Every Transformation Exercise is essentially a Battle of Narratives

If there are no opponents to the proposed plan, you are not taking up truly a transformation exercise. In every transformation exercise, you would have three sets of communities, those who care for it (YES), those who oppose (NO), and the third community – the fence-sitters (FS). And it is the third community that would eventually decide the extent to which the transformation exercise would deliver results or the exercise is abandoned halfway through the journey. And quite understandably, it is a continuous battle between the YES and NO communities till the majority of FS community declares its vote. 

Experience tells us that the community that dominates the Narrative around the transformation finally wins over the FS community. There are several cases of failed transformation exercises, where NO narrative gained strength over time, while YES team was busy executing the change and gaining pieces of evidence for showing the outcomes, ignoring the weakening of their voice in the minds of FS. 

By the time YES tries to rebound and regain control of the narrative, the FS has made up its mind and enormous effort is required to bring back the positivity around the transformation exercise, through clarifications, explanations and reiterations, but with limited success. 

There are few frequently observed communications tactics that NO community employs, taking advantage of the narrative gaps left exposed by the YES community. 

NO community would:

1.   Raise unrealistic expectations from transformation exercise with misleading potential benchmarks and timelines- YES needs to early on define the expected outcomes from the transformation exercise and calibrate measures of success. Everyone upfront needs to know what a good and excellent success would look like? Otherwise, there is no achievement good enough, as NO community would continually shift the goal post reinterpreting the promises made to suit its narrative.

 

2.   Rake historical association with past failed attempts and draw out parallels with the proposed transformation exercise- YES may reiterate change in context, acknowledge lessons learnt, and how is the present implementation approach going to be different. But equally important is for YES to make conscious but loose association with successful transformation exercises taken-up in the past. In any case, making any strong association with the past transformation exercise, positive or negative, would deviate the conversation and needs to be guarded against. 

3.   Question the priority and sustained commitment towards transformation midcourse- In a changed scenario, is this really important to carry on with the transformation exercise or put it on hold in light of other priorities competing for time, resources and attention, asserts NO community from time to time. It is expected that the operating context and organization may undergo changes while the transformation exercise is still in progress. YES have to not only validate and adjust the program but also reiterate to the FS community the need and relevance of continuing with transformation exercise in the changed scenario, with or without modifications. Just because the change in the context doesn’t impact the transformation program is not enough reason to stay quiet- acknowledge the change and share your impact assessment on the transformation program. 

4.   Use oblique references like heard in the corridor, jokes and stories going around, to convey growing negative perception and disillusionment about the transformation exercise: YES needs to carefully select and expand its set of communicators across segments, that are credible and ready to be identified with the program. Further, it has to use appropriate interaction platforms to refer to stories doing round and bring out the fallacy in the same while acknowledging that any feedback is good feedback. There is no need to explain and debug every veiled reference made to the program, but doing selectively for a few, at the right platform, by a right spokesperson, would do the trick.  

5.   Raise the importance of existing culture and the relevance of prevailing practices as differentiators and worthy of preservation: YES community has to preempt this strategy by articulating how the transformation program is in sync with Values and is essential to the core purpose of the organization. The best way to dent established practices is by leadership conduct and not through verbal convincing! YES communication strategy needs to keep reinforcing what is not changing, as much as the changes the exercise seeks to achieve.  

6.   Reach out to the most- underserved to fill the vacuum and seed skepticism: NO community will quickly sympathize with any stakeholder segment that has not been regularly and adequately communicated with during the whole exercise. They would urge these segments to be vigilant of the precedence setting consequences or unintended collateral impact that may come out of this exercise. YES communication strategy must ensure sufficient and frequent reassuring and intent messages for all stakeholders while creating targeted communications for those directly impacted. 

The above tactics are not the only ones NO would deploy and nor are the suggested tactics by YES the most appropriate one for all contexts. The key is for YES community to be conscious of the importance of winning the battle of narratives and make sure that they control the narrative game by being proactive and preemptive in their communication strategies while being honest and fair to the cause of transformation all along.