part in the change, and it really generates that
feeling of inclusion in a change process.

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

Identify how communication affects commitment.

Identify how to communicate to key stakeholders in a change program to gain that commitment.
List the objectives of a communication strategy.
Identify the key inputs for creating a communication strategy.
Recognize how to perform an effective stakeholder analysis.
Identify the key components of a communications strategy.

Slide 6: How Communication Affects Commitment

Introduction Let’s have a look at how communication affects commitment. This is the very famous change curve, and
it takes us on a journey from when somebody knows nothing about what is happening all the way through to the idea
of commitment, where people are embracing that change and actively driving forward to reach that goal.

Successful communication generates that feeling of inclusion in a change process. The commitment curve outlines
the different levels of commitment as we go through our change journeys.

Awareness
Awareness will be our first stage. That is where we start to let people know that things might be changing and how to
get ready and look out for key buzzwords that might affect them.

People might ask questions at this stage or say things like what is happening?
Understanding
As we start to engage more with people we move to understanding. This is where they kind of get what is going to
happen, understand the impact of the change on the business, and what that will mean for them.

You will often get lots of questions here around how does this affect me, what is in it for me?

Adoption
If we keep moving people on our journey and we are focusing on the right communication methods, we will move to
adoption. This is where the audience has a greater level of understanding of the areas impacted, benefits of the
change, and things like the timeline involved.

This is where you start to get this demand type of question, things like how do I find out more, what can I do?

Commitment
This is where your audience has a full understanding of the change, all of its impacts, and they are able to convey
that in a way that they can bring it to life for other people. The people who have reached this stage also tend to show
an understanding of the bigger picture of the change program and are really driving it as a keen advocate of the
change.

You can see if we do not quite manage to bring people on this journey, there are negative fallouts throughout.
However, if we can develop a successful communication strategy and a successful engagement strategy, we can
start to bring these things together and bring our change agents and our users on the journey with us.

Slide 7: Communicating to Stakeholders to Gain

Commitment
Introduction
Think about how different stakeholders kind of experience this change curve. Sponsors who have been part of
defining that vison will move up the commitment curve much faster than anyone else, and we need them to do that.
Our change agents help us drive the change. They will be the next group of people that go up the change curve.

And then, the longer process that tends to involve a lot more creativity around how we build buy-in, is our end users.
This is a much more diverse audience and therefore needs careful consideration when we think about our
communication engagement strategy.

Trying to get every single individual up to commitment is not always necessary. There are some people in the
business who the change will impact significantly, and clearly, we need those guys to be well aware, well adopted,
and kind of committed to the change. For people who are more in the periphery, it might be okay actually for those
guys to get to understanding or adoption.

Change Sponsors
Sponsors also have the responsibility of allocating essential resources to change to ensure success and that the
change is sticking. What is important from a communications engagement point of view around sponsors is that they
are very visible, and they should visibly maintain that commitment to the program by championing this change and
new ways of working.

Change Agents
Change agents play a day-to-day role in driving forward change activities. Communications and stakeholder
engagement being a big part of it but also other elements such as learning, or culture, or skills, etc. Change agents
tend to be more junior than sponsors and often play a more operational role. However, it is really common to have
some senior change agents, for example, directors and senior managers within the organization.
End Users
End users are our employees who will basically use the new process or system or the new way of working. These will
include individuals or groups affected by the change, and they will be the focus of the change effort. They will play a
vital role in the short term by achieving the change, but more importantly, they will need to play a long-term role:
making that change stick.

So, we need to think about how these end users get to a point where they are truly committed to a new and different
way of working and willing to use some of the things that we have supplied, like training, like new processes, like new
organization structures.

External Stakeholders
And then, last but not least, we have got our external parties. It could involve your customers, contractors, trade
unions, and other external bodies that your change program may affect. When we talk about things like unions and
what we can say to customers, we enter the realm of legalities and other factors to consider, and that means very
much being gated by your internal HR, internal marketing, legal, etc.

Slide 8: The Objectives of a Communication Strategy

What we do to build a communication strategy is, first of all, focus on our objectives. So, communication strategy
means we need to look at defining the framework and direction for our communication efforts during the project. We
need to provide guidance for consistent and clear communication. We need to think about the range of
communication methods used and what is and is not appropriate for your particular business, and we need to
determine the basic elements that structure all of our communication activities. So, that is things like, what are our
communication plans, what are our channels, what do they look like, and how do we effectively bring these things
together to successfully communicate with the business.

