The different experiences in relation to organizational changes allow detecting that, on many occasions, companies face these processes disassociated from communication strategies.
Normally, the lack of alignment with the mission, vision and values arises from the approach that has been made to change planning from individual or sectoral perspectives, which do not know a systemic analysis.
This last conception implies seeing changes from a multidimensional perspective, visualizing and considering the organization as the interrelation of management processes and communication flows, attitudes, perceptions and the ways in which decisions are made.
The processes of change within an organization involve changes in its behavior habits. In this sense, the role of the CEO is essential. It constitutes the cornerstone of change, since it is he who will determine the perspective from which it will be analyzed.
It has to define and communicate the causes that motivated the change, its guidelines, the strategies and actions to follow, the possible resistance to its implementation and its subsequent resolution. It must decide and communicate the values that it will privilege in its management, values that must be made explicit and that all members must share.
In order to generate credibility in the change plan, the CEO must identify how natural and expected resistance to change manifests, fear of uncertainty, know and work with the expectations of employees, to negotiate the new links between employees and organization. This affects that the change is perceived as an opportunity and not as a conflict or threat.
In general terms, it could be established that there are different thresholds of acceptability and reactions to change: Those who do not want change because they are in agreement with the status quo. Those who do not imagine how it will benefit them therefore approve of the change but only intellectually. Those who agree with the change, but do not accept the first steps that must be taken, considering them traumatic for the actors involved. Those who approve the change in its entirety.
Each of these positions in the face of change will demand the design of a different communication strategy. In this process, it is necessary to dynamize the communication systems and supports that enhance the fluidity of the channels.
In many companies, the values only remain in a definition stage, such as on billboards, in a video that everyone watches, but the members do not know how to translate them into behavior.
That is why the communication of values has a fundamental role in any organizational change. It should be clarified that communication implies a modification of the behavior of the other, for which there must be a common code and give the receiver significant information, to achieve a high level of understanding.
This communication must respond to the following slogan: what can each member of the company do to put the values into practice? This message should resolve this concern so that all levels of the organization can visualize what are the behaviors required to carry out the materialization of values.
When a change is not clearly communicated, it produces loss of confidence, uncertainty, entropy, communicational pathologies and a drop in productivity. Any change can only take place if the organization can project, through its values, the vision proposed.
