Q. Veronica writes,

Since my father’s passing almost a year ago, I’m still struggling to assume my new leadership role within the family business. My main obstacle is to communicate my vision to our 75 staff members and to help them to adjust to the change. I have worked in this company (under my father’s supervision) for many years and I believe that the new direction I am taking the company in will take our operations to the next level. Any advice on getting my message across?

A. Dear Veronica,

I am sure your vision will initiate some change and move the company forward. As is usually the case with change though, people tend to resist it and so rather than overthinking the content of the message, I’d suggest dedicating your time to orchestrating how the message is to be communicated.

It is imperative that your staff buy-into your vision.  If they don’t, they’ll feel disconnected from you and from the company altogether, which will do nothing for morale or productivity. Your vision should be built with your staff in mind and with their feedback, especially those on the front line who are interacting with your customers. Creating a two-way communication system whereby your staff has the opportunity to participate is extremely important. If involved properly, your staff will embrace the new vision and will invest in the success of company because they were part of its structure.

Before you force-feed your staff any new ideas, create a feedback system where your employees are encouraged to participate. Once their feedback is received, take time to analyze it for trends and new ideas.  If you want your vision to really be embraced by staff, you should include their feedback in your plans. Your second step is to discuss with your senior executives about the plausibility of your new vision. Having all your executives on board is an important step toward your vision becoming reality.

Your next step is to share your new vision with the rest of the staff. Having the majority of your staff on board is an excellent guarantee for your success.

Q. Margret writes,

I’m a regional sales manager for a large retailer. I am having a hard time implementing many of the company’s policies in my region due to employee pushback.  This perplexes me because the company took great care to develop these policies based on feedback from employees. Any tips on breaking through the communication barrier?

A. Dear Margret,

It is very positive that your head office is listening to its people and designing policies based on their feedback. That being said, the new policies need to be communicated to staff strategically.  Your email did not specify the ways in which these policies were being communicated to staff, but if the policies are being communicated all at once (a common business mistake made for the sake of efficiency), it is likely that there are just too many memos in too little time for the team to digest adequately.  Spacing them out over the course of several months will likely result in more uptake.

Also ensuring the new policies are deployed properly is critical.  The new policy needs to be communicated to the your store managers first, who should pass it on to their direct reports respectively and so on until the message has permeated throughout the region following the natural hierarchy of the company. In order to achieve this, two things need to happen along the way: a) adequate time needs to be allowed for the process to be completed, and b) follow-up needs to be conducted in order to measure the success of the new policy on the ground.

Unless the feedback from the policy is received and acted upon, all other memos and strategies need to be on the back burner for the time being. That way, you ensure that your staff is not overwhelmed with memos and reading, which while important, do take them away from their daily duties and thus should be managed appropriately.