Beyond Spray and Pray

Clampitt, DeKoch, and Cushman argue that the spray and pray strategy (which characterizes the federal agency example) and the withhold and uphold strategy are least likely to be effective in achieving organizational performance, whereas the underscore and explore strategy “maximizes organizational potential by creatively synthesizing executives' initiatives and employee concerns”. They suggest that, on occasion, more than one strategy can be used concurrently. For example, in one organization, the spray and pray strategy, also known as the “communication clutter” strategy, was used generally in “bombarding” staff with information on organizational performance; however, when it was faced with organizational changes such as downsizing and operational changes, a “withhold and uphold” strategy was adopted specifically on these issues. Executive adopted this latter strategy to reduce exposing employees to promises about the future that they were not able to deliver. The effect of this dual approach was not well received by staff: “Providing all the information employees could possibly want while avoiding the issues they cared about most bred discontent and mistrust”.

Contingency Approaches to Communication Strategies

Your Communicating Strategy Depends on The Type of Change
Stace and Dunphy adopt a contingency view, pointing out that the communication strategy needs to be appropriate to the particular type of organizational change: Developmental or incremental transitions aim for widespread involvement and emphasize face-to-face communication as well as the use of change teams to identify inititives and broaden commitment. Task focused transitions endeavor to align behavior with top-management initiatives and are primarily top-down in nature with greater emphasis placed on formal communication processes such as e-mail broadcasts, memos, and so on. Charismatic transformations seek to gain emotional commitment to a new way of proceeding and entail more personalized forms of communication that enable top-down coomunication with at least some symbolic two-way communication media. Turnarounds occur at times of organizational crises and draw on formal, top-down modes of communication that endeavor to force people to comply with the new direction.

They outline how each approach varies in terms of communicating the goals of the change process, who is to be involved in the change, the kinds of issues that will be addressed, the communication channels and directions (top-down, lateral, one-way/two-way) that will be used, and the balance of power that will need to be managed among relevant parties.

Your Communication Strategy Depends on The Stage of The Change
Adopting a differing contingency focus, Reardon and Reardon suggest that the communication strategy that is needed to produce succesful organizational change differs depending on the stage of the change process. They identify four leadership styles, which entail different communication processes and strategies: In the commanding style, leaders are performance and results oriented and communication mainly entails directing people toward various tasks. In the logical style , leaders employ strategic actions as a result of discovering the range of alternatives available to them through analysis and reasoning. The communication style is one of explanation such as why a particular change is needed and what the long term goals are. In the inspirational leadership style, the leader develops a vision of the future and seeks to encourage the cohesiveness of organizational members around the vision. Communication entails the creation of trust, getting people to mobilize around a particular change effort. In the supportive leadership style, the leader is concerned with creating consensus and an open working environment; involvement is the main communication process.

The authors argue that these four leadership styles, with their differing communication foci, need to be empoyed at different stages of a change process. They identify five main stages of change: In the palnning stage, the focus is on identifying what needs to change and a combination of logical and inspirational leadership styles is most appropriate. In the enabling stage, in which people are selected and trained for the change process, a combination of logical, inspirational, and supportive styles is needed. In the launching stage, the change commences and entails a series of steps and goals that are the best met by logical and commanding styles. In the catalyzing stage, inspirational and supportive leadership styles are needed to help motivate people to become engaged in, and assist with, the change effort. In the maintaining stage, people are encouraged to continue with a change effort even in the face of obstacles that confont them. Inspirational and supportive communication styles assist in this regard.

Reardon and Reardon claim that their Leadership Style Inventory ( LSI ) questionnaire enables identification by individuals of their dominant communication and leadership styles. They acknowledge that one implication of their argumen is that because different communication styles are required at different phases of change stages. In our assesment, some words of caution are warranted in relation to this approach, given what we see as some inherent diffulties with it: The different stages of change are based on a linear logic rather than. Multiple changes may occur at one and the same time, which raises questions about the style change managers should invoke when they are involved in more than one concurrent change. Change phases themselves may be difficult to identify in practice – particularly knowing when one has been completed and the next one has commenced. The model is highly prescriptive in terms of what style of communication is needed and when. This prescription is presented as fact without specifying the evidence for this. A question remains about whether administering a one-off survey is an adequate means of establishing leadership and communication styles.