Communicating Change

Larkin and Larkins advice about communicating change (p. 331) made alot of sense to me. I thought about a customer service initiative carried out by my company several years ago. I remember the roll out was scheduled in a large hotel banquet room at the Los Angeles airport, 35 miles from where I worked. The room was crowded with about 200 other managers and employees, there to see a pesentation by a motivational speaker who was to change the "culture" of the organization. The long afternoon featured story telling (by th speaker), videos, and a give-away of trinkets with slogans. The roll out was followed by strongly encouraged participation in commitees at each facility, tasked with coming up with ways to incentivize participation. As you can tell by now, implementation was top-down, and enthusiasm was "mandatory." Soon thereafter, the company encountered legal and ethical problems that created large gaps between espoused values and vision. The message of the change initiative was undermined. About a year ago, the division news letter contained an article by the CEO that was prompted by an employee asking: "Are we still doing that?(initiative)." Although he assured everyne that "we never stopped," it was a defense that fell on deaf ears.