Six Tips for Communicating Change

Over the years, I've been charged with communicating change with masses of people. Difficult changes, like impending mergers & acquisitions, staff reductions and dissolution of major business partnerships.

Here's what I learned: unless the change is an increase in fortune or free desserts for the remainder of time, the first reaction to change is almost always defensiveness and alarm. Human nature, perhaps, but over the years I've learned a few tricks to ease transitions and make change a bit easier:

Six Tips for Communicating Change:

1. Determine why change is needed. This develops your focus for communications and helps clarify there is an important benefit to the change. (You'd be shocked how many changes are made just for the sake of switching things up. Almost always a dumb move.)
2. Identify ALL of your audiences. Last year my daughter's school implemented a major overhaul to the carpool system. They failed to communicate the new system to the kids and failed to communicate with parents so we could review with our kids at home. The result was lots of confused, sweaty, hungry, often crying small children packed into a small space at an elementary school. And a whole batch of unhappy parents. Sounds fun, yes? Make sure you've thought through every single audience the change will impact and develop a strategy for communicating with each one.
3. Communicate their benefit first, not yours. Starting a communication with "how this change helps the company" just stirs a sense of injustice amongst the masses. You must first communicate how this change helps your audience. Give 'um a cause they can get behind -- or at the very least not argue against. 
4. Communicate early. Get cracking on a clear communication about the change, along with a timeline, as soon as your strategy is set. The longer people have to wrap their heads around change, the better they tend to accept it. 
5. Communicate often. Update your audiences on the process. Share the victories, address the issues, and ask for continued patience. When people hear updates, they are more likely to support the change throughout the process. 
6. Welcome feedback. Give your audiences an opportunity to voice concerns and offer suggestions -- then address those concerns and suggestions. You don't have to respond to every single complaint, but make an effort to let your audiences know you hear them. Even if you don't make the changes they request, it helps them to know you are listening.

Have you recently had a change (maybe from your company, your bank, or your kids' school) communicated with you? Did they do a good job communicating the change? Why or why not?

The Higher the Hair, the Greater Potential the Photo Lands on Facebook

Y'all, something awful happened early Saturday morning, and I hope by sharing the story here I can save a few of you from living through the same horror in the days and weeks to come.

It was around 2 a.m. on Saturday. Actually, it was precisely 2:09 a.m. EDT Saturday. How do I recall the time so precisely, you ask? Ah, patience, my friends ... one must allow the story to unfold organically. Or electronically, as it were.

So, 2 a.m. I am as deeply asleep as it is possible to be when not dead and in a casket. Next thing I know, someone is firing off an air horn which they are balancing on my bedside table.  Jake and I both simultaneously do that thing all parents do when they sense an emergency is afoot: you know, the full-body Exorcism-spin, kicking off the covers and jumping into Karate Kid positioning to avert whatever danger is near. While flailing for your glasses and adjusting your pajamas and determining if your breath can perhaps be used as a burglar deterrent if needed. Don't act like you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. You do. You know.

Then I realize that freakishly alarming noise is coming from my iPhone. So I simultaneously attempt to silence the air horn while determining what the hell has possessed the phone to launch this freaking fire drill in the middle of the night. I am decidedly not amused.

The first thing I see is "Amber" and my first thought is my friend from high school has tagged a "higher the hair closer to God" picture of me from a cheer competition and something has gone horribly wrong with Facebook notifications. Which isn't an unreasonable thought at that hour and 2 hours into a dose of Benadryl.

But upon further scrutiny, I discovered it actually said "Amber Alert." So, at 2:09 a.m EDT I received an Amber Alert from St. Mary's, Georgia. Which is 376 miles from my house. Really? Really? Really, how likely is it that a suburban woman on the other side of the state, wakened from a dead sleep, with poor eyesight and a foul attitude is going to be so helpful that she should be awakened in the middle of the night?

AT&T, I have but one question: What. The. Hell?? 

The next day, when the full "what in the name of all that is good and holy" hit me, I did a little research and discovered AT&T apparently thinks this is a very sensible plan. And therefore did a little auto-install on iPhone software with the automatic settings to receive Amber Alerts, Emergency Alerts and Presidential Alerts.

I figure in the very unlikely scenario that an Amber Alert awakened me in the middle of the night and I was able to assist in the capture of the kidnapper, I would most likely murder the perpetrator with my bare hands for waking me up (and, obviously, for stealing children). Therefore, I have elected to turn off the Amber Alert on my phone and save myself a prison sentence for murdering a kidnapping pedophile. (Incidentally, the child who was missing Saturday a.m. was located safe and sound. For which I am very thankful. I cannot imagine anything more horrifying than discovering your child isn't safe and sound any time of the day or night.)

For now, I am leaving the Emergency Alerts on just in case there is a very, very good reason I should be awakened in the middle of the night, like a tsunami (yes, I live in Atlanta, just roll with this line of thinking) or the Bubonic plague being distributed via rainclouds or some such. I am hopeful those in charge will use discretion, because if they start firing these things off because there was an earthquake on the Canadian border, well ... everyone will turn those off too.

