Kerrie Smit

Most problems are communication problems. Teams can spend a lot of energy admiring the problem from every angle rather than taking steps towards resolution. To build resilience and facilitate context switching between multiple projects with conflicting priorities, start with getting the right people together to have a conversation.

Bosses who fail to provide clear direction or feedback are showing that they, too are human. This lack on your boss's part may be due to many things, including inexperience. It can be hard to feel empathy for an inexperienced or ineffective boss, especially when we're not getting the direction we seek. However, if you can put yourself in the boss's shoes, you may find a way to support your Manager to feel more self-assurance and to become more aware of the example they are setting. Ultimately, we're aiming for the Manager to be aware that they set the tone, and people are following them, regardless of how capable they feel. In the meantime, put everything in writing, clarify as much as possible and check your understanding often.

Planning ahead is highly advisable. If your organisation does not have a crisis plan for communication, they have already lost a valuable opportunity to impress the market with how well it manages errors and the unforeseen. The reality of crises is that they are part of the human condition. We make mistakes, or we are subject to forces of nature or malicious intent. If we've thought ahead about how to address people impacted by crisis, we are already half way to coming out of it with the lowest possible damage. I can bet you that your organisation has a business continuity plan for process and key technologies. A communications plan is a natural extension.

Finding what 'collaboration' means in each new organisation can sometimes be a project unto itself. It's important to collaborate in the way the organisation views it. Spend some time finding out what it means to your organisation, and what works. Then immerse yourself in collaborative behaviours as you move through your usual change paces.

Understand that not everyone communicates in the same way. IT Departments can attract specialised, process driven people. People who are working in deep concentration on a plan-do-check-act cycle with fast turn around may not have the same communication preferences nor use the same communication channels as other staff, even when you might consider these methods to be standard or embedded. Consider just-in-time comms with clear headlines for busy project-based IT Departments.

While it might seem strange to even ask this question, change career professionals can become so focussed on managing the change around them that it can become a dilemma, and the internal dialogue ramps up a notch: "I'm trying to change you and you're trying to change me? How about you stop resisting and do the change my way". As change professionals with experience, you start to feel out where the conversation is about resistance and where its about the need to adapt the solution, methods or activities due to reasonable factors. Naturally, leading by example, career change professionals need to display adaptability, willingness to listen and willingness to change when its their turn to change.