It is critical to have a foundation of trust in your company in order to keep your employees from feeling apprehension and uncertainty. When times are tough, the workplace rumor mill swings into action act quickly. Team leaders and senior management need to keep communication lines open and be forthright with the work force in order to stop gossip from spreading. This article gives five strategies to help ease employee anxiety and stop the rumor mills in their tracks.

1. Be Accessible

As a senior leader, you need to be accessible and visible to your employees. It is key that, if there are problems or challenges that the company is facing, you do not wait until they have been resolved to let your employees know. It is much better to keep them posted of the how the situation is developing and what you plan to do to respond to the situation along the way. When there is uncertainty with the economy and the success of the company, it becomes even more critical to be open and available to your employees. You’re not just there to share information with the workforce, but to build trust with them along the way, and dispel rumors as they spring up.

2. Don’t Hide From Bad News

You have nothing to gain by withholding bad news from your employees — they know times are tough and that your business will have to adapt in order to survive. It will become even harder to communicate with a distrustful workforce if you try to imply that all is well when it obviously is not. The best course of action to stop rumors and gossip is to communicate openly with your employees about the changes that are planned. When employees trust you to tell them the bad news, they will stop believing office gossip and wait to hear the truth from you.

3. Emphasize Personal Communication

All too often, leaders communicate bad news via e-mails and memos. While personal communication takes more time, it is key to the continued productivity of your employees, which is a core priority. Research has shown that face-to-face or voice-to-voice conversations build up trust in a relationship and also improve the clarity of your message. You may find yourself stumped by a question that you didn’t expect, but don’t worry. Employees don’t expect you to know all the answers, but have real appreciation for your effort at keeping them part of the process by talking directly to them.

4. Listen

Face-to-face communication is two-way, which is a massive advantage. You will often find that your employees have great ideas that can help you, but listening doesn’t have to be about finding answers. Your employees will be motivated by the knowledge that their ideas and feelings are valued, and it can help them engage with the business and with you.

5. Acknowledge the Unknowns

Talk as honestly as you can about what you do know and what you don’t. They will understand that you don’t know all the answers yet, and will trust you more and understand the situation better by being told where the uncertainties lie. It is not productive to promise things you can’t yet deliver, it is better to discuss the chances and prospects for success.

Communication is the bedrock of good management practice, and the only way to get the best out of your workforce. Regardless of the company’s situation, make it a goal to always communicate openly, truthfully, and frankly.

Wendy Mack is a professional advisor, trainer, and author with a focus in leading and communicating change. Contact Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com.

Between December 2007, the official start of the current recession, and June 2009 more than 40,000 U.S. organizations held layoffs in an effort to reduce costs, increase profits, and improve shareholder value. Unfortunately, studies over the past two decades have shown that most of the time layoff initiatives rarely actually achieve those objectives. Instead, these studies have reported time and again that less than 50% of the companies using downsizing as a cost cutting and profit increasing measure actually achieve that objective; in fact approximately 25% actually realize a decline in their overall profitability.

Why don’t layoffs produce the returns executives hope they will? It’s the people factor.  Employees are emotionally and psychologically traumatized by layoffs. At the very point in time when employees must be fully functioning and able to take over the tasks of those who were laid off, they are unnerved, frightened and skeptical. Those qualities are not what a company needs to be successful.

My colleague, Deanna Banks, Ph.D. and I spent the past six months studying what leaders can do to re-energize their workforce after layoffs. We found that certain types of leaders are more successful than others at enabling staff to recuperate from the damage that layoffs cause.

What Not to Do

As we interviewed employees from companies that had layoffs, we often heard stories of management teams that took action to stifle any expression of emotion. One employee even reported that the staff was forbidden from gathering in coffee break areas, hallways or offices. Rather than understanding and dealing with the outrage their people are feeling, some leaders simply want people to get over it, now. They say “Just accept it and move on.”

The truth is that when emotion grips people, they simply can’t move on. It is critical they are provided the liberty to share their concerns and work through the emotions they are feeling. If management tries to rush this process and stifle the concerns the employees are expressing, the situation will only become more turbulent.

