'Uh-huh... Really... Explain to me again how this new initiative is so different from previous initiatives that were also going to cost me my job if they didn't work' asked the long-term employee.

'Look; we have to do this. Can't you see?'

'Why do we have to do this? No-one has explained to me yet 'why'.'

And therein lies the fundamental problem of most management initiatives. They leave one small, seemingly insignificant cog unattended'”letting the person at the 'sharp end' know why a new initiative has been launched and what their own personal role is expected to be.

Even those companies who do let the employees know the what and why very often fail to elicit anything other than tacit compliance and eventual failure of the initiative.

The reason is simple'”the employees are given no part in the discussion about why a new initiative is needed, the business case for it, what shape the initiative should take to meet the business need, and what their individual role and responsibility is in order to bring the initiative to a successful conclusion.

At the heart of the issue lies communication:

Successful communication is not a one-to-one or one-to-many transaction, but a dialogue between interested parties

...and successful dialogues rely on four principles: Reality, Reaction, Co-ordination and Purposefulness.

1. Being real

'Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary' Charles Darwin, 1859.

For employees (and customers, too!) 'reality' will be those things that most directly affect them. Yes, 'reality' is a perceptive subjectivity, but don't expect someone to change their perception of 'reality' just because you have a different viewpoint.

Internal and external customers of your communication are extremely adapt at seeing 'beyond the rhetoric

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