Communicating and Shaping Strategic Change: A CLASS Framework

Abstract

Strategic changes in organisations are difficult to achieve without effective leadership and communication. Strategic change also typically affects many different people with differing and often conflicting priorities. The success of a large-scale organisational change will thus depend on (1) how well the strategy of the organisation is described and explained to all these different people, (2) what the implementation of the strategy involves and (3) how different people are likely to be impacted. This chapter introduces, describes and explains a framework that aims to increase the probability of completing a large-scale organisational change successfully. The framework addresses 5 key elements of strategic organisational change: the Change itself, the Leaders of the change, Articulation of the change, the Symbolism of the change and the response of Stakeholders to the change (CLASS). The CLASS framework can be used to first communicate a strategic change and then shape or guide its implementation. The application of this framework will enable organisational leaders to clearly classify, communicate and subsequently shape the type of strategic change that they aim to implement. As a result, the CLASS framework will ultimately lead to many more large-scale organisational changes being completed successfully.KeywordsStrategic managementOrganisational changeChange managementStrategic communicationStrategic leadership