Slide 9: The Key Inputs for Creating a Communication

Strategy
There are some key inputs we need to consider when creating a communication strategy. We have our stakeholder
analysis, and this kind of gives us a view of who are we going to be impacting and what do we need to talk to them
about. We may have some very specific project or change information, for instance, the background to the project,
the benefits case, the project plan, and timelines—but most importantly, we should have the vision for the change:
what is the new world going to look and feel like, and what is the path we are going through to get there.

There will also be organization-specific information, so this should take into account the understanding of the current
structure of the organization, the current brand, the customer experience, and any differences in culture across
different parts of the organization.

More often than not, we need to make sure we respect and make use of existing corporate communications. This
could be anything from internal share points, websites, communication channels, newsletters through to even some
of the collaboration technology that we use. If you have an internal communications team, they should become a
very key part of helping to build this.

We need to take into consideration the budget; we might want to do something very dramatic with fireworks but if we
have only got a limited budget, we have to work within the constraints of that.

Slide 10: Stakeholder Analysis

First of all, you need to compile a full list of stakeholders and identify who is critical to the project success. You need
information around those stakeholder groups, and then you also need to think about who are the main
representatives from those groups and plan to meet with them. Use your friendly stakeholders and really understand
what the expectations and needs of that group are.
Another thing to think about is the role of that stakeholder group and the current commitment level versus where we
think we need to get them to for the change to be sustained. This is often most effective if actually you do this in a
much more collaborative way.

Slide 11: The Key Components of a Communication

Strategy
Introduction
Understanding our broad stakeholder group means we can start to think about:

The objectives of our strategy.

How are we going to think about our guiding principles?
What is our brand going to look like?
What messages are appropriate for what audience?
How are we going to send things?
All of the logistics around distributing communications—and how are we going to measure the effectiveness of
what we are communicating to the business?

If we think about all of these things and build them into the strategy, we start to see a view of the world where we can
really begin to drive our change program.

Objectives
When building our communication strategy, we start with our objectives. A communication strategy is basically the
framework for all of your communications activities throughout your change program. In theory, it doesn’t really
change throughout the lifecycle of your program. It’s kind of a fixed reference point for how you’re going to do things.
Obviously, if the nature of your program changes or the vision changes, etc., you might want to revisit some of these
elements, but broadly speaking, this strategy will remain as is once you have built it collaboratively with your
stakeholders.

Guiding Principles
Using two-way communication, where possible, is probably one of the most common unbreakable rules of
communication in change programs.

There are other things:

Using plain language

Staying true to the tone of the voice of your organization
Making sure you embrace brand elements
Thinking about how you represent yourself to the customer external to your business and how you want that to
translate into the principles of your internal communications plan.

Other elements to think around about principles is the involvement of management. For example, it might be that we
have a principle that some of our C-level executives are always involved in our communication, or we might have a
principle that says if someone asks a question we will always respond in this way.

So, think about the vision of your organization, the vision of your program and that brand experience, and use that to
drive your guiding principles.

Brand
We all know the impact and power of a strong and recognizable brand. It drives loyalty, and it can drive excitement,
and it just brings a sense of consistency to your communication and engagement effort.

Sometimes, you can build a brand specifically for your program. Other times, you may well need to craft your brand
in line with something else within your internal communications or within your organization.
Regardless of which way you go, you should develop a look and feel and a tone of voice that is instantly
recognizable for your program. This brand should tie to the vision and objectives of your program. Again, as for some
of the other things around external communications, it is always worth having people like HR, legal, and internal
communication on your side when doing this.

Audience
When we think about our communication strategy, what we want to do is kind of take that to the next level of detail so
we really start to capture the nuances and the differences of personalities of different parts of the business. You
should use your stakeholder analysis as a basis for defining the audience groups. Harness the collective intelligence
of things like your change network to kind of identify key teams or key organizations that might have a very different
experience of change to other parts of the business.

Having identified these different groups of people, you can start to think about the key messages that will really bring
the change alive for that group of people. Think about the what’s in it for me message that will really bring this to life,
and paint a really happy and positive picture of a change. But sometimes your key messages just need to be about
being honest in a way that gives them enough information to try to make sense of what it means to then be able to
drive a sense of momentum around the change journey.

Other important things to think about are who are the most suitable senders. What is the most appropriate person to
be landing this message with this group of people? What are the communication vehicles that will resonate most with
this audience?

