Finally, I find myself with a few minutes to begin my response to Dr. Larkin’s rebuttal of my original criticism of his talk at the IABC international conference. This is just the first entry; there’s more to come, although I hope it won’t be as long as this one. I welcome your comments.

In his own words, here is one of the chief arguments Dr. TJ Larkin made in his rebuttal:

“Our book is about communicating major change to employee groups who are putting up serious resistance.” In other words, various communication channels other than the immediate supervisor may be appropriate in other circumstances, but the immediate supervisor is the only source of real value when the organization is undergoing serious change.”

I recently completed a round of focus groups with both managers/supervisors and front-line employees at a company going through about as dramatic a change as possible, an acquisition by one company of another of equal size. I conducted some focus groups in the acquiring company and some in the acquired company. It is clear that, in both companies, there is a lot of confusion and a lot of resistance.

Without biasing the outcome of the question, I asked where employees want to get information about the merger. The answers were consistent and strongly felt. They want to hear from their immediate supervisors about how the changes impact them in their jobs. But, just as much, they want to hear from the top leaders of the organization. When I asked why (and I tried to look confounded when I asked, just so it didn’t seem that I was gratified by the answer), I got the following reasons, among others (and these are direct quotes):

“I want to know where they’re planning to take this company. What are the plans for the next six months?”

“When I read in the (newspaper) that the merger was a mistake, it’s important for me to hear from the leaders. I want to hear them say that they don’t care what the newspaper says, that as a result of this merger we’re going to kick butt.”

“If this merger is part of a strategy, it helps to realize there really is a strategy, that somebody is thinking about it.”

“I want our leaders to be focused on the big picture and I want to know what that big picture is. I want to hear it from them.”

“When you don’t know what the future holds, you don’t feel secure. These guys are the ones deciding what the future holds.”

“I’m busting my butt for these guys. I want to hear the vision, mission, and goals from the people at the top.”

“At a (departmental) conference, all the leaders from both companies got up and spoke. It was just what I needed at that point. Things became more clear.”

Remember, these are all front-line workers and their immediate first-line supervisors.

The problem is reconciling this very clear belief that leader communication is critical during organizational change with Dr. Larkin’s asseretion that it is not. Rather than simply reiterate my previous points, I turned to my colleague, Tudor Williams, whose expertise lies in communication measurement. Here’s what Tudor had to say:

(Dr. Larkin had) almost total dependence upon studies that are not referenced in terms of who did what and in what context. I guess they are in an appendix but I would like to see whose findings support the specific assertions he makes. I can find 256 studies from which I can extract what I want to support the proposition I am pushing. At no point does he cite any expert in our business let alone an IABC study or expert opinion. The problem with many of these studies is that they study a very small variable, test it to exhaustion and then draw hypotheses as to cause and effect. The problem with many academics is that they bounce off the trees in the forest and rarely ask what forest are they in. I find Larkin’s views are examples of academic arrogance and isolation without the professional practitioner’s skills and experience.

Larkin has a very narrow view of what can influence employee attitudes in managing change. The supervisor is but one player in the picture and supervisors play a critical role in the day-to-day, immediate job situations. The supervisor is not the critical influencer of attitudes about and understanding of the strategic issues in organizations - leaders are. It is up to the leaders to set the directions in which the company needs to go and to mould the tone and values of the corporation that will influence culture and behavior. The third factor is the satisfaction employees gain by becoming knowledgeable and keeping abreast of current information about the organization on the macro as well as the micro scale. That is the role employee communication vehicles, including the intranet, play. These vehicles are critical support mechanisms for what supervisors and leaders communicate. The Larkins continue to pursue this narrow exclusionary view of what really happens in organizations without acknowledging the importance in the communication process of my boss’s boss, my leadership team and my information sources in the context of the working relationships I have with my supervisor and my colleagues.

One issue I have with Dr. Larkin’s view is that he lumps “resistance” into a single category without identifyng what causes resistance. In fact, there can be several sources of employee resistance to change, including the following:

• Fear of the unknown
• Self-interest
• Conscientious objection or differing opinions
• Suspicion
• Conservatism

Certainly the immediate supervisor is an important player in addressing some of these…but not all of them. A well-constructed change management plan includes an assessment of why employees are resisting so appropriate communication channels can be employed to address the resistance. Without such an assessment, you could wind up focusing your efforts on the immediate supervisor when the primary source of resistance is the belief that the change is wrong for the company as a whole, something better addressed at the leadership levels.

John Kotter, who has studied change extensively and written many books about it, has stated that “Successful change is 70% leadeship and 30% management but the average company goes about it the other way and tries to drive change 70% with a managerial process. It doesn’t work very well.” Leadership can come from immediate supervisors, to be sure, but it also comes from leaders; it’s no coincidence that “leader” is part of both words. Piping a bunch of resources to immediate supervisors sounds a lot like process to me. Not every supervisor is also a leader, after all; some have been promoted simply because there is no other way to reward them for good work as a front-line employee and nothing you do will make them effective communicators.

At this point, it’s important to debunk something Dr. Larkin wrote in his rebuttal: “We think Mr. Holtz believes sources and channels are basically equal. Mr. Holtz thinks that what accounts for differences in effect is simply the quality of the execution…Mr. Holtz is likely to reply that professional communicators should do a little of everything.”

This, of course, is nonsense. Channels vary in their importance depending upon the outcome desired and the circumstances driving the communication. Communication is one organizational approach to influencing an audience. (Reward is another, for example.) Channels should be employed based on their strengths under each unique circumstance. Quality of execution is important; after all, lousy execution will produce lousy results. But I choose my channels based on the goals I’m trying to achieve. If you start with strategy, you’ll identify those issues best addressed by immediate supervisors and those best addressed by company leaders, as well as the means by which they will be woven together.

I also dispute Dr. Larkin’s assertion that “A professional communicator with limited time, staff, and money needs to know the likelihood of success associated with different types of communication campaigns.” Most of us have worked in circumstances where we had limited time, staff, and money, but were still able to take a strategic approach to our communication, tapping channels that would produce the desired results. As Tudor notes, dismissing necessary channels in order to save time and money means that you fail to meet employee needs for strategic clarity and currency of news and information. Achieving only one-third of your goals means you meet with two-thirds failure to affect change. Imagine putting only gasoline in your car but no oil in the crankcase, no water in the radiator, no air in the tires. But gosh, if you only have so much money, shouldn’t you spend it on the stuff that makes the car go? Not if it means the car will break down in five miles.

To summarize, then, there are multiple elements in driving change through communication. Immediate supervisors play a critical part, but they almost never play the only part. Managing a change communication effort requires an upfront understanding of the unique circumstances driving resistance in your organization and plotting communication to erode that resistance. Different channels play different roles, each of which is important for specific reasons. You ignore the leadership dimension of change at your peril.