What To Do

Whenever a layoff takes place, everyone involved is forced into a state of disruptive change. Most researchers agree that people’s emotional responses to change follow a fairly predictable pattern.

If people on your team are suffering through emotional reactions to layoffs, you can’t force them to skip ahead. You may be over it and ready to forge ahead, but your staff won’t support you in those efforts until they are ready. Your job, rather than to push for progress sooner than they are able, is to help them progress at their own pace through the change process.

Interestingly, we discovered that the best strategy for helping employees recover from layoffs is one where the manager actually matches his or her actions to the emotions employees are experiencing. This does not mean mirroring the employee’s emotion (for example responding to anger with anger). Instead, the manager should try to understand what emotional need the employee needs met based on their behavior, and attempting to meet that need so that the employee can continue the healing process.

In our research, we found that successful leaders:

1.  Reduce shock by increasing communication.
2.  Respond to anger by expressing concern.
3.  Address anxiety by emphasizing clarity.
4.  Reduce grief and hopelessness by using supporting behaviors.

Employees who are emotionally supported are likely to be able to refocus on their job and maintain commitment to it. They will look to you as their manager for direction rather than feeling suspicious and sad. Rather than ending up stalled creatively, they will be more able to take control of their emotions and begin producing and taking necessary risks.

While there’s no panacea for recovering from a layoff, how the layoff is approached, how employees who are let go are treated, and how the surviving workforce is supported go a long way to determining the organization’s future success and viability.

Wendy Mack is a professional advisor, trainer, and author with a focus in leading and communicating change. Contact Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com

It is becoming more and more important for senior management to support the projects, plans and goals of a group, and it is up to the team leader or department head to gain that support.  Yet, in my work in change management over the past ten years, I have found that persuading executives to support an initiative continues to be one of the biggest areas of concern for group managers.

To try to better understand what senior management needs to support a project, I asked a number of vice presidents and executive vice presidents from both the private and public sector for their advice.I learned there are two things often ignored by team leaders in their presentations.  By focusing on them, your chances of gaining executive support will be greatly improved.

Expecting Immediate Support

According to several executives I interviewed, team leaders and function heads often mistakenly conclude that one brilliant pitch is enough to gain agreement and buy-in.In truth, even when the initial proposal seems like a great idea, the support does not come instantaneously.

One government agency executive I spoke with mentioned that it has taken three to four years to build enough support to gain an increase in congressional funding.While we hope that all business does not take as long as the government can, the purpose of his telling me that was to highlight the fact that managers and project directors must see their programs with a strategic and long-term focus.  He suggested that managers looking for support should:

1.State clearly the ways that the entire organization will benefit from your plan.

2.Work with co-workers in other departments and groups.Find ways to combine priorities and goals into single initiatives in order the strengthen the benefit to the entire organization.

3.Talk in advance of your proposal to senior management and other stakeholders in the organization.Ask for their advice as to how you can best fit your ideas into the overall goals of the company.Be willing to change your proposal based on their feedback.

4.Be patient and make your proposal for resources only after you have created a strong enough case and have received informal support from executive management for your ideas.

Failing to Be Strategic

This is a crucial point when it comes to gaining support.Executives of most organizations have developed strategic goals for achieving the organization’s vision for the future.   You are much more likely to gain support when you show how your team’s plan will help to further the strategic goals.. To achieve this, you need to be proactive in finding out what the organization wants to achieve strategically rather than waiting for someone to tell you.

What does it mean to be strategic?  In my experience, executives want their directors to:

1.Understand the company’s main goals.

2.Give constructive suggestions how their group can help the company meet those objectives.

As Scott Eblin writes in “The Next Level”, you need to spend time with your senior executives up front to ensure that you understand what success means to them.  Remember, though, that at this level, you aren’t likely to get specific goals and metrics.Your goal is to listen to discover organization-wide priorities and constraints.Be a sponge in these conversations.Take the information to your managers to talk over some more.  Then come back to your executive with specific plans about what your group or function will do and how you will do it.  Be prepared to make adjustments based on input from your executive team at this point.

