Change and Communication Management: One size DOES NOT fits all in a complex Sales Enablement world

Change is happening every day in today’s complex Sales Enablement environment. External circumstances and internal forces are driving that change. Those influencing factors could be: evolving buying behavior among customers, dynamic competitive environments, Social Media, mobile selling or simply shorter innovation cycles of product and/or services offerings.

In order to support this changing environment, Sales Enablement professionals need to be prepared for this change management journey — and provide the right tactics and tools to sales. Let’s have a look at the five core facets of change management and see how Sales Enablement can support those:

Assess:

• Assess organizational change (e.g. learning programs
• Evaluate communication needs and channels
• Provide advice on communication strategy

Design:

• Design of communication strategy
• Involvement of key change agents and stakeholders
• Conduct risk assessment if communication/change fails

Implement:

• Roll-out communication
• Leverage core communication channels
• Have change agents managing roll-out

Manage Change:

• Evaluate follow-up communications
• Align regularly with change agents

Evaluate:

• Evaluate success of program
• Provide survey and feedback mechanisms
• Conduct lessons learned session with change agents and stakeholders 

In order to achieve your goals on every stage of the change management lifecycle, attach qualifying questions in order to define your communication and change management mix:

• Is the program a strategic imitative?
• What are the KPIs attached to the program?
• How many employees are affected and which group?
• Who are the main change agents and stakeholders?
• Are there existing channels that have been used in the past?