Say what you know
When your employees have been hit with big news regarding your company, you need to get out in front of them and start talking.
“You literally communicate as soon as you can and as broadly as you can all that you know about the situation,” Gonsiorowski says. “You try to encourage people to recognize that this anxiety and uncertainty and uncomfortableness is natural, given the state of affairs. There is a common bond of understanding around that and a common bond of teamwork to deal with that.”
Start with your leadership team, your closest direct reports and get them on board with what’s happening.
“The best leaders are successful because they provide an example that their next layer of leadership can follow and use with their leadership teams,” Gonsiorowski says. “I would want to treat people honestly and communicate often the facts as they develop with the people. We would then expect them to be cascading the messages down through to their teams.”
When you’re speaking with your leaders at that early stage, don’t be afraid to say you don’t know something.
“In a situation like this, there literally are periods of significant uncertainty or significant lack of clarity around how the new model might later look,” Gonsiorowski says. “The point is, when you don’t know, you say you don’t know. Honesty and frequent communication is probably the biggest key.
“I literally plan on what I want to communicate. I don’t write out my remarks, but I write out an outline on the critical topics that I want to cover in those remarks and then I always make sure I leave time for questions and dialogue to deal with what might be unexpected. Then you deliver that message as forcefully and effectively as you can. I have a whole team of senior managers here. So typically those managers are also asked to prepare in that way to speak specifically to their business lines as to what they might know about dealing with the change. You present it as clearly as you can.”
In the PNC/National City deal, it turned out most leaders believed the transition would be fairly smooth.
“It quickly became apparent that the change was going to be more manageable and more beneficial and providing such a stronger platform and there were so many benefits to the change, that managing the change became a lot easier,” Gonsiorowski says.
When that became clear, that was the message that was conveyed to everyone else in the company.
“As we communicated that, the anxiety level and the uncertainty starts to diminish rather quickly,” Gonsiorowski says.
Of course, just because the companies will be able to mesh without much trouble, that doesn’t mean employees can stop worrying about how their jobs might be affected. You again need to speak with honesty.
“You tell them that as the leader, you will continue to see it as your responsibility that the organization treats everyone honestly and fairly,” Gonsiorowski says. “Hopefully, you have some storehouse of credibility with your audience that they believe you when you say that. That’s not something that just arises. That’s something that is established over time based on how people have been managed over time.
“You don’t always have to have the answer, just the act of having the conversation in such a way that is open and honest is the reassurance people need in those early days to know that there is work under way to ensure that they are treated fairly. Sometimes, employees just need the venue.”