11.4 Appealing to Hearts and Minds

Successful communication and engagement approaches appeal to people's hearts as well as minds. This means not only using logical reasoning to explain the drivers and approach to change, but also appealing to their emotions.

CM3 names seven ways to help make this emotional connection:

1. Symbolic actions and symbolism

Actions speak louder than words. The actions and behaviours of those leading change have a bigger impact on people's level of engagement than any formal presentation. All involved in leading and managing change are key influencers, and they need to be consistent in demonstrating their commitment through their actions and become role models for others.

CM3 highlights one symbolic act specifically: how responses to people's feedback are managed. This symbolises the extent to which individual contributions are valued, and it directly affects engagement levels. The impact of this type of activity should not be underestimated, as it provides a powerful context for how people interpret things. People will be quick to notice any inconsistencies, and this will undermine other communication efforts.

The practical implication is that responding visibly to feedback — including saying which suggestions were not adopted and why — is not administrative courtesy. It is one of the strongest symbolic signals available.

Change teams need to consider how to coach and support leaders and managers to enable them to communicate and engage people effectively.

2. Use of metaphors

Metaphors encourage visual thinking and can be a very powerful way of framing a situation in terms people can more easily understand and connect with emotionally. People are unlikely to understand or remember all the facts and figures about why change is needed, but they will remember if it is explained in simple terms using imagery they can connect with. This makes messages more memorable and likely to be repeated.

The caution: metaphors need to be chosen wisely. If they do not resonate with people or are not easily understood across the audience, they can cause confusion and have a negative impact.

Military and sporting metaphors are the classic failure — they exclude parts of the audience and can trivialise real consequences. Testing a metaphor with a small cross-section before using it widely takes an hour and prevents a lasting problem.

3. Use of narrative and story

Narrative is defined as "a spoken or written account of connected events; a story" — CM3 uses narrative and story interchangeably.

Two things happen when people hear stories: they are imagining what is happening within the story and analysing the content for information. This engages people at both the rational and emotional levels.

CM3's example is charities, which do not simply present facts and figures; alongside the data they typically use a story of an individual, a child or a family to create an emotional connection. This is because decisions are based largely on emotional reactions, not just rational reasoning. The story helps connect the rational data to emotions, making communication more compelling and memorable.

Stories are helpful in preparing people for change: they provide a way to describe the future and suggest a route to get there without losing focus by giving too much detail. They help prepare people for change and reinforce it.

4. Ensure communication is timely and relevant

The change curve is a useful way of describing the change journey, and communication and engagement efforts need to be appropriate for where people are along the change curve.

The key warning: in their enthusiasm to progress with plans, leaders and managers often try to 'sell' the ideas of change too soon, causing even more resistance and anxiety. Instead they need to be sensitive to where people are on this journey, taking time to listen to their concerns and questions.

CM3 describes the progression: at the early stages, people are gaining awareness and assessing how the change and proposed actions fit with how things are for them now. They then move on to evaluate how feasible they think the changes are. Only then are they likely to become more engaged in the change.

This is the commitment escalator again, and it identifies the most common communication failure in change: pitching a persuasive benefits message at people who are still processing the announcement.

5. Consider the emotional impact of change

It is important to consider the emotional impact that communication messages may have. CM3's example: a change initiative announced using words like 'efficiency drive' or 'rationalization', in a way that implies jobs could be at risk. Even though the communication does not say jobs may be at risk, people are likely to make their own interpretations of what this means.

Trust is of paramount importance: where leaders are less than transparent about the reasons for change, this will be noticed, and people may well lose trust in their leaders.

This is the decoding problem in its most consequential form. Euphemism does not reduce anxiety; it produces worse interpretations than the truth would, and costs trust as well.

6. Allow plenty of time

The process of communicating change cannot be rushed. People are not robots that can be programmed to digest information and then be immediately ready for change. The interactions and dialogues to build shared understanding and make sense of change require time and patience.

Getting people's commitment does not happen in one step or in one meeting. Be prepared to repeat information and make it available in multiple formats to give people the chance to digest and process it in a way that suits them — which connects to the range of learning and language style preferences.

7. Make communication simple and attractive

Simplify messages as much as possible. With written communication, ensure it is easy to navigate and make it attractive and appealing through effective use of visuals and colour. Also consider different accessibility needs: some people may not have easy access to technology and therefore require printed formats.

In addition to making information easily available, plan for how people can contribute ideas and provide feedback. The effort required to perform additional actions like giving feedback can put people off doing it — so considering how they can do this easily will help increase response rates.

That last point is practical and often ignored. A feedback route that requires logging into a system, finding a form and writing prose will collect very little. Reducing the effort is usually a bigger lever on response rate than encouraging people to respond.