Executive support for a project you feel strongly about may seem as though it is out of your reach, but if you are patient you will be able to build a case that senior management will understand.The objective is to always keep in mind the overall goals of the organization and communicate clearly how your project will help to achieve those goals.  Before you know it, your project could become a key factor in the success of the entire company!

Wendy Mack is a professional advisor, trainer, and author with a focus in leading and communicating change. Contact Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at www.WendyMack.com

Almost every person in charge of a team has had a similar experience.With only a few minutes to present to senior management, you must communicate a proposed project on behalf of your team.You labor until you perfect the delivery, only to see that the executives were unmoved by your proposal.Why?

In my work with change leaders over the past decade, I’ve seen some great examples of what works when it comes to gaining executive support.I have also seen the flip side with more than one flop.I decided to talk directly with several senior level leaders both in corporate and public organizations in order to discover best practices in presentations to senior management.

The executives agreed that when mid-level leaders attempt to make a case for funding or other support, they often provide far too much information.A lot of proposals they hear fail because the executives don’t have time or interest to digest every nuance of the proposed project.  Most executives don’t want or need to know each and every task your team is working on.And the executives agreed that in most cases, minor decisions can be left to the team, leaving senior management out of the day to day.

The following are three best practices for making a case to the senior leadership team.

1.         Use PowerPoint to summarize your main points.

A PowerPoint deck is a great briefing tool because it requires you to summarize your points into brief bullets.Use stories and anecdotes to bring your main points alive, but keep the information on the Power Point presentation to the key points you want senior management to take away from the presentation.The goal will be to stay on any one Power Point screen no more than three minutes during your presentation.Make sure you have the details to back up your presentation, but only as a resource if you receive specific questions about a key issue.

2.         Group your main activities, goals, or steps into “buckets” or categories.

I recently saw one team leader list every activity his team planned to work on in 2009 in his pitch to executives.While it was his hope that the details would strengthen his proposal, it resulted in irritating senior management instead.One executive even told the team leader that the committee had no interest in hearing what the team had planned for the year.The only thing important to them was the key highlights.

I find it helpful to group goals or activities into categories.For instance, you may want to state in your presentation that your teams three main areas of focus in the coming year will be cost savings, process efficiencies, and developing bench strength.The remainder of your presentation will be to provide specific examples in each of these categories as to how you intend to be successful.Using this approach will help senior management to focus on how the proposals you suggest for your team will impact the entire company, and allow them to decide if these are the areas that they want to stress in the coming year.

3.         Concisely summarize what you need from the executive team in order to move forward.

Too many presentations to executive teams are informational in tone.The team leader will update the executives on status of the project and then ask for questions.  They hope (and pray) that the executives will somehow jump to offering funding and support, which almost never happens.

Instead, conclude your pitch with a slide that summarizes specifically what you need.Maybe it is a specific amount of money earmarked in the budget, or a critical decision by senior management, or even more company resources dedicated to your project.  Yes, there is a risk that your request will be turned down, but it’s better to know that now, than to keep spinning your wheels.

In the 1990’s a team of external consultants worked with General Electric to develop a change acceleration process.  The team came up with a four-step formula for effective elevator speeches:

*    Our project or initiative is about  . . .

* It is very important to the company because . . . . .

* What this means for senior management is . . . . . . .

* Here is what we need from you. . . . .

Use this approach both in one-on-one conversations with stakeholders and in your formal pitches and presentations.As you are able to focus on these critical elements, your success in presenting your case will improve.

By keeping your pitches to senior management short and crisp you will be able to focus on strategy, not tasks.Clarity in your presentation as to what your team needs to be successful will help senior management readily understand what it is you are proposing, what you need from them to be successful, and how your initiative will have a positive impact on company operations.

Wendy Mack is a professional advisor, trainer, and author with a focus in leading and communicating change. Contact Wendy at, or Download her free e-book, Transforming Anxiety into Energy at http://www.WendyMack.com