4 rules for communicating through unexpected change

During a major change, employees, customers, reporters and other stakeholders want answers quickly. It may feel more reassuring to wait until all the details are known to share information, but silence can also leave room for rumors or speculation.

Elizabeth Whittington, senior director of executive communications at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, faced that challenge when a federal policy change threatened the organization’s research funding. At the time, St. Jude didn’t know what the full operational impact might be.

“We had to move fast, with really broad updates first,” Whittington said during Ragan ‘s Communicating Change: From Strategy to Impact webinar. “We had to provide a signal that leadership was aware and that we were taking action and that we were trying to learn more.”

Here’s what to do when the details are murky and comms teams need to say something right away.

Start with the facts you can confirm rather than waiting for the whole picture. This at least tells people you’re aware there’s an issue.

For St. Jude, it was about communicating while teams were still determining what the policy meant.