A coffin. Bach’s Toccata and Fuege in D minor. A signature black turtleneck. These were the unconventional elements that Steve Jobs used to kick off Apple’s 2002 WWDC: with a funeral. It was one of the most innovative communications tactics at the time.

Let’s back up to the events that led to the death and untimely funeral for Mac’s long-deceased operating system. Steve Jobs was trying to lead a transition from Mac OS9 to his new operating system Mac OS10. Developers were not on board. Understanding that developers were key to OS10’s success, he did something drastic. He killed OS9. In his opening remarks, Jobs said, “Mac OS9 isn’t dead for our customers yet, but it’s dead for [developers]. Today we say farewell to OS 9 for all future development, and we focus our energies on developing for Mac OS X.” Soon after, he closed the coffin.

Communications’ Role in Change Management

Often times, when people think of change management, they think of the changes needed to a business strategy. What a lot of companies neglect to realize is that a strategy is useless unless your people are along for the ride, and support the changes in the strategy. Change management is less about managing change, and more about managing people.

In my time at Duarte, I learned a lot about the role of communications in change management, thanks to Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez and their book Illuminate. 

In their book, they talk about the five stages necessary to driving effective change through communications: 

• Dream

• Leap

• Fight

• Climb

• Arrive

As we think about how an effective communications strategy successfully inspires action for employees to move from one stage to the next, one aspect that really stood out to me from the book was the importance of using ceremonies. We use ceremonies quite often in our personal lives, yet fail to recognize the importance of ceremonies in our professional lives. 

Duarte and Sanchez note that ceremonies are an especially important communication tool as a way to mark the beginning and end of a chapter. It allows a way for employees to honor and recognize the past, while get excited about the future. For example, a high school graduation ceremony can be bittersweet in the sense that it is exciting for a student to celebrate their independence, yet at the same mourn the simplicity of their past life. It also inspires the person to recognize that the person they were in the past is not what will move them ahead in the next stage of their journey. 

Using Ceremonies in Business Communications

Many people shy away from incorporating ceremonies into business settings for fear that they will seem, well, stupid or cheesy. There certainly is a risk of that. But if done in an authentic way, they can be incredibly powerful to keeping your employees engaged throughout the journey. 

Some companies look at a ribbon-cutting as a ceremonious event to mark the beginning of their business. Others look to get employees involved by asking them to contribute to an employee-wide mural or art installation. Both are good ideas when they are authentic to your business and audience, and include employees as a way to mark the beginning of a new start. In some instances, you may find that your audience is more motivated by pain avoidance (as opposed to pleasure), meaning you can use a theatrical ceremony like Jobs’ OS9 funeral to warn employees of the risks if they do not change. 

A ceremony also does not have to be saved for a big milestone. For example, you could implement a ritual of Shout Out Fridays as a way to acknowledge employees weekly, or have a bell you ring anytime you get a new sale. Or, if you are trying to get your team to take on more risks, create a wall of failures celebrating the team’s bold ideas that didn't quite make the cut. While small ceremonies are less about big moves for your employees from one stage to the other, they keep employees engaged. 

Last, it’s important not to overplay ceremonies and save them for moments that are truly important to your company and the culture you are trying to cultivate. By overusing ceremonies as a communications tool, they lose their meaning and effectiveness, so be selective on using ceremonies to get employees from one stage to the other, or drive a new behavior in the organization.

As a foundation, always root your communications in what is important to your audience, what is authentic to your company and its culture, and what is the motivating force for your employees. From there, the communications tactics like ceremonies are less likely to feel off mark for your audience.

How do you incorporate ceremonies in your communications practice?