Effectiveness
Last but not least, we need to think about effectiveness in our communication strategy. It is basically about how do
we measure the effectiveness of the communications: did the message resonate, did the format work, what are
people saying, and how do we capture some sentiment from the business around this change. Interestingly, this
effectiveness metrics can often expand to beyond just the communication because you are starting to reach out to
people who are experienced in a change journey.

You need to think about how to use communications as a method to engage, but also how can it become a useful
tool for you to capture feedback for the overall journey.

Slide 12: Check Your Understanding

Slide 13: Lesson Summary
The communication strategy provides the framework for all of our communications activity on the program. It is really
important in helping build commitment and how we take different groups of stakeholders along that commitment
curve at the right pace to make sure that the change makes sense and sticking for them.

After completing this lesson, you should now be able to identify how communication effects commitment, identify how
to communicate to key stakeholders in a change program to gain commitment, list the objectives of the
communications strategy, identify the key inputs for creating a communications strategy, recognize how to perform an
effective stakeholder analysis, and identify key components of a communications strategy.

Slide 14: Lesson 2: Identify How to Develop a

Communication Plan
Slide 15: Lesson Introduction
You can build a communication plan to take you from now until the end of the program, but inevitably, that will change
depending on the experience of the end users, the experience of, potentially, some of our technology build, and just
other external factors that can influence the day-to-day running of businesses. So do not worry if you find yourself
having to readdress elements of your communication plan when you are only four, five, or six weeks down the line.

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

List the objectives of a communication plan.

Identify the key components of a communication plan.
Outline the pros and cons of different communication vehicles that can be used for communication plans.

Slide 16: The Objectives of a Communication Plan

Our communication plan basically outlines the when, what, how, and who to successfully deliver communication, and
also to kind of impact our engagement levels. So, we are not just communicating for the sake of it; this is all about
bringing people on our change journey.

The plan also coordinates all the elements of communication activities to make sure we deliver the right information,
at the right time, and most importantly to the right people.

Slide 17: The Key Components of a Communication

Plan
Let’s look at the key components of our communication plan. It should include:

Communication vehicle—So, in what forum will the information be delivered?

Our stakeholder type—We’ve talked about this a lot. So, is it a change agent, is it an end user, is it a sponsor,
etc.?
Who is our stakeholder owner? Who is going to be responsible for communication with that stakeholder or
group?
What is most appropriate such that will resonate well?Our key messages—So what messages are we going to
deliver to that group and in what way do we want that to be a two-way experience?
Timing—is it a one-off or is it regular?
What is the plan for delivering this kind of communication?
The deliverer—Who is going to send that message? It is probably the same as the stakeholder owner, or it
might be that there has been some way of delegating that delivery to another channel.
Our delivery methods—So in what format will the communication take place? We have got things from good
old e-mail, posters, social media, webinars, etc.
Our feedback mechanism—Again, that really important way of capturing how effective has that communication
been so we can continue to learn and evolve our communication plan throughout the program.

Slide 18: Different Communication Vehicles

Introduction
It is important to think about what are the principles in your communication strategy and how are you going to reflect
them in your delivery vehicles for communication.

We are very lucky in the world we live in today to have some really innovative communications channels available to
us.

E-mails and Internet

E-mails and internet—So simple, really quick to do, you can get them to a very specific audience quickly, and they do
not cost a lot of money.

Meetings and Webcasts

Meetings and webcasts—Really easy to find out who is there, it is quite a good way of making face contact and
getting to know people. Logistically, it can be really challenging, and it can be very time consuming.

Posters and Giveaways

Posters and giveaways—Really fun, can reach a broad audience, very convenient, and it is a great way of getting
some really lovely imagery around your brand. It might not be appropriate alongside various sustainability policies
and is a really easy way of them just kind of getting lost and crunched up in the bin. There is always a cost, as well,
with things like posters and giveaways, so you need to think about how that plays in your communications strategy
as well.

One-to-One Communication
One-to-one communication is very important for our stakeholders who really want to understand how they are
progressing against their change curve. It is very convenient for the audience, and you can very much tailor your
message to that individual and actually get some really honest feedback as well.

It is really time consuming, especially if you are trying to target senior people. It can be needing a lot of planning, and
it can be expensive.

