Organizations need to constantly adapt to meet the demands of continuously changing business environments. Communication teams are doing their part by driving employee support of change initiatives and keeping morale high. The most common tactics we’ve heard involve building the visibility and credibility of leaders.

We’re learning that companies can’t drive agility with inspiring words from the top. Instead they need to build an environment that encourages action from the bottom up. That’s why the best communicators are knocking down barriers to communication and encouraging employees to embrace and share new ways of thinking and working.

Admittedly, Communications cannot build a change-ready organization on its own. It can, however, play a significant role by focusing on three key drivers of employee agility.

1. Build connection
   Agile employees need information that empowers them to make the right decisions, on their terms. We’ve found that the type of information matters. Typically, information shared with employees is event-centric: “We have a new CEO. Here’s what this means for you.” However, the best communicators are providing information that builds an understanding of the company as a whole—things like how it operates and what constraints and risks it faces.
2. Encourage agility
   As you might suspect, some people are just naturally more agile than others. In fact, our survey tells us that 40% of people are naturally agile, but only continue to be agile at work. What makes that percentage of naturally agile people ALSO agile on the job? They are encouraged to be agile by leaders and managers. While most leaders agree that they want their employees to be agile, we’re finding that employees receive signals from leadership that stifle, rather than encourage, agility.  These signals could be verbal, non-verbal, or processes/rules established by company leadership. To overcome this challenge, we’re looking for examples of leadership “interventions” that help build senior-level awareness of these signals.
3. Enable peer sharing
   Social norms are powerful. Humans typically do what they see people around them doing. The same is true in agile organizations. We’ve found that peer support and peer sharing of knowledge, experiences, and ideas are absolutely necessary to build an environment of agility, especially to encourage those who are not naturally agile to embrace the idea.

How is your Comms team building connections across the company, encouraging agile behaviors, and enabling peer sharing? If you think you’re doing something cool and different, we’d love to speak with you.

See how our view on agility has evolved over the past few months, and join us and your peers at one of our annual executive retreats.

CEC Related Resources:

• Building a Change-Ready Organization
• Employee-Refined Strategic Debate (Infosys)
• The Role of Managers in Corporate Culture (L’Oreal)

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• Spot the Symptoms of Change Fatigue
• Failure IS An Option. In Fact, It Should Be Mandatory!
• Communications & HR—Friends, Foes, or Frenemies?
• Why Your Change Communication Isn’t Working