I would also like to say I am not sure just exactly what these Presidential Alerts entail, and in no way is this a political statement. No, this is an equal-opportunity, non-partisan statement: it inflames me when the president interrupts regular programming to yammer about darn near anything that I can't be served just as well reading in the newspaper the next day. So, please, Mr. President, make it worth my while if you awaken me. Ever. Really, it needs to be summer-blockbuster-movie bad, and I pray this never happens.

So, anywho. This is a very long way to tell you if you (or your kids) have an iPhone 4S or 5, with AT&T, you might consider what your general attitude might be towards being awakened in the middle of the night for an emergency alert. If, like me, you decide your personal impact on the situation will be low and your general attitude poor, do the following:

Go to "Settings."
Click on "Notifications."
Scroll all the way down until you see "Amber Alerts" and "Emergency Alerts" and toggle anything you do not want to receive to "off."

If this saves just one person from thinking a bad picture has been posted of them on Facebook by a girl named Amber, then it's all been worth it.

XO--

The Birthday Boy and Belgian Chocolate

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. He’d been in Brussels, Belgium since last Saturday, and the girls and I were very excited about him making it home in time to celebrate as a family. Here’s my to-do list to prepare for his special day:

1. Make Red Velvet Cake, including icing, from scratch
2. Purchase additional gift (I say additional, because he’d already purchased himself some expensive clip-on something or other for his bike and new running shoes) – something exciting that he might not buy for himself, like more of his favorite running shirts
3. Prepare his favorite home-cooked meal: fried pork chops, sweet potato casserole, squash casserole and buttered rolls, and sweet iced tea (we’re from the South. Doesn’t matter if it’s freezing cold outside, we take our tea iced. And sweet.)
4. Make a welcome home/happy birthday banner with artistic direction and assistance from the girls (ie, give them the poster board and some paint and let ‘um have at it.)

Then I got sick. Quite sick. Like drop the kids at school, drive directly to the doctor’s office and demand any and every kind of medication to MAKE ME FEEL BETTER sick. The morning of the planned birthday celebration. The very same day I’d planned to execute the above task list.

Soooo … I went to Plan B.

1. I purchased a Red Velvet cake from the bakery (and no, he didn't turn 15. But we felt 30-something candles was too much for this small cake so we tried to fashion a "3" and a "7" with the candles. It just doesn't translate well in the photo.)
2. I procured a gift certificate so he could buy lots of his favorite post-workout beverage.
3. We went out to eat.
4. There was no banner, but the girls substituted with hugs and kisses.

And … he had just as good of a birthday with list two as he would have with list one.

Here’s my question: when your perfect plans get sidetracked for whatever reason – whether you get sick, your car won’t start, your computer crashes or your great-aunt Bertie calls and your caller ID failed to warn you – what’s your Plan B? What’s your secret for getting your to-do list to the bare minimum so at the end of the day you’ve accomplished what you set out to do?

Leave your Plan B in the comments section of this post so we can all learn and enjoy!

XO – Amy Mac (PS - Isn't this little container Jake brought back filled with Belgian Chocolates extremely cute? I thought so!)

Free PR Tip of the Week: Silence is Golden

In the wake of the Tiger Woods scandal, I’d like to give you a piece of public relations advice: shhhh.

It’s a natural inclination to try to fill silence, to defend ourselves against detractors, to make things right when we’ve done wrong … and generally say anything that pops into our head to fill an awkward lull in the conversation.

It’s an old reporter’s trick – they ask a question, the interviewee answers, and the reporter continues to look at them expectantly. Pay attention to what happens … the uninformed start jabbering because they cannot stand the silence. The smart ones just look back and keep their lips zipped.

So practice keeping your mouth shut. I find a great way to do this is to ask your kids a question, then just keep looking at them after they answer. Stare long enough and they’ll admit to stealing toys from Santa just to get you to stop looking at them.

Tiger, if you’re listening, decline the interviews. Quit making statements. Stay home and turn off your ringer. Trust me, someone else will do something stupid and the headlines will shift.

Sunday Evening Storms

Sunday evening, just as I was drifting off to sleep after an active, productive weekend, the tornado sirens began to blare – a funnel cloud was spotted on the ground one county over, and it was headed our way. Let me tell you, nothing gets the local weather forecasters in a lather quite like a funnel cloud, especially one late at night.

I’ve lived the path of the tornado-laden south long enough to have a solid evacuation plan not only for my family, but also for our neighbors across the street who don’t have basements in which to seek shelter. Seriously, I can have my entire family, dog included, safely in the basement in 90 seconds or less. My kids may have to seek counseling for post-traumatic stress syndrome after being snatched from their beds while still asleep and dumped into the basement bed with quick reassurances from mom and dad while listening to the blaring sirens, but hey, at least they’re safe.

It brings to mind the need for every business, large and small, to have a crisis plan in place. When I worked for a huge Fortune 500 conglomerate, we had written crisis communications plans in place for everything from who was the best media spokesperson for certain catastrophic events to what to do if there was an earthquake.

If you have a small business, you don’t need anything quite so large in scope. For example, my crisis plan is to back up my computer regularly and to keep important numbers on my cell (like those for a computer technician and a couple of writers if I need help hacking away at my workload.)

Take a minute today and think through what you’ll do if the worst happens. Then relax, because it probably won’t, but you’ll be relieved you’ve thought through things just in case. Jot down your plan and communicate it to your team. Even if your team is just your babysitter and your dog.