Good morning from a sunny and warm(er) Vancouver. The sky is that blue that inspires poets and childrens' book illustrators this morning.

I've been sitting on a number of airplanes in the past week or so and have a rare (it seems) moment in my office at home before heading to Vancouver airport again this afternoon. On these airplane trips I've been reading some new studies and as last week, one in particular has caught my attention. (www.psychomterics.com)

This part of the study asked "how could today's leaders manage change in their organizatons more effectively?"  How would you respond? 80% of the respondents said communication was key. Now, in my experience, that is not new information at all. In fact, I imagine that virtually every employee engagement survey would say that communicaitons need to improve. The problem is of course, what do we mean by communication?

The study begins to answer that important question. Nearly 90% of the respondents said that leaders need to "clearly communicate how the organization plans to manage change", just over 85% said they needed to know how the change will impact jobs, and just under 85% wanted a clear rationale for the changes.

So what might that look like in your organization or team? If there is a change coming down the pipe, your team needs to know what the plan is for managing the change and the transition. For example, what are the key dates? Who is the boss? Who are on the transition team? What decisions are within our control, what are being made for us? If I have a question, to whom do I turn? How will we manage learning, ie. if I have a suggestion, what's the route to get it implemented? What is the communication plan? etc. Then being able, as quickly as possible describe how jobs will be impacted. My own experience is that people are far more likely to support the organization if they know up front what the impact is on them, even if it means they're out of job, at least they know, and then can deal with it in their own way. Absolutely the wrong thing is to say, there will be no job loss because we don’t want people to worry. And then, we need to be very clear about how this change will fit within our vision, mission and values,  how will this make a postive difference for our members/customers, our communities, our employees? I'll buy in to a change if I see it directly benefits me, the organization and our customers.

I hope the sun is out wherever you are, and that you and your team are able to have honest and good conversations about change.