Organizational Change: Creating Change Through Strategic Communication

3

A Stakeholder Communication Model of Change

People do not always argue because they misunderstand one another, they argue because they hold different goals

William H. Shyte, Jr.

Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason

Benjamin Franklin

If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend

Abraham Lincoln

We all have stakes in organizations. Only someone living a Thoreau-like existence on Walden's Pond with no contact with resource providers, social groups, political affiliations, or proximity to government, business or any vestige of society could claim no stakes in organizations. As shown in the examples already presented in this book, organizations often have diverse stakeholders both within and without the identifiable boundary of operation. Employees, customers, suppliers, governments, competitors are obvious types of stakeholders who demand things from organizations; depend on or are effected by organizational operations; and often provide comment on what organizations do. However, the picture of a given organization's stakeholders can be much more complex than this since stakeholders are not always obvious to or acknowledged by organizations. Further, how we are perceived or self-perceive our stakes and stakeholder status for a given organization can be complex. We may play more than one role in an organization simultaneously (e.g., customer and employee; community member and volunteer) making the relative demands of groups ...