by Nicky Flook

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Nicky Flook has spent more than 10 years in internal communication, managing communications for a number of high-profile organisations in both public and private sector before setting up Mandarin Kite in 2003 where she works with clients such as B&Q, Fat Face and John Lewis.

 

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It feels great to win awards. And winning an award for a change campaign feels particularly great, because you can’t bluff it. The change either worked or it didn’t – and, if it worked, that means you’ve overcome the odds and made a massive difference to your business. In terms of job satisfaction, that’s off the Richter scale. So how do you make it happen?

 

Well, the first piece of bad news is that, no matter what people might say, or how many theories you might read, there is no simple, ten-step formula for successful change campaigns. You have to find your own way, although there are some essential guiding principles, which you’ll find in this chapter.

 

The second piece of bad news is that you may have to wait a while before you get the opportunity. Businesses go through change all the time, but it’s quite rare to have change that is so fundamental, so urgent, or on such a scale that it genuinely needs a dedicated campaign to communicate it.

 

When it does happen, it’s even rarer to find a campaign that’s executed with real vision and commitment – and that’s the good news. If your business has a genuine need for change, and if you have the vision, energy, passion, clout and bloody-mindedness to go for it, then you’ll find yourself in a very small and select group of competitors when the time comes for handing out the gongs.

 

So it’s up to you. If you want that moment of shaking hands with Jonathan Ross on the stage of a fancy hotel and basking in the money-can’t-buy-this feeling of a job well done, then it’s yours for the taking. As long as you’re prepared to stick your neck out, give up every waking moment and sell your mortal soul rather than settle for anything less than ‘great’.

 

Still interested? Then let’s start by considering the fundamental elements involved in a successful campaign:-

 

• Strong need

   

• Clear outcome

   

• Insightful research

   

• Great idea

   

• Brilliant execution

   

• Army of supporters

   

• Sustained delivery

   

• Robust measurement

   

Did you find yourself flicking down that list, mentally ticking them off and thinking ‘yep – got that covered’? Well, rewind a little.

 

This chapter isn’t about read=done; it’s about taking your time, challenging everything, then forging a bomb-proof plan. Every one of these elements is crucial to the success of your campaign and, if you slightly miss the mark on any one of them, you’ll be playing perpetual catch-up - and you may as well blow the awards entry money down at the pub instead.

 

So let’s pause and consider each of them in a little more detail.

 

 

Strong need

 

Before you do anything else, be absolutely 100% sure your business really needs a big change campaign.

 

Change campaigns are typically needed where there is a fundamental change in an organisation’s structure – a merger or repositioning – or where there has been a major and negative shift in an element of a company’s operation that could dramatically affect its ongoing success.

 

Of course, ‘need’ is a subjective word. Change in big business is often driven as much by a political agenda as by a commercial one. When someone at the top is calling for improvements, it can generate knee-jerk momentum behind the wrong idea, as people scramble to protect themselves, rather than seeing the true opportunity.

 

As a communicator, it’s your job to challenge the validity of a change campaign. Is it really necessary? Is it the right issue to focus on? What outcome will it deliver? Does it link with the overall strategy? Is it really what the people at the top want?

 

Here are a few examples of when a change campaign would be appropriate:-

 

• Staff turnover – not just a blip, but a massive wholesale increase (say, 30% year on year).

   

• Consistent negative press – where you’re clearly falling down on a particular issue (such as customer service) and where that issue requires a large percentage of the workforce to resolve it.

   

• Complaints – again, not just the odd percentage increase, but a significant shift (the exponential increase in customers who choose not to use your company can damage your reputation and bottom line very fast).

   

• Cost of operating – whether it’s shrinkage or margin, or another cost that can be influenced by most of your workforce, this is one that can truly benefit from a change in priority and attitude.

   

• Share price – for public companies, a big drop in share price in a short amount of time is often the result of an issue coming to light, rather than a notion that the business is not doing well.

   

There are several reasons why it’s important to be ruthless in deciding where change is really necessary. One of the biggest is ‘campaign fatigue’. Too many campaigns lead to a cynical audience that is more resistant to change, making it harder to get your real priorities established.

 

You also need to be careful of your own success. A large, well-executed change campaign can inspire many people to produce their own campaigns, supporting smaller projects and departmental priorities. If this isn’t controlled carefully and the sheer number strongly challenged, you’ll end up with employees who are confused by too many messages and a blurring of priorities – and you’ll find that, next time you try to launch a business-critical change campaign, it will have much less impact, however well executed.

 

 

The acid test: are the resources there?

 

If you’re being asked to carry out a change campaign and you want to know whether it’s really necessary, there’s one test that rarely fails. Do a quick summary of the time and resources that you’d have to devote to doing the job properly (including agency input, internal resources and what you’d have to stop doing in order to take it on) and give it to your boss. If there’s no willingness to make the time and resources available, you should question how important the change really is.

