Especially when leading remote and hybrid staff.
Do you know who said, “Change is the only constant?” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived back in 535-475 BCE. Imagine if he were around to see how change is impacting us today!
Dealing with change is nothing new for organizations of all kinds. But arguably, rapid advances in technology, especially AI, have accelerated the pace of change.
That creates both challenges and opportunities for leaders, including healthcare leaders. Those challenges are compounded when staff are working remotely on a part-time or full-time basis.
It’s hard enough to keep internal staff informed and confident in leadership’s decisions and direction. It’s doubly—or more—difficult when they’re working offsite.
It Has to Happen by Design
Casual connections have served leaders well for decades in face-to-face work settings, although I’d argue that even in those settings casual connections aren’t enough to maintain engagement and trust.
In remote settings, though, casual connections don’t happen as organically. When your team is scattered across the country, you can’t have a casual hallway conversation about normal daily operations let alone change. You can’t read the room. You can’t see who’s confused or worried.
You have to be intentional. You have to create opportunities for dialogue. You have to maintain presence and proximity even when people aren’t in the same room.
And most leaders aren’t doing that.
So how do you maintain proximity and presence when your team is remote? And how do you do that without it looking like you’re lurking or tracking their movements all the time?
Considerations in Communicating Change to All Audiences
Communication during change has to be by design, not by accident. You can’t just assume people will figure it out. You can’t hope that things will go smoothly. You can’t leave it to chance.
You have to orchestrate it by design.
Here are some important things to think about as you design your communication strategy around any change initiatives you may be dealing with:
- Who needs to know about this change? (Patients. Staff. Community. Board. Other providers.)
- What do they need to know? (What’s happening. Why it’s happening. How it affects them. What they need to do.)
- When do they need to know? (Early. Before they find out another way. With enough advance notice to adjust.)
- How will we tell them? (Email? In-person meetings? Virtual meetings? Letters? Phone calls? In-person, 1:1 conversations?)
- How will we answer their questions? (Who’s available for conversations? What’s the escalation process if they have concerns?)
- What will we do if things go wrong? (How will we handle frustrated patients or staff? What’s our service recovery plan?)
- Design it. Don’t hope it happens.
This is new terrain that we’re all navigating. We don’t have all the answers. But we’re both interested and open to input from those in the trenches who can share the steps they’re taking and the best practices they’re discovering for how to communicate with remote audiences during times of change.
Heraclitus recognized centuries ago that “Change is the only constant.” It’s impossible to disagree with that assessment! The question, though, is: “What are you doing to keep those lines of communication open with and between all members of your staff, wherever they may be located?
Tags: ChangeManagement, Communication, HybridWork, Leadership, RemoteWork
