Change 101: back to basics.

The communication process and the work of the business communicator often get overlooked in the daily stream of work activities. Communication is often a transparent process and an expectation of the organization that receives short shrift. This is especially true when times are good and everything is going well. During bad times - times of low profits or low productivity and tight budgets - communicators often find themselves candidates for layoffs, outsourcing, or downsizing when their services do not appear to have a direct impact on the bottom line of the organization. Mark McElreath, ABC, associate professor at Towson State University (Md.), suggests that high levels of uncertainty in an organization's environment, coupled with recognition of organizational problems, increases management's evaluation of communication activities.

As organizations experience more and more change, business communicators need to find their places in the organizational change cycle and make communication an integral part of change to survive. Many communicators (practitioners and academics) lament and advise business communicators at all levels to "find a place at the management table," but business communicators may find that understanding the change agent positions available in an organization may be just as valuable a pursuit.

Communication officers who serve as vital members of the CEO's advisory administration have a greater impact on the organization's "bottom line" and are valued as agents of change. But communicators who serve in other positions within the organizational hierarchy also help to advance change.

Change

Communicators are in the business of producing change as well as reinforcing positive opinions and behaviors. According to well-known communication expert Roger D'Aprix, ABC, part of the role of the business communicator is accounting for how an organization perceives and deals with change.

Organizations change for a number of reasons, including to respond to a changing environment, to begin a new venture, to prepare for the future, and to improve performance. Organizations that fail to keep pace with competition, demand, and advances may not survive.

Kurt Lewin, organizational psychology theorist, describes organizational change as a three-phase cycle of unfreezing, moving to a new level, and refreezing. Unfreezing-refers to a phase when an old habit is broken or an old attitude is shaken. The second phase sees some instability while new and old behaviors are in conflict. Finally, refreezing consolidates the new behavior or attitude.

Organizations exist in two states: periods of change and periods of relative stability leading to change. Analyzed together, organizations are either preparing for change in an active mode or dealing with change in a reactive mode.

In this change cycle, agents of change move the process along and facilitate organizational change. Change agent positions have only a few requirements: the ability to improve the organization, to be active, and the inclination to be an integral part of the society of the organization.

Three Change Agent Roles

Change generators are demonstrators, patrons, defenders or leaders of change efforts. They correspond with the unfreezing stage. Participating in issues management programs and other formal and informal efforts to scout the organizational horizon for emerging change issues is often a characteristic of change generators. Change generators also propose solutions to emerging issues.

Change implementers are members of the organizational society who, after a specific change is identified, help move the process along and keep the process vibrant. They correspond with the movement stage. Because resistance is often associated with change, change implementers may be responsible for dealing with stress and resistance and focusing on the future benefits that the change guarantees.

Change adopters readily adopt the change and model the new behavior or attitude for others in the organization. They correspond with the refreezing stage of the change process. Changes have personal costs; employees need to believe that the costs are worth it. Change adopters can serve as models for other employees.

These change agent descriptions are broad and are not mutually exclusive. Nearly all managers and employees, at least to some degree, are concerned and involved in the change process as change agents. While all administrators are concerned with adapting their institution to changing environments, communicators play an important role in communicating change to internal and external publics, identifying trends that may affect and change the institution's operating environment, and by preparing and implementing plans to react to new technology, trends in the industry, government regulations, and public pressures.

Futurist Joel Barker suggests that when an organization is faced with change, everyone in the organization "goes back to zero." Change requires a shift in paradigm and the willingness to accept new ideas and concepts as a foundation for a new paradigm. If everyone "goes back to zero," or starts fresh, then everyone also has the opportunity to serve as one of the three change agent types.

Because change is always around the corner, as communicators we must anticipate change and be prepared to take on the mantle of one of the change roles.

Some Current Findings

A study I conducted of public relations officers in educational institutions and their perception of themselves as change agents showed that overall, regardless of their position in the hierarchical organizational chart, these communicators participated in the change process of their organizations. Those communicators who were positioned higher in the organizational chart or who had a "dotted-line relationship with the organization's president reported more opportunities to be a change generator, but also served the organization as change implementer and change adopter.

The majority of the public relations officers who did not have a direct relationship with the organization president indicated fewer opportunities to identify change and more opportunities to serve as a change implementer or change adopter.

An ingenious small group of middle-level communicators indicated that aside from having contact with the organization's president, being on the alert to trends and environmental factors allowed them to serve as change generators.

Change agents play a number of roles in the process of change - from catalyst to supporter. Often organizations look outside their structure for assistance in identifying needed changes and innovations when the experts are right inside the organizational gates.

The results of the study discussed above indicated that change agents are often buried in hierarchical structure. To judge from the findings of this study, business communicators who serve as vital members of the president's advisory cabinet have a greater impact as change agents and in the progress of the organization. As change agents, they perform active communication activities that contribute to managing change within the institutions.

Change is inevitable for large and small organizations in all sectors of society - from community relationships to the horizons of new technologies. Communicators motivate and reinforce positive behaviors as well as change behaviors to improve the organization and its environment. Effective communication is a key to achieving organizational change and assisting its members in accepting new directions. Being alert to potential change in your organization will enable you to become one of your organization's secret agents of change.

Food for Thought

Do you assist in generating or identifying institutional change?

Yes No

(If yes, you are already a change generator.)

Do you assist in implementing change by developing proposals or programs to support the change:

Yes No

Do you assist in implementing organizational change by serving as a conduit communicating the message of the change?

Yes No

(If yes to these two questions, you are part of the change implementer group.)

Do you assist in organizational change by adopting the change readily in your department/office?

Yes No

(If yes, you are already a change adopter.)

Tamara Gillis, ABC, Ed.D., is assistant director of communications and director of student publications at Elizabethtown College, Pa. She will facilitate a round-table at IABC's international conference.