 

 

 

Clear outcome

 

The clearer the objective, the easier it is to know when you have an idea that will work – and the more chance you’ll have of explaining it to your audience.

 

If you are being asked to create a campaign that will affect 15 different things, then my recommendation is to shut this book, pack your bag and go travelling, because you certainly won’t make any difference to your business in the next six months.

 

Facetiousness aside, if you can distil the outcome down to one simple sentence, you’ll have the best possible chance of achieving it.

 

Film-makers call it ‘the big idea’. Your pitch needs to take the listener right into the middle of the campaign and paint a picture of what the world will look like after it. Bring it to life for them. Deal in emotion and action and, above all, make it concise. The simpler the premise, the easier it is to explain and deliver.

 

Build ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ outcomes, so that it challenges you, the leaders driving the change, and gives the audience a clear understanding of their role.

 

 

fig Flook 1 - soft and hard.jpg

 

 

These soft and hard messages both need to be spelt out clearly - and you need a way of measuring outcomes that links as closely as possible to the bottom line.

 

(If you’re impatient to know more about measurement, fast-forward to the end of the chapter; otherwise, keep reading).

 

 

Insightful research

 

Having an idea is easy. Having an idea that’s relevant to the need, makes sense to the audience, and can be applied clearly and meaningfully to every part of the campaign is much harder. When you’ve got an idea that will do all those things without being stretched or squeezed, you’ve got a great idea.

 

So, where do you find one of those?

 

The starting point for having a truly great idea is to know your stuff. Before you sit down and start brainstorming, you should be 100% clear about what you need to do, why you’re doing it, who you need to talk to and what you want the outcome to be.

 

In other words, you need to do some legwork – and the following diagram is a good place to start:

 

 

fig. Flook2 - mind map

 

 

Knowing your stuff does not mean that you have to be the ultimate authority on every aspect of what you’re trying to affect. In fact, drowning in detail can often make it harder for you. Your job is to communicate, which means you have to understand the audience, identify the key messages and find a compelling way to explain them. You also need to be able to hold your ground in a debate and recognise the difference between a valid challenge and a distraction. But you don’t need to get sucked into the detail – that’s somebody else’s job.

 

 

Great idea

 

Well, here we are. You have the need, the knowledge and the desire; all you need now is the solution… so strap yourself in and hold tight because, if you can get yourself through this section without losing your single-minded desire to produce ‘the best damn change campaign this business has ever seen’, then you will be well and truly on the road to success.

 

 

Smile, it’s play time*.

 

 

*For the purposes of this chapter, we are going to assume that your change does not involve large numbers of redundancies and that your audience, like most in the world, loves having fun. If, however, your change does involve significant job losses, you should be looking at a motivational campaign that builds confidence again, with a lighter note to it, but not with ‘laugh out loud’ fun.

 

 

My formula for coming up with great ideas is like mincing meat. That may sound unsophisticated (and borderline inappropriate for a vegetarian), but it works for me. You take your various meats and herbs - in this case your need, outcome and knowledge - and put them in the mincer (mine is stainless steel and looks vaguely like the monster version in Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ video). Then you just turn the handle and, hey presto, out pop loads of ideas.

 

 

fig. Flook 3 - mincer

 

 

Of course, the trick is what happens inside the mincer: how it actually minces, or in other words, how you take your need, outcome, and insightful knowledge, and create ideas. That’s what I’m going to try articulating here.

 

The first thing to talk about is environment. There are some who say that innovation needs clear parameters, with minutes, representation from every department, a proper business environment, a deadline and no alcohol. And it’s a safe bet you won’t see many of them on the awards stage.

 

One of the hardest things in business is to find ways of being innovative. Your desk, computer, in-tray, emails, meetings and deadlines are all there to stop you thinking freely. What you really need is to grab your crayons and go somewhere your mind can regress to being eight years old without fear of judgement.

 

That doesn’t mean it’s okay to sneak off to a hotel lounge bar and spend the afternoon drinking cocktails and gossiping on the pretext that you’re ‘brainstorming’. No, get out of the office and find some space where you can think freely – but make doubly sure that you use the time well. Otherwise, you may not have the luxury again.

 

The next thing you need is the right mindset. This is why it’s so important to get out of the office. You need to disengage your logical left brain and start using your right brain. Right brains are for feeling, images, philosophy, fantasy, risk-taking, imagination: all the things you need if you want to come up with an award-winning idea.

 

You also need to have the right people with you. These are likely to be the people you identified as the core team for delivering this campaign. If not, just be sure to have a relatively nutty creative person, a positive thinker, a leader, and a doer. And make sure these people all feel comfortable enough to express themselves – use alcohol if necessary! And expect the process to be more than one session.

