The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication: A Guide to Internal Communication, Public Relations, Marketing, and Leadership

Engaging in the Background Talk of Change

The final element of really good change communication is the importance of engaging with the background talk of change. Those working in change programs have traditionally operated within a paradigm of problem solving where the change to be introduced represents a solution to an organizational problem. Taking the optimistic view noted at the beginning of the chapter, a shift has occurred to more positive interventions that reflect a focus on continuous changes. In essence, the business does not need to be broken to fix it! Sometimes we just want to make it better.

With the shift toward more positive interventions, there is an accompanying focus on linguistic-based interventions: interventions that are ...