What Is the Team Asking That the Announcement Didn't Answer?
You announced the new process. You explained the rationale. You outlined the timeline. You sent the FAQ.
Your team still seems uncertain.
They aren't a difficult team and they were paying attention, but you answered the questions you thought were important, not the ones that are actually on their minds.
There are three questions your team needs answered.
"Does this affect me specifically?"
Most organizational announcements are written broadly. New software rollout. Policy change. Department restructure. All-hands language that applies to everyone.
But your team members aren't thinking broadly. They're thinking about their to-do list, their outcomes, their Tuesday afternoon workflow.
When you say "leadership is implementing workflow optimizations" they may hear "Some people are going to change some things, maybe we will too, maybe this is someone else's problem."
High level announcements that aren't tailored to the team can cause misplaced alarm or disjointed expectations. You don't want people assuming they are affected if they won't be nor that they are exempt if they're not.
Say who this applies to. Say what doesn't change. Say when people will know if it affects them.
"What are you expecting me to do, exactly?"
"We're moving to a customer-first approach" is not an instruction. It's a board meeting sound bite. Don't leave your team guessing what is actually involved in giving that concept tangible form.
Do they route requests differently? Escalate faster? Change how they respond to complaints? Stop doing something they're currently doing?
If you want different behavior, say what the different behavior is. If you want them to keep doing what they're doing, say that too.
"When will I know what I don't know yet?"
When a change is announced often details are still being finalized or there is a foreseeable phase where plans could change.
That's fine. What's not fine is presenting things as if everything is locked in if it isn't.
If you don't have a complete answer yet, say when you will. If the timeline is still being finalized, say when it will be confirmed. If certain decisions are dependent on other factors, name those dependencies.
If you aren't transparent about what's in flux and sound certain right out of the gate, corrections later run the risk of undermining your credibility.
People can handle uncertainty. They can't handle uncertainty about uncertainty.
No news is not perceived as good news.
I'm going to say it again.
No news is NOT perceived as good news!
When you finish your announcement and no one asks questions, that doesn't mean everything is clear. It often means people don't know what to ask yet.
Or they're still processing. Or they're waiting to see what their manager says. Or they assume the questions they have are stupid.
The real questions surface later. In sidebar conversations. In Slack channels. In meetings two weeks later when someone says "I thought we decided..." and you realize they heard something completely different.
You can prevent this by answering the questions that are actually running underneath the surface.
Does this affect me? What am I supposed to do? When will I know more?
References & Related Reading:
1) Morrison and Milliken, "Organizational Silence" (Academy of Management Review, 2000): https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amr.2000.3707697
2) Fogg Behavior Model (B=MAP), BJ Fogg, Stanford: https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/articles/fogg-behavior-model
Related Blog Posts:
Why do clear announcements still confuse people?
