It's not you, it's me...

Oh the trials of incompatible communication styles. The weeping and wailing, the gnashing of teeth.I've had a few managers talk to me in recent days about frustrations they are having in introducing new ideas and programs in their businesses. When questioned further as to what is going on, they are using very collaborative attempts to include team members in discussions about preferred futures.Their attempts at inclusive conversations are being met with scorn and overt attempts to undermine them. The prevailing attitude is "if you are asking me, you must not understand what you are doing, and not worthy of your title".These conversations have taken me back to the final chapters of my doctoral thesis. My research looked at how different communication models impacted on how employees felt and thought about change.  One of the findings was it didn't matter what communication model you used, if there was not a fit between the employees' communicative expectations and the communicators competences, effective change communication was unlikely.So if your employees are expecting a manager to tell them what to do, and be autocratic, and you come in with an inclusive and dialogue driven approach to change, you can communicate all you like, but it won't be effective.That's not to say that you can't build the competencies of the employees to include the ability to have constructive conversations, but it doesn't happen by osmosis. Well not in a hurry.And of course the reverse is true, if you come into an organisation that possesses strong dialogic competencies, and you take a monologic approach to your change communication (top down, information focused), you will be just as ineffective.Ultimately the responsibility lies with you, if you are the one wanting to initiate the change. It's not them, it's you.I guess cultural anthropologists would argue that it dates back to primal tribalism - the need to identify if the newcomer is ‘one of us' or a threat. If you are not communicating the way the tribe does, you are a threat.  But would the champions of diversity argue? How do we foster the requisite respect for diversity in thought, communication style and behaviour that is said the be required for continuous change?As change agents we are used to the importance of perceived compatibility in the change efforts - "the new system is just like the one you are using, but with x/y/z added". But are we putting as much attention on the importance of compatible communication efforts with the very people we are wishing to introduce the change to. Just a thought...Note: for an overview of the theoretical concepts of the research see "Developing communicative competencies for a learning organization", published in the Journal of Management Development (2006)