Winning people's hearts and minds

Abstract

During organisational change the foremost task of communication is to guide all people involved through the different stages of the process. Therefore, it must go beyond the plain provision of information and messaging, in order to ensure understanding and create commitment. But this is where most change communication fails, and there are many reasons for this: time constraints, limited resources, lack of management involvement, absence of stimuli for interaction and inapt use of media - to name a few. One effective approach to successful change communication is to create dialogue and engagement within and across organisational levels and borders. In doing so - and with the support of a result-oriented measurement process - it becomes a powerful vehicle for building trust, which is the most important resource for ensuring change takes place and is long-lasting. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.