Stop Announcing, Start Listening

By Lucy Hornsby, August 20, 2026

You can run a flawless communications plan — every email sent on time, every intranet banner live, every box on the schedule ticked — and still watch a change programme stall. The problem is rarely the timeline. It is the quiet assumption that telling people is the same as bringing them with you.

Key Takeaways

“Communicated” is not “landed.” You can hit every deadline on your communications plan and still end up with a confused, unconvinced workforce.

Informing is not engaging. A one-directional email or intranet banner does not create buy-in; it just checks a box on the RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies) log.

Map stakeholders by stake, not job title. Plot influence against sentiment to see what people stand to gain, what they stand to lose, and how loudly they will say so.

Build real feedback loops. Pulse checks mid-programme, live office hours, and embedded team champions — not a survey nobody reads.

Resistance is intelligence, not a PR problem. If three teams ask the same question separately, that is your next piece of content — or a sign the change itself needs adjusting.

Why Does Most Change Communication Fail to Land?

Because it informs instead of engages, leaving people with no clear way to respond, participate, or shape the change.

Most change communication is a boring monologue. An email goes out. A banner appears on the intranet, tastefully branded and entirely one-directional. Somebody ticks “stakeholders informed” on the RAID log and moves on with their day, satisfied. Nobody asked stakeholders what they think, because nobody built in a way for them to answer — and, let us be honest, nobody was that keen to hear it anyway.

That is the gap between “communicated” and “landed,” and it is a gap that swallows entire change programmes whole. You can hit every single deadline on your comms plan — gold star, ahead of schedule — and still end up with a workforce that is confused, unconvinced, or seething in the group chat you are not part of. Informing is not engaging. It never was, no matter how nice the template looks.

What Does Good Change Communication Actually Look Like?

Like a listening exercise with a megaphone strapped on when you have something worth saying.

Before you write a single word, map your audience properly — not just by department or job title, but by what people stand to gain, what they stand to lose, and how loudly they are likely to say so about either. A basic stakeholder engagement matrix, plotting influence against sentiment, will tell you more about where your effort needs to go than any beautifully designed all-staff email ever will.

How Do You Build Real Feedback Loops into a Change Programme?

Through pulse checks, live office hours, and embedded champions — not an end-of-project survey nobody reads.

This is the part everyone skips. Not a survey at the end whose results nobody reads, and nobody acts on, but:

Pulse checks during the programme, while there is still time to change course.

Office hours where people can ask awkward questions aloud, in the room — not just type it anonymously into a form that vanishes into a spreadsheet nobody opens.

Champions embedded in teams who feedback what they are hearing on the ground, not the sanitised version that made it up the chain by Friday.

Is Resistance to Change a Public Relations Problem or a Data Point?

It is intelligence. Treat it as information about what you are missing, not noise to manage.

Here is a coaching question, and be honest with yourself: when someone pushed back on this change last week, what did you do with that information? Did you file it as resistance to manage, or treat it as intelligence about what you are missing?

A few more to sit with:

If your comms plan has no mechanism for someone to disagree with you, is it really comms — or just decoration?

Whose voice is loudest in your stakeholder map right now? Is that because they matter most, or because they shout the most?

What is the one question three different teams have asked you separately that you still have not properly answered?

What Should You Do When the Same Question Keeps Coming Up?

Treat it as your next piece of content — or a signal that the change itself needs adjusting.

Teams who get this right treat resistance as information, not a PR problem to message away. If three teams keep asking the same “but how will this actually work, day to day?” question, that is your next piece of content. It might also be a sign that the change itself needs adjusting before you push it any further — and yes, that is allowed.

Comms that lands do not talk at people until they give in. It listens until they are on board — and it is a lot less exhausting than shouting into the void and calling it engagement.

Want to build these skills in a structured way? Sign up for IIL’s Change Management Practitioner Virtual Course!

Lucy Hornsby will be presenting at International Project Management Day, an online event now in its 22nd year.

Lucy Hornsby

Lucy Hornsby leans into the future of work, positioning herself with a diverse portfolio career across the theme of Change and Transformation. She is a consultant, qualified coach, mentor, author as well as an experienced trainer and public speaker — providing guidance and skills for groups and individuals on subjects that include (but not limited to) change management, career development and personal &/ business transformation. Lucy’s passion and purpose in life is to help other people to reimagine their possibilities.

Connect with Lucy here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyhornsby/