Step 2: Plan

When you start sharing information about changes with people it’s important to remember how much impact your approach will have.

Some of the factors that affect people’s engagement with change can include:

• how you talk about the changes
• how you present the information
• your behaviour and attitude

This is one of the important reasons behind the ‘Am I ready for change?’ tool. Being ready for and engaged with change allows you to demonstrate that to those you’re sharing information with.

Being a good champion for change means that you’re:

• willing to listen to new ideas and not be afraid to move away from ‘the way things have always been done’
• looking at the solutions and how to move forward
• able to communicate the positives and translate changes to show the positives for the individuals or teams you’re talking to
• not afraid to give feedback when things could be tackled differently

If you’re sharing changes with people, you should:

• demonstrate genuine drive, interest and positive sense around the changes
• be transparent about why changes are happening
• be honest at the times you might need to get clarity before you can answer something

You’ll find that people engage much more with the changes, providing the support and feedback needed to help them land as good as possible.

Here are some questions to ask yourself and those helping to roll out the changes to help you have great conversations about what’s planned:

• What are our key messages that’ll help others understand the change?
• Who do we need to work with to deliver the change?
• How are we going to communicate with and have conversations with people?
• How will we engage diverse groups to understand how change might impact people differently?

We’ve created some tips for making difficult conversations as successful as possible. Discover our guide to having constructive conversations.

You’ll likely have to communicate with lots of people while you are delivering change. You’ll be helping people understand what’s changing and why, as well as helping them to learn how it’ll specifically affect them.

Developing a communications plan will help you to define what you need to communicate, who should receive that information and how, and when it will be shared. It’ll also enable you to determine who’ll be responsible for each communication and how those communications will be tracked.

A communications plan should include:

• What date(s) will the communication be sent?
• What is the key message/call to action?
  1. What do you want your members to know?
  2. How do you want them to feel?
  3. What do you want them to do?
• Who’s the audience?
• What communications channel will be used? Some examples include in person meeting, email, phone call, social media and website updates.
• Who will be responsible for this communication?

You can use our communications plan template or develop your own.

Before moving on to Step 3: Deliver, the people leading change should:

• have created a change plan that will support people to adopt the changes
• be confident to have constructive conversations about change with anyone it will impact
• have developed a communications plan for the changes