Home / Blog article: Disdain for Plain English Can Doom Promising Change Management Plans
Disdain for Plain English Can Doom
Promising Change Management Plans
March 14, 2010 | 4 Comments
Not long ago, a client sent me a piece of communication, written by a colleague, and asked me if I could rework it. Believe it or not, this is how it began [specifics concealed]:
“[Company] in partnership with [Big Consulting Firm] is conducting a 90 Day [Department] study championed by [Executive’s Name], [Executive’s Lengthy Title], that supports understanding our business and Go-To Market strategies while leveraging existing functional strategies in Manufacturing, Logistics, Procurement, IT, as well as broader global blueprints from Europe and Latin America to define a transformational roadmap for our future.”
Fortunately, we worked this clicheosaurus into something meaningful.
But unfortunately, some communication like this is actually distributed. And tragically, such communication is often used to support major organizational changes, like combining businesses, shifting information systems, imposing new processes, shuffling staff or consolidating locations.
Why Communication is Important
Poor communication at the outset of a challenging organizational change can ruin its chances for success. Because employees, customers, suppliers and distributors are people, they:
- Need to understand a change before they can even begin to support it, let alone advocate it.
- May look unfavorably on something that is so shrouded in unclear language that there seems to be a conscious effort to hide what’s happening.
According to a 2007 study by the Computer Technology Industry Association, the top reason major information technology projects fail is poor communication.
Common Sense Goes a Long Way
Because of financial constraints, some critical corporate projects won’t get the benefit of professional communications resources. But common sense can go a long way toward harnessing the power of plain English.
Here are a couple imperatives for communication in the change management arena:
- Focus on the audience. Good communicators consider what the reader needs to receive in order to understand and embrace something. Look at your writing through a reader’s eye.
- Be honest. Even issues that are difficult are based on some rationale. Learn that rationale and use it as support to communicate honestly. That will advance your project more effectively than hedging and vagueness, which ruin credibility.
For more about the role of good communication in making good things happen, watch this blog. If you have a point of view on this rich subject, share it in the comment box.
Amen.
For wordier examples than supplied by you friend, see any insurance policy.
Comment by jim cartwright — March 15, 2010 @ 11:42 am
Spent several years working on a newsletter team at a former employer. The team as well as the target audience consisted of High School through College education. I was taught early on that spell check is not enough. Go one step further and do the grammar check. This caught many errors that slipped past spell check.
At the end of grammar check, a summary popped up with reading comprehension ratings. The average reading level in the US being about a 10th grade level it was easy to check how comprehensible an article would be. If the level spiked, determine why and if it needed to be changed. Often technical aspects will force this level up, but is the intended audience familiar with these aspects? If so don’t edit to death. If this was not the case then find a way to make it understandable.
Finally, don’t trust the computer. Read each others articles and ask yourself the ‘?”, “Did I understand what I just read?”
Comment by Al Swegan — March 15, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
In anticipation of the reception on my part of wisdom surpassed only by the insight that more than 20 years in communication disciplines has imbued you with, I with eagerness and curiosity commenced with the reading of your latest web blog missive, even as I set aside other more pressing details of this, the midpoint day of the month of March, in the year of our Lord 2010, and awaited the craftiness of your literary prose.
Instead, you cut to the chase. Darn.
Comment by Tom Delamater — March 15, 2010 @ 4:38 pm
These sound like entries from Management Bingo we used to play at meetings at my last employer.
Comment by Tyler — March 15, 2010 @ 7:37 pm