#ChangeChat with Caroline Kealey on Change Communication
This week’s #ChangeChat on change communication is with award winning Caroline Kealey.Caroline is the director of Ingenium Communications a boutique consultancy that specializes in strategic communications, change management, and training. She is the force behind the Results Map ™ and the new Institute for Strategic Communications & Change, formed in partnership with the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Ottawa. You can find her on twitter at @carolinekealey. https://audio.simplecast.com/54370.mp3
Highlights of the #changechat
Caroline is a long term member of IABC (about 20 years)She got into communications out of university – worked in a few roles (government communication, and telecommunications)Became an accidental entrepreneur as a result of a lay off on September 11, 2001.For more on that experience read her post on “What I have learnt in 15 years”Caroline is a winner of the Gold Quill Excellence award within IABC and the winner of the Best of the Best as a result of a change project with University of Ottawa’s facility team. Key to the win was the ability to tell the story with compelling metrics. The focus was to increase value to university and client satisfaction. It was a strong participatory change communication and engagement campaign that tapped into purpose and meaning. The team increased its productivity to the tune of 2.3 M as a result of the change efforts.
What differentiates adequate change communication to high impact change communication?
The big picture answer is change communication really has to do beyond information dissemination and getting at the creation of shared meaning and something that is experiential. You need to find a way to engage at the heart level or the emotive plain. That process is much more iterative, much more conversational and runs up against the command and control.For example – with the current client, set up conversation opportunities eg “coffee with Claudio”, on a regular basis the leader will be available for bouncing ideas, connecting the dots and synthesize what this might mean for me.It’s co-creative and can’t be done quickly or by email.One of the indicators of success was that the staff ended up making their own videos – they cared that much about it.
What does the Results Map™ bring to communication and change?
Many of our clients are not served to maximum effect by creating a dependency on a consulting firms. The Results Map provides the client with the opportunity to own the “process” so that they can gain similar insights to those that we provide. It’s a step by step process for strategic communication planning.Over the years we have adapted it that are more specific to a change context.When you give people a tool to people to think through their challenge (eg a template, or a worksheet), it liberates their think to think of high quality content because you are not distracted by what should this look like.
Further reading
Caroline’s best practice White Paper on Change CommunicationThe case study on the Best of the Best AwardAnd in recognition of the interconnectedness of #changechat hosts – here’s how Caroline adapted some of the concepts that Luc Galoppin spoke of in her work.