People Need to be Heard Before They’re Willing to Listen
Clear communication during transformation isn’t just about what you say. It’s about what they hear.
I. Transformation Fails for Predictable Reasons
Change is hard. Anyone who’s experienced it—whether leading it or living through it—knows the road is rarely smooth. But what’s striking isn’t just that transformations fail, but why. John Kotter, the pioneering Harvard Business School professor, identified eight common reasons organizational change efforts break down. I’ve written about some of these in Why We Resist Change, but in this article, we’re going deeper into communication. Getting it right is difficult enough; getting it wrong can unravel everything.
Having worked in transformation for years, I’ve seen both the good and bad of communication up close. When executed well, even modest strategies can gain traction. But without a consistent cycle of listening and speaking, small fractures develop. Execution becomes uneven, teams pull in different directions, and trust quietly erodes. Despite vision documents and executive presentations, people often still feel lost.
One recurring theme? Communication. Not in volume, but in clarity. Kotter warned us in Leading Change:
Managers under-communicate, and often not by a small amount. Or they inadvertently send inconsistent messages. In either case, the net result is the same: a stalled transformation.
The solution isn’t to say the same message more often. It’s to make sure the message is heard across different contexts, reinforced by different people, and experienced through varied touchpoints. That’s how clarity becomes culture.
II. When Words Get in the Way
Communication begins with language. But during transformation, the very words meant to align can end up obscuring. Too often, leaders lean on jargon like "synergies," "value streams," or "platform thinking," believing these terms are self-explanatory. For the teams on the receiving end, they often signal distance, not direction.
I often say effective communication is like throwing a ball. If I want you to catch the message in my head, it’s on me to throw it in a way you can catch easily. Yet we often see leaders showcasing their command of language, throwing wild knuckleballs and blaming others for missing the catch.
Communication isn’t what you say. It’s what others catch. And in high-stakes change, that gap can become a fault line.
III. People Need to Be Heard Before They’re Willing to Listen
Here’s the paradox of communication: the moments when clarity matters most are often the moments when people feel least ready to receive it. Change threatens identity, stability, and control. And in that threat, people need to feel heard.
I often say: people need to be heard before they are willing to listen. This is a re-phrasing of Kotter’s "Listen and Be Listened To" concept. It’s not just a leadership mantra—it’s a precondition for attention. When emotional concerns like job security, relevance, or belonging go unacknowledged, even the clearest messages bounce off.
So, how do leaders listen well—especially in large, complex systems? Listening at scale requires systems, not just sentiment. Structured listening can take many forms: skip-level conversations, pulse surveys, moderated open forums, even narrative capture sessions that gather and synthesize qualitative feedback. These send a signal: "We see you. We’re listening."
Just as important is what leaders do in response. Employees don’t expect every piece of feedback to be acted upon. But they do expect to be acknowledged. Over time, that builds trust—and trust creates openness to change.
Middle managers play a crucial role. They bridge the strategic vision and day-to-day experience. If they feel ill-equipped, emotionally uncertain, or misaligned, the communication cascade breaks down. Many transformations quietly fail here—not in the C-suite, but in the space between team leads and their people.
Communication during transformation isn’t a single act. It’s a repeated cycle of listening, nudging the conversation forward, and listening again. Each nudge may surface new concerns, requiring new or repeated responses. While not endless, this cycle must be respected. With enough repetition, a critical mass forms—within individuals and across the organization—that makes change feel safer and more possible.
Think of this not as a one-way cascade, but a feedback loop—a dynamic, adaptive system where insight drives iteration.
IV. Why We Think We’re Clear (But Aren’t)
Clear communication doesn’t require poetic flourish. But to understand why it often breaks down, especially under stress, we need to look under the hood. Behavioral science reveals why seemingly clear messages can fall flat.
These aren’t abstract curiosities—they’re deeply human tendencies that emerge under stress, uncertainty, and transition. And in times of transformation, they help explain why even smart strategies stumble when the message doesn’t resonate.
We think we’re being clear. Science shows we’re often not.
Research in communication and cognitive psychology shows how easily misinterpretation arises. We tend to overestimate our clarity due to common biases. These show up in the form of jargon, vague language, or the assumption of shared knowledge.
These aren’t minor quirks—they’re predictable patterns. Let’s explore a few of the most common:
The Curse of Knowledge
Once we understand something, we forget what it’s like not to know. Strategy may unfold over months behind closed doors, but communications often deliver only the highlights. When teams hear "new operating model," their first question is: "Am I still relevant?" If that’s not addressed, no amount of rationale will land.
