10 Mar Being The Change: How An Operational Narrative Makes Business Transformation Real.
By BravoEcho
What does “be the change you want to see” mean for business? Change today is cultural, technological, and political, and has forced a reexamination of operational business models and practices at every level. Relative to other institutions, business is seen as trustworthy, and three-quarters of workers still trust their employer to do what’s right (Edelman). In the midst of external change that is unprecedented in speed and complexity, how can business leverage and build on this trust?
Communicating Change Is Hard. Transformational Change? Harder.
Research from U.K. employee engagement tech firm Oak Engage illustrates the extent to which leadership can expect rock hard doubts from employees about change. They found that nearly one-fifth of employees would leave a job at the mere mention of transformation, and three quarters doubt management is aware of how resistant and fearful people are of major change. Moreover, a quarter assume they will be excluded from major change discussions, and one-third have no faith that their company can communicate operational change effectively.
Communications lives at the intersection of this ingrained employee skepticism and leadership’s urgency to inspire behaviors reflecting change embraced. While the CEO articulates the overarching vision, the CCO leads the enterprise-wide roadmap for communicating change. The comms team must design and drive appropriate levels of stakeholder engagement, address and reassure anxiety about change, and above all signal that leadership is listening.
Operational Narrative. The Bridge From Vision To Execution.
Operational Narrative is the connective tissue translating abstract goals into concrete actions. It’s a powerful metaphor for the mechanics of operational change. Woven into every communication and connecting every action, it’s a human-focused approach to explaining why transformational change is necessary, what it means for everyone involved, and how they’ll get there together.
Consequently, a successful Operational Narrative should align and motivate everyone from the C-Suite to the front line, creating shared ownership of the change. It offers transparency, consistency, accountability, and an opportunity to clearly articulate how the transformation will benefit each stakeholder group, internally and externally.
Setting the right tone is vital – optimism without sugar coating; honesty without despair; and straightforward stories that illuminate the path ahead. Leading with a bold message ignites momentum for the larger narrative. Here are three examples from a Harvard Business Review issue devoted to storytelling as a change driver:
In fostering and empowering advocacy, the brand community can power the brand.
• When Domino’s Pizza decided to go public with the most scathing customer feedback, it sent a loud and clear signal that leadership was both serious about breaking through the company’s cultural malaise, and unafraid to hear the difficult “hows” of transformational change at every level.
• When Uber’s new CEO held his first town hall meeting, instead of caution in light of very public company missteps, he promised to “retain the edge that made Uber a force of nature” – and was met with thunderous applause.
• Facing irrelevance, T-Mobile’s new CEO set out to understand why people hated their carriers. Extensive stakeholder listening led to a bold transformational change campaign: Un-carrier. A market leader today, the company is transitioning the Un-carrier “from Challenger to Champion by creating new and better ways to serve customers”
The Business Case And The Human Case For Change.
It is tempting for leaders to believe that one great story can turn the ship, and that excitement trickles down. But a piece in Forbes warns that a compelling story on its own can be insufficient to generate operational momentum for change. The publication calls on leadership to start from a presumption that employees will greet change messages with an impulse to fight back. Enthusiastic support of an “exciting new chapter in our company’s journey,” must be built painstakingly.
Harvard sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter once said “everything looks like a failure in the middle.” Change can feel messy and chaotic, and the outcomes uncertain while in the midst of the journey. Stakeholders need solid reasons to press on and comms leaders must find ways to sustain the relevance of the Operational Narrative throughout the change. And stakeholders must see themselves in any narrative, or they will feel excluded.
At BravoEcho, we believe relevance comes from the solid business case for change combined with an equal emphasis on the human case for transformation. Concise, fact-based narratives, engagingly told, extolling the benefits of the change for the company, and all stakeholders – internal and external – underpin any successful transformation initiative. Business success linked in equal measure to the human case for change is how companies can be the change they desire to achieve.
These real stories of lessons learned, or progress celebrated, make change itself the hero of a continuous and flexible transformation story. They also offer opportunities to refine and adapt the Operational Narrative as the transformation progresses, feedback is received, and new challenges arise.
Making Change Count.
Ultimately, the purpose of any transformation strategy is the survival of the company. A communications plan that enables that strategy represents a big opportunity. The Operational Narrative has the power to engage and inspire all stakeholders to take active ownership of the transformation because they see and believe in the business case and the human case for change. It is the Operational Narrative that moves an organization from where it is today to what it aspires to be in the future. And when dramatic change of this kind can be linked to competitive fitness, stakeholders equate the needed shifts with winning in the marketplace.
There’s nothing easy about any of this, but one outcome will be a new story of victory – how operational prowess was acquired in turbulent times. And it will be remembered in the moments to come, as they surely will, when the company faces transformation once again.