Communicating Change: Leading from Resistance to Commitment

Overview

2020 was an unprecedented year, marked by a major unifying factor: change. Even in the wake of a public-health crisis and a sociocultural reckoning, however, leaders who are prepared with meaningful change-management strategies and tools for effective communication can lead teams to achieve higher performance and real, shared transformation.

Navigating organizational change while maintaining programmatic and financial performance requires genuine employee engagement, which often comes down to effective communication – especially in a nonprofit landscape where a complex economy, changing employee preferences and expectations, diverse views, and the fragility of stakeholder trust are all converging.

Leaders and managers have always had an essential role as catalysts for fostering community, managing change, and improving staff effectiveness during change. This course will explore the role of leaders in change and change communication, how to prepare people to approach change, and what goes into building a change-management plan.

Also covered: addressing stakeholders as critical “levers”; changes in the nonprofit fundamentals of audience, stakes, and pace; and why leaders must adapt. Participants will use the real-time problem-solving training method, and go inside real organizations through case studies.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the role of “leader as communicator” and how it is critical to success.
• Create a change management strategy that prepares your team to approach and achieve change, whether in the physical or telecommuting workplace.
• Develop a plan to lead people through the change curve during major events.

Audience

• Executive directors and CEOs
• Board chairs and committee chairs
• Senior staff
• Communications or marketing leaders and staff
• Development/fundraising leaders and staff
• Other team leaders
• Special-project managers