 

Right: you’ve got the right people in the right place. How do you get started? Although I don’t advocate a rigid structure, I would say that there are two musts at the start of any brainstorm:

 

1. Take the time to refresh yourself of the knowledge you’ve gained

    

2. Step into the mind of your audience

    

If you’re having trouble with point two, try using that stage and screen favourite: method acting. Imagine yourself as that person, what you do, how you feel, who you hang out with and so on. Create yourself a character who represents the hundreds or thousands of people your change campaign is targeting (and if you find it hard to do this, then you need to do more research: spend some time getting to know your audience – if you don’t, you’ll fail).

 

The next thing to do is put all the elements in the mincer and turn the handle.

 

Laugh, joke, doodle, play, find the ‘anti’ campaign, talk about the latest big things in your character’s world, the outside influences, and the team dynamics. Don’t inform and educate; do excite and entertain. It’s your job to ensure that the fun you create for your audience makes them do things that help establish the change you want.

 

Great ideas come from inspired moments. If your idea makes you excited, it might just make your audience excited. If you find yourself thinking ‘that’ll do’, then it’s not good enough.

 

It’s also got to be an idea that’s capable of feeling personal. You may be talking to thousands of people, but every one of them should feel you’re speaking to them.

 

 

 

A word of warning

 

You may have had a ‘Eureka’ moment – but you need to be absolutely sure you were in the mindset of your character/audience when you came up with it. Challenge it through their eyes: is it relevant; is it the right language and ethic? You don’t want to end up with one of those tumbleweed moments, where you totally misread your audience’s sensibilities and humour (think Jim Davidson in a room with the annual Women’s Lib Convention).

 

 

Brilliant execution

 

Not to be confused with delivery, execution is about taking the idea and bringing it to life: giving it structure, rules and aims; linking it with existing communication and motivation tools; promoting it, protecting it, and getting the green light. Delivery is what happens after you’ve done all that.

 

Once you have the idea, it’s worth using the people who have a wide knowledge of the company to help you with the structure of the campaign. You might have some guiding principles and thoughts about how it could run, but be prepared to listen at this point, because you are unlikely to be the person with the most detailed knowledge of the many daily and periodic activities directed at your audience.

 

If you can link the campaign into well-established competitions, bonus schemes and communication channels, this will help to make the change feel part of everyday life. Don’t force it, and don’t spread it too thinly but, if there is a clear opportunity to link with an existing part of the business, then do it.

 

With any change, people go through a transition in the way they perceive it, from a negative to a positive through a number of typical steps. You’ll find lots of different variations of this curve on the internet, but this is one we’ve developed at Mandarin Kite to help our clients understand the emotional journey people go through during change.

 

 

fig. Flook 4 - curve

 

Caption: This model highlights how an effective change campaign can be much more effective than standard communication, in terms of both speeding up the process of change and improving performance coming out of it.

 

 

The process of change can be tedious and often painful, especially if a large number of people get stuck in the ‘anger’ part of the curve. So it’s a safe bet that, if you could find some science-fiction way of getting straight through it - time travel or a light-speed vehicle big enough to fit your entire workforce - you’d happily write a very large cheque to do it.

 

Well, a great campaign can do exactly the same thing: getting people through the curve as quickly as possible - putting you where you want to be and saving you time, money and pain in the process.

 

An interesting point to make here is that a great campaign will usually cost exactly the same as a mediocre one – and it will generate much better results. In other words, if you allow your campaign to be mediocre (whether it’s your decision or not), then it won’t give your employers and shareholders the best return on their investment.

 

So the final point is that you need to be passionate about your idea – and you need to be prepared to fight for it. When you start to share it with people, you’ll find that you’re offered a lot of advice and opinions. It can be tempting to take some or all of these on board: after all, the odd change here or there won’t make much difference and it’ll keep them sweet, won’t it?

 

Possibly – but it’s also a sure way to dilute the strength and simplicity of your initial idea (which, in turn, is a sure way to reduce the effectiveness of the campaign and the speed of return). Be firm: take suggestions on board but make no promises. Discuss the suggestions with your trusted team and, if they don’t add anything, be ruthless about excluding them. Remember: your job is to communicate. Don’t let anything get in the way of that.

 

 

Be honest with yourself

 

It’s essential to back your idea, but you also need to listen to feedback and be honest in assessing it. If the idea isn’t translating as well as you’d hoped, or if people whose opinion you respect react badly (worse than the knee-jerk negativity you’d expect for any new idea), then stop immediately. Get your core team back together and assess the validity of the feedback. Don’t be scared to scrap the idea and go with another – you’ve still got time, because you shouldn’t yet be committed to anything. But be sure to re-assess who should be involved at the creative stage, so that you can be certain your second idea will work: your credibility won’t survive two false starts.