Conference Calls
Conference calls—Similar to e-mail, really easy, but again, not a great environment for your end user. So this is the
kind of thing I would only use where I was checking in rather than as a kind of an engagement mechanism.

Magazine Articles and Newsletters

Magazine articles or newsletters can be visually very exciting and you can often engage quite senior people to be
involved in these.

You do risk people missing it because they do not happen to flick through the newsletter this week.

Videos and Telestrations

Videos or telestrations—These are really cool, especially if you are trying to take people on a sort of what’s in it for
me journey or highlight how the world will look and feel at the end of the change program. They are also really easy
to follow.

These are costly and they do require a lot of planning. I think if you are reaching out to a particularly global or diverse
audience, it can be a bit tricky because some things just do not translate either culturally or in the messages.

Mobile Apps and Webpages

Mobile apps and webpages—A really good way of encouraging engagement, and actually you can do things like
gamification, so you can have competitions and challenges to try and really adopt new ways of working. There is a
whole additional amount of effort around mobile apps and webpages, and again you do not quite know if that is going
to target all the right people that you want it to reach.

Screensavers
Screensavers is like the environmentally friendly version of the poster and desk drops, but I have found this one quite
challenging to actually implement in a number of places due to various kinds of IT challenges.

Slide 19: Check Your Understanding

Slide 20: Lesson Summary
We have talked about how to develop our communication plan. The communication plan basically helps coordinate
all of the communication elements in a change program. It really comes to life when you have taken the time to think
about your stakeholder groups, kind of down to a team level: what are their needs, how are they going to best
respond to different types of engagement. And then, to be really successful, making sure you build in all of your
measurement mechanisms so that we can keep evolving that plan to really make it work for our end users.

After completing this lesson, you should be able to list the objectives of a communication plan, identify the key
components of a communication plan, and outline the pros and cons of different communication vehicles that can be
used for communication plans.

Slide 21: Lesson 3: Recognize How to Deliver

Effective Communication
Slide 22: Lesson Introduction
Lesson three is all about how to recognize the delivery of effective communication. This is less about writing things
down and getting things into a plan but more about thinking about the mechanisms and ways you need to put in
place to really make your communication effort successful. To ensure accuracy, all communications should be
developed according to your communication plan, and then all feedback that you get through your effectiveness
measures should be used to update that communication plan.

After completing the lesson, you should be able to:

Recognize the power of effective communication.

Identify how to develop effective communication.
Recognize how to deliver effective communication.

Slide 23: The Power of Effective Communication

In this example, a large global management consultancy firm needed to reduce its head count due to the 2008
recession. What it tried to do was offer voluntary lay-offs and then proceed with compulsory layoffs, depending on the
numbers and the impact of the original campaign. In order to make this experience as pain-free as possible, they
sent e-mails through senior leadership to initiate the program. They set up FAQ sites, face-to-face meetings with
those identified, and used these as a way of engaging, firstly with the people who had volunteered for the voluntary
lay-offs, then more formally for the people identified for compulsory lay-offs.

Given this kind of transparent process, the firm found that it was able to negate negative feelings employees had
towards the firm because the end users felt they were communicated to in an open, transparent, and effective way.
They understood why the change was happening, when it was happening, and the criteria that would need to be met
to be considered for voluntary or compulsory lay-offs.

Slide 24: The Key Considerations for Effective

Communication
Sending communications just for the sake of it will rarely get the levels of engagement we need to help people move
through that change commitment curve. So, where we know there is resistance, we need to think about ways of
overcoming that, so that people can buy into it and recognize themselves in that journey.

Think about what are the impacts over a period of time and how are we going to mitigate potential risks. And also,
make sure that the information we have given is specific to the organization. And last but not least, make sure we
thoroughly review things.

Key inputs to effective communication include a legitimate deliverer of the message. So, if we are landing a message
like the previous example, we need that to come from the top of the business with a serious business rationale for
what we are doing. We need to make sure the message is tailored to the audience. The organization-specific piece is
very much around culture, so what is the most appropriate way of doing this or what are some of the legal absolute
must-haves that we need to have done before we can deliver information.

Slide 25: Developing Effective Communication

Introduction
There are some handy little reminders around developing effective communication that we will go through now. We
have got a little acronym here, CORE. We have got content. So, what are we actually going to say, what does that
going to look like?

Our format: how you can make the most of some of the space you have available for your communication and how to
think about the problems.

CORE
CORE—What this stands for is change, objectives, reasons, and effect.