The Illusion of Transparency
We assume our intentions are obvious because they feel obvious to us. But others lack our context. This gap between perceived and actual clarity can quietly sow mistrust.
The Ambiguity Trap
Vague language invites interpretation, and under pressure, interpretation defaults to fear. Ambiguity invites speculation, not alignment.
V. Fear, Misalignment, and the Emotional Roadblocks to Change
In consulting, we often said that building the strategy was the easiest part. Difficult in its own right, sure. But compared to changing hundreds or thousands of minds, it’s relatively straightforward.
Strategies rarely fail for lack of logic. They fail in execution. And execution fails when people don’t understand what’s changing, or why.
This misalignment often plays out in familiar ways:
Initial messages emphasize company-level benefits, with vague promises of more information to come.
Managers are expected to explain the change but lack sufficient context—or emotional bandwidth.
Employees hear conflicting information through the grapevine, much of it incorrect.
Trusted team members begin to exit, triggering a quiet but powerful confirmation of people’s worst fears.
These breakdowns don’t just reflect poor messaging. They reflect missing social signals. Trusted voices—the informal leaders and culture carriers—must be aligned early. If they aren’t, they may opt out or quietly erode trust from within.
Remote and hybrid work amplifies these risks. Without hallway chats or casual check-ins, misalignment travels faster, deeper, and more invisibly. That’s why communication needs to be intentionally designed—not just as a message, but as an experience.
These challenges show up throughout Kotter’s eight stages of transformation:
Stage 3: Communicate the Vision — requires clarity, not just repetition.
Stage 4: Empower Others to Act — requires people to understand their roles.
Stage 6: Generate Short-Term Wins — requires a shared view of what progress looks like.
Each stage carries a hidden requirement: emotional readiness. It’s why two teams, given the same message, might interpret it in wildly different ways—depending on whether they feel seen or sidelined.
VI. A Better Way to Tell the Story of Change
Tamsen Webster's Red Thread framework offers a powerful way to craft messages that don’t just inform—they resonate. At its heart is a narrative arc that mirrors how we make meaning: we recognize a problem, reframe it with insight, and become open to action.
Effective transformation communication follows this arc. It doesn’t start with the change. It starts with the goal people already want, the problem that blocks it, the truth that reframes it, the change proposed, and finally, the action required.
This is how people process story. And stories, not slides, move people.
Start with the Goal: What outcome do people already care about? Align with this before introducing change.
Illuminate the Problem: What’s getting in the way? Make the challenge relatable.
Reveal the Truth: Share the insight that changes how the problem is viewed.
Introduce the Change: Now, with new perspective, introduce the strategic shift.
Clarify the Action: Make next steps concrete, immediate, and personal. Vague calls to action stall momentum.
Cognitively, this matches how we build meaning. Emotionally, it honors people’s perspective. Practically, it transforms information into behavior change.
Messages crafted this way don’t just stick—they spread.
When Clarity Clicks: A Personal Note
Years ago, I was an employee during a major banking merger. Rumors leaked over the weekend. By Monday, the air was tense. People weren’t just hungry for information—they had lost trust.
Our CEO could have hidden behind corporate spin. Instead, he addressed the rumors head-on.
He confirmed the merger. Then he shared how he learned about it—candidly, vulnerably, humanely. No scripts. Just presence.
And he did something essential: he made space before asking anything of us. He led with empathy, not explanation. That created a moment of trust. Only then were people ready to listen.
That day, something shifted. He didn’t just deliver information. He showed us what leadership looks like under pressure.
People stopped whispering. Speculation died down. Someone said afterward, “We were all looking for someone to hate. It won’t be him.”
That’s the power of clarity aligned with humanity. It doesn’t just inform—it disarms. And it makes change possible.
VII. Clarity Is a Catalyst, Not a Checkbox
In transformation, clarity isn’t just a communication skill. It’s a catalyst. Kotter’s insights are as relevant now as ever—especially in an era of hybrid work, eroding loyalties, and volatile markets. Under-communicating the vision—or communicating it poorly—only magnifies uncertainty and accelerates failure.
The solution isn’t more meetings or bigger slide decks. It’s intentional, empathetic communication that meets people where they are. It translates vision into shared understanding. It replaces confusion with confidence.
Because transformation doesn’t fail when people resist. It fails when people don’t understand what they’re being asked to become.
Communication is like throwing a ball: make it as easy as possible for someone to catch it.
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