The Language of Change (part 4)

Post 3 of 4 in a series of articles on the subject of leading large-scale change in organisations (part 4).

The first post looked at the power and dangers of metaphors in leading change and suggested replacing the “burning platform” with the idea of a “High Noon moment”.  The second post discussed the dangers of underestimating how long it takes people to change and what you can do about it.  This post – which is appearing in four parts (this is the fourth) – continues examining how leaders can frame their change language to best effect.

In The Language of Change part 1 we looked at the confirmation bias, critiqued the usual approach to change communication and introduced a new three-step process:

1. Get your audience’s urgent attention
2. Stimulate desire for a new future
3. Then and only then… appeal to the intellect

In The Language of Change part 2, I offered practical tips on how to get your change audience’s urgent attention.  In part 3, I offered advice on how to stimulate desire for the new future (the change idea).  In this final part 4, I suggest ways of appealing to the intellect to make sure second thoughts don’t creep in and sabotage the will to change.  Again, this will be in bullet-point form.