So, when we think about change, what we're thinking about is what is changing, how, where, and when. So, for
example, we are getting a new vending machine in the lobby on the 19th of June.
Objectives—What is the goal of that change? The new vending machine will provide you with snacks and
drinks during the times the cafeteria is shut.
Reasons—Why is the change happening? The decision to provide the vending machine was made following a
review of your collective feedback about what changes you would like to see in our office.
Effect—What effect will the change have on staff? We hope that the provision of the vending machine will
increase your well-being and flexibility in choice of snacks and drinks.

So very simply, this is a really nice little framework to think about are you tailoring your messages to make sure you
have got a nice flow for your end user, and that it makes sense, and it answers all of their immediate questions.

Content
We have talked a lot about customized messages. So, depending on who your message is being delivered to, you
need to think about what facts you need to share, what is the audience’s preferred way of looking at communications.
You should also consider your audience’s point of view and perspective rather than your point of view or perspective.

So, again, if you have mobilized a kind of really good change network around the program and you are getting that
feedback, you will start to know the needs and wants of your different communication groups. Use simple language.
Sometimes, I find it is best just to get it all down and then do a couple of good iterations to start really cleaning it up
and making sure you are sticking to some of your guiding principles in your communications plan and strategy.

Something that can be really powerful is using quotes from authorities from an audience's peer groups. Use a
communication plan that will outline core messages of the communication and provide other information such as your
audience, your deliverer, your timing, and your vehicle.

Format
In communications that will be written, either for example on the web, in an e-mail, or on an app, you need to think
about using your approved color scheme of brand. It should stay consistent to what was agreed when you wrote your
communication strategy. This will help your audience kind of recognize not only the look and feel but also kind of the
tone of voice of your communications so that they can immediately associate with your change program.

If you are writing things down, you need text to be appropriately sized to effectively put together the content and the
key messages that you were trying to deliver. Using things like headings and spacing in a clever way can actually
also really enhance your message.
If you want people to skim through an e-mail, you need to use things that will catch people’s eye and draw their
attention. If you have an internal communications function or an internal marketing function, you should make use of
some of that expertise.

A particularly useful thing to steal is how we communicate with customers, because most companies are fantastic at
delivering sort of that brand experience to their end user and the customers.

Common Problems
So, this a useful checklist just as you are reviewing your content or reviewing someone else’s content just to make
sure we have not fallen into any of the classic pitfalls. So, have we actually provided a communication that delivers a
message?

One of the worst things that you see, especially when programs get really stressed and busy, is we just feel that we
need to communicate. But, when you read through it, there is no relevant message for the audience. That is a big
turn-off for our audience.

Have we put too many messages in an e-mail? For example, for communications around deployments of new
technology and processes, sometimes you just want to get everything out there. It is highly unlikely that most people
will read to even the end of that communication, and even if they did, people are only going to take away two or three
key messages, so let’s focus on what is really important.

Related to that, we need to kind of hit people in the face upfront with the message, so again, we have captured them
from the very beginning with what we want them to take away from the communication. And last but not least, just be
explicit in the message. If you need to say it at the beginning and then say it again at the end, do that. But make sure
again you are leaving the audience with something to take away so they could recite the key outcome of that
communication.

Slide 26: Delivering Effective Communication through

Change Agents
One of our most effective ways of reaching people across the organization is to use what we call a change network.
We can use a change network to deliver communication to end users because they will form parts of those teams
and networks, but they are also a really great way to get feedback from those people.

In a really formal and neat way, the way you can use a change network is to kind of start with your sponsor, sponsor
communicates to your change agents, and then your change agents communicate to your end user, but, as we just
talked about, that is one way of doing it. But we should never underestimate some of the informal communication that
takes place.

What I would always recommend is documenting your change network in your communication strategies. I think one
of the big critical success factors around your change agents are really making them feel like they are part of the
program team for the change and really giving them a feeling of accountability to drive that forward.

Benefits of using change networks is you get that two-way feedback and you have got a really quick way of
cascading messages across the business, you can reach different geographies, teams, etc., very easily. The
drawback is that you get an inconsistent method of delivery. A really strong change network is committed and you
have some of your best and brightest in these roles to enable you to have a really successful change program.