 

Once again, simple is best. If you can explain to someone in a minute what the campaign is, and how to get involved, then you’re onto a winner.

 

 

 

Army of supporters

 

Supporters are like a fan base. They buff up your confidence when ‘the bad people’ are picking away at your great idea. They spread the word about the campaign. They unknowingly lobby the people on the fence - and knowingly challenge people who are being obstructive. Mostly, they create that all-important ‘buzz’.

 

It’s all about momentum: you can’t do it on your own, so get people on board.

 

Brief, involve and brief more. Tell everyone as early as possible. If you have consultation routes, use them; if you have senior management meetings, get into them and bring your mentor.

 

Be prepared to share the glory: people like humility; they’re also far more likely to buy into your idea if it doesn’t look like a massive ego-trip. It’s not about you; it’s about the business.

 

If you get it right, you’ll start to see a wave of support building as you get closer to the launch date. People will be taking the idea and including it in their own briefings, plans and presentations. This is an incredibly exciting feeling – and it’s also a sign that it’s time to change your role. Your idea has taken on a life of its own, so you need to spend more time influencing and advising (making sure it’s communicated consistently) and less time doing it yourself… at least for now.

 

 

Sustained delivery

 

Delivery is all about the detail: hours of hard work behind the scenes, second-guessing everything and everyone.

 

Use your mentor to lead the way: keep them informed and get them to call in favours you don’t have; use their influence to get people behind the campaign.

 

Cascading communication can work, especially if you attend as many of the senior communication sessions as possible yourself. Offer to guest speak, and make yourself as accessible as possible to other communicators in the business – try to infect them with your own passion and belief for the campaign.

 

Share the message in as many ways as possible (within reason). Make sure you know all the communication channels that are available, hand-pick a combination of channels that work most effectively, and use them throughout the campaign. Keep the messages coming: share the stories and successes, make it personal, have heroes, and keep reminding people of the carrot and ultimate goal.

 

If there is a channel which would be ideal, but doesn’t exist yet – then launch it. This is a perfect opportunity to test out new channels and you’ll be in problem-solving mode by now, so no challenge is impossible!

 

Get out and see how the campaign is going. Chat to your audience, see where you could improve and see if there’s anything you can grab hold of to increase the buzz even more. At the very least, you’ll get great stories to take back to the Board and fodder for the publications (but you should expect much more).

 

Regularly ring round to key communicators and senior managers to see how things are going. Keep in touch with your audience directly, through consultation groups, through their managers – any way you can find, in fact. It will keep you on the front foot: helping you spot any potential issues or flaws and fix them early. If things are going exceptionally well, the conversations will help you find the answer to ‘what now?’ when the campaign finishes.

 

And make sure you keep the stories. Throughout the campaign, you should be collecting anecdotal evidence of how the change is affecting people. Build a library of stories, pictures, film, and hard measurement, and take the time to write up the case study when the campaign is over: it will be an invaluable resource for reports, presentations, articles and – let’s not forget – award entries.

 

 

Robust measurement

 

Although it’s the final element we’re discussing here, measurement is actually one of the first and most important things you need to put in place: the only way to know if your campaign has succeeded is to measure before, during and after.

 

The best advice is to see if you can use existing measurement for part, if not all, of the campaign. Make sure you have a way to capture both qualitative and quantitative results and get out there during the campaign to gather a robust library of anecdotal evidence.

 

It can be a tall order to create new and impartial ways of measuring success, especially with the one hundred and one other things on your list; chances are it’s not your area of expertise either. But don’t lose the will to live: the answer may be staring you in the face.

 

Use the same person you entrusted with the campaign integration, and enlist one person in the finance team and an expert in the area you are aiming to affect. Between them, they need to take ownership of the measures that everyone will be using and watching to understand how effective the change is. They should also be able to borrow or hack some of the existing ways the business measures, which will be much simpler, cheaper and quicker – and, ultimately, more effective than starting from scratch.

 

 

And finally…

 

So that’s it. You’ve planned the perfect campaign and executed it flawlessly. The business has embraced it, the results are great and you’ve got a bank of stories and images to illustrate it.

 

In other words: you’ve made a good start.

 

Where most change campaigns go wrong is in failing to translate short-term momentum into long-term change. What happens after the campaign should be a fundamental part of your planning - and, although you’ll feel ready for a well-deserved break at the end of the campaign, it’s your responsibility to make sure the momentum of your hard work isn’t lost.

 

If you get that bit right, the only thing you’ll have left to worry about is what you’re going to wear to the awards dinner. Good luck.

 

 

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