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CHAPTER ELEVEN: COMMUNICATING CHANGE
The learning goal of this chapter is to teach students that convincing people to change is a
process, not an act.
Several cases in Part One of this book addressed major internal communications situations,
especially Smith Financial Corporation, Unifone, Yellowtail Marine, Weymouth, and The
Timken Company. These can be cross-referenced in preparation for a discussion of
Hammermill Paper Company. If possible, the instructor should teach both cases, since each
focuses on an important and common managerial task: communicating change and the proper
use of surveys.
Teaching HAMMERMILL PAPER COMPANY
Hammermill Paper Company concerns the introduction of formal planning procedures at a
large, decentralized company. The case narrative, describing the company’s recent history and
organization structure, provides contextual information about the introduction of planning at
Hammermill. Exhibits I-III provide more financial and organizational information about the
company. Exhibit IV, “Excerpts from the Planning Procedures Manual,” provides detailed
information about the actual planning process instituted at Hammermill.
The case can be used in a number of ways. In general, the case requires the student to consider
how this new process should be introduced to the managers. It is a case in communication
Suggested Assignment. Students can be assigned the task of writing the first formal
announcement of the new planning procedure to the various division managers. The task is to
inform the managers about planning and to address anxieties or possible misunderstandings the
managers are likely to have about planning at Hammermill.
In writing this communication, the student should first consider what level of informational
detail she will adopt. The communication should orient the managers to the new planning
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At the least, the communication should make clear to the managers the following three aspects of
the new planning system:
1. The need for planning at Hammermill. The student should explain what purposes
planning is intended to serve, and why continuing the currently less-centralized
procedure is undesirable. This information should be communicated without
2. The role of the managers in the planning process. The student might explain how
planning affects the managers’ autonomy and decision-making powers, and, generally,
how planning works. A possible perspective on this information is to emphasize how
the managers are assured substantial, continuing in-put in the new framework by
3. The time-frame for the planning procedure. The first message about the new system
should probably also assure the managers, through a chronological explanation of the
steps involved, that they will in fact have sufficient time to do the things they are now
required to do. Fashioning this chronological explanation of planning is a deceptively
difficult assignment. Explaining the managers’ role in planning will inevitably raise
questions about the time commitments now imposed on them. Moreover, simply
Secondly, a communication that keeps the managers “in the dark” is likely to intimate that a large
change is taking place. It will raise questions about this change in company procedures, and yet
not provide answers. For example, unspecified talk about “centralized decision–making” can
suggest to the managers that their autonomy, at all levels of their operations, is at stake; but
under the planning system, managers retain control over operating matters, including
Finally, students should be made aware that in addition to the sensitive issues of autonomy and
new demands on their time, the division managers may perceive (correctly) that the new
planning process also entails new yardsticks for measuring their own performance. As Donald
Leslie notes in the case, the division managers have flourished in an entrepreneurial atmosphere,
in which growth of sales and profits was their main goal and measure of success. Now their
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Suggested Assignments on HAMMERMILL PAPER COMPANY:
1. Assume you are an assistant to the CEO and President of Hammermill Paper Company.
2. Assume that, one month from now, Hammermill Paper Company will hold its first annual
planning session — a meeting between executives in corporate headquarters and the
company’s division mangers. The president of the company has asked you, his assistant, to
3. As an assistant to the CEO, write up a brief list of priorities and a justification for your
choices and an outline of what to say to whom. This can focus students’ attention on issues
Possible Role-Playing Assignment: Communicating Change
1. Read Ch. 11 and Hammermill Paper.
2. Consider the concerns or objections that the division managers may have with respect to
centralized planning. With these concerns in mind, how should the idea of and the need
for centralized planning be introduced to the division managers?
3. How would you address one of the probable concerns of the division managers at the
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