Slide 27: Check Your Understanding

Slide 28: Lesson Summary
So, we once again reach the end of our lesson on effective communication. From this element around recognizing
how to deliver it, we have talked a lot about how much of a powerful tool it is in generating support for a major
change or project. It also helps to think about how communication activities are updated throughout a change
program based on feedback, and that means that we are not just communicating for communication’s sake. It means
actually we are understanding the other dynamics going on around us and how we can best serve the needs of the
end users.

After completing this lesson, you should now be able to recognize the power of effective communication, identify how
to develop effective communication, and recognize how to deliver effective communication.

Slide 29: Lesson 4: Identify How to Evaluate

Communication Effectiveness
Slide 30: Lesson Introduction
Evaluating the effectiveness of communication is all about maintaining that agility and making sure that they are
relevant in the needs of your end user. We have also talked about the fact that it is not just communication that we
need to measure the effectiveness of. This is all about the rapport of how well is our change being adopted by our
end users.

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

List the approaches to measure the effectiveness of communication.

List the mechanisms to measure the effectiveness of communication.
Identify how to update a communication plan according to the results of the evaluation.

Slide 31: Measure the Effectiveness of

Communication
How often will feedback be collected? How will feedback be used to improve the communication process or
materials?

So, think about what will your team do to make sure that we absorb that information. Consider what is or is not
relevant because some feedback might just be a way of venting rather than being constructive.

Are you going to give yourself any targets for feedback results? This can be things like, if we receive an average
rating with below a 7 out of 10, then we will completely scrap that and try something new. This is quite tricky because
the experience of communication is very personal, but I think there are some clever metrics that you can think about.

Slide 32: The Mechanisms to Measure the

Effectiveness of Communication
We’ve touched upon mechanisms already. There’s a number of ways we can do this: surveys, feedback cards, focus
groups, informal feedback. And today a number of organizations actually have some very cool feedback mechanisms
as part of their internal communications channel that actually link to a number of things around employee
engagement and other employee metrics. We need to harness our change network around what is going to work and
think about what are the ways we are going to capture the sentiment of our audience in a way that is really easy for
them and that provides us, as a program team, some very useful feedback.

What I have done in the past is had very quick feedback links on some of our e-mail where you can just give a score.
And then you can use things like your change network or your extended change network to give you more variable
feedback about what the sentiment is on the brand.

Slide 33: Updating the Communication Plan

So now that we have managed to collect some interesting data about our levels of engagement and the effectiveness
of our communications, we need to think now about using that data to actually update our communication plan and
show to our end users that we are listening and responding to their needs.

You will need someone to actually analyze the data to establish key messages or themes. Some of these could be
things like there are too many e-mails, too much text, jargon, not enough detail, what does it mean for me, etc. So,
you should get a whole breadth of suggestions that you can then use to analyze against your communications plan.

So, if you have had a request for more face-to-face communication events, what you can do is, you can assess your
communication plan as it exists right now and build in some more of that face-to-face time for those particular
stakeholder groups.

Slide 34: Check Your Understanding

Slide 35: Lesson Summary
We have talked about evaluating the effectiveness of communication, and basically, you cannot just do this and then
not change the way that you are delivering your communications plan. So, make sure that that analysis is always
translated into something real that the end user can see.

Feedback from the audience is also essential to understand if we have helped alter their perception of the change.
So while some feedback will be very specific to the communication, some of the other feedback we will get will be
about how they are experiencing the change and how uncomfortable or comfortable they are. We might have to think
about additional learning activities, cultural activities, etc.

You should now be able to list the approaches to measure the effectiveness of communication, list the mechanisms
to measure the effectiveness of communication, and identify how to update a communication plan according to the
results of the evaluation.

Slide 36: Course Summary

Effective communication is a really powerful tool for generating support for a change program. The beauty of
communication and doing it well is that it is all about helping people moving up the commitment curve so that they
can get to the required level of commitment. That level of commitment will change depending on who you are and the
impact that change has on you personally.

But it is all about helping build that demand for change in the business. The secret to doing this well is having some
really good structure around your communication. So you need a strategy that provides you a framework, which will
then help you coordinate all of your communication activities in a change program. You can then build a plan. This
helps you coordinate all of the things, the messages, and who you are going to talk to, and when and how you will
evaluate.

We need ways of evaluating the experience of the end user. You are in a very privileged position if you are running
communications. It means you have access to people to understand how they are responding to change. While some
of that feedback will help you update your communication plan, actually some of that feedback will be required for the
broader change program, to just make sure that we are meeting the needs of that audience to really bring them on
that change journey.