How To Create A Feedback Loop During Change Communication

Communication gaps and weak feedback loops hurt business success. [Client Case Study] A large hospital network noticed declining patient satisfaction scores. Even with state-of-the-art facilities and technology, patients reported feeling unheard, frustrated, and confused about their care plans. The executive team assumed the problem was with staff training or outdated workflows. ‼️ Mistake: Relying on high-level reports and not direct frontline feedback. Nurses, doctors, and administrative staff communicate differently based on their backgrounds, generations, and roles. - Senior physicians prefer face-to-face or email communication - Younger nurses and tech staff rely on instant messaging and digital dashboards - Patients (especially elderly ones) need clear verbal explanations, but many received rushed instructions or digital paperwork ‼️ Mistake: Differences weren't acknowledged and crucial patient information was lost, leading to errors, frustration, and decreased trust. Frontline staff experienced communication challenges daily but lacked a way to share them with leadership in a meaningful way. ❌️ Reporting structures were too slow or ineffective. Feedback was either ignored, filtered through multiple levels of management, or only addressed after major complaints. ❌️ Executives made decisions based on outdated assumptions. They focused on training programs instead of fixing communication systems. ❌️ Systemic decline Employee burnout increased as staff struggled with inefficient systems. Patient satisfaction declined, leading to lower hospital ratings and reimbursement penalties. Staff turnover rose, increasing costs for recruitment and training. 💡 The Solution: A Multi-Channel Communication Strategy & Real-Time Feedback Loop ✅ Physicians, nurses, and patients receive information in ways that align with their preferences (e.g., verbal updates for elderly patients, digital dashboards for younger staff). ✅ Digital tool that allows staff to flag communication issues immediately rather than waiting for annual surveys. ✅ Executives hold regular listening sessions with frontline employees to better understand challenges before making changes. The Result - Patient satisfaction scores improved - Employee engagement increased - Operational efficiency improved Failing to adapt communication strategies and strengthen feedback loops affects reputation, retention, and revenue. (The 3Rs of a successful organization.) Frontline operations directly impact customer and employee experiences. This hospital’s struggle isn’t unique. Every industry faces the risk of misalignment between leadership decisions and frontline realities. Weak feedback loops and outdated communication strategies create costly inefficiencies. If your employees don’t feel heard, your customers won’t feel valued. Business suffers. Are you listening to the voices that matter most in your business? If not, it’s time to start.

Even the best leadership teams get surprised by resistance. Not because they’re doing something wrong, but because 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲. When leaders don’t have structured ways to surface what’s really happening, change gets slower, harder, and more painful than it needs to be. Allison Wright and I once worked with a leadership team that had no listening posts to hear how a large transformation was shaping their employees' daily lives. When we set them up, here’s what leaders discovered: ⏳ Employees were working late nights, struggling to keep up. 🤷♂️ Decision-making was painfully slow at every level. 🚧 Each day felt exhausting due to a lack of direction. Without realizing it, leaders had created an environment where change was burning people out instead of moving them forward. But once they saw the full picture, they were able to take action. They: ✅ Gave employees their time back by reprioritizing work. ✅ Clarified decision-making to remove roadblocks. ✅ Rebuilt trust by acting on feedback. Want to uncover hidden risks before they slow you down? Start with these three steps: 1️⃣ Create listening posts. Don’t assume silence is agreement. Use pulse surveys, focus groups, skip-level meetings, or informal check-ins to surface real feedback. 2️⃣ Ask the uncomfortable questions. Instead of “Is this working?” try: "What’s frustrating about this change?" and/or "Where are we slowing you down instead of enabling you?" 3️⃣ Act on what you hear. Employees don’t expect perfection, but they do expect leaders to acknowledge pain points and take action. Even small adjustments rebuild trust. The best leaders don’t just drive change, they expand their visibility. What’s helped you uncover blind spots in change? #ChangeLeadership #Change #Leadership #Blindspots #Visibility

Part 4: What Good Change Really Looks Like — Adoption, Activation, and the Hard Part of Digital Transformation! We’ve all been there. The platform is live. The AI engine is in place. The dashboards are beautiful. But no one’s using it. Or worse—people are using it wrong. Here’s the truth I’ve learned over and over again: Transformation doesn’t fail in the design. It fails in the adoption. And adoption isn’t about a big announcement or a training deck—it’s about trust, behavior change, and making sure what we build actually fits how people work. Here are a few principles that can help: 🔹 Change champions aren’t a buzzword—they’re the glue. Identify trusted employees across regions or functions to act as embedded advocates. These individuals can test early, share success stories in team forums, and coach others hands-on—making adoption feel more peer-driven than top-down. 🔹 Leadership can’t just approve—it has to participate. Encourage execs and managers to model the new tools during business reviews or day-to-day decisions. A single team lead running a planning session using the new dashboard sends a clearer message than any email blast. 🔹 Train the process, not just the tech. Design enablement around “how this helps me do my job better”—not just “what buttons to click.” Walkthroughs like “how to prep for a forecast review in 10 minutes” or “how to handle exceptions faster” resonate far more than feature overviews. 🔹 Personalized onboarding > one-size-fits-all. Tailor your rollout by role. A finance analyst cares about variance, a sales manager about trending, and an ops lead about exceptions. Deliver just enough context to help them act quickly and confidently. 🔹 Build feedback loops into the rollout. Set up simple ways to gather input and adapt—like Slack channels, feedback buttons, or short check-in surveys. Monitor usage, flag common drop-offs, and adjust fast. Showing that feedback turns into action builds trust quickly. I’ve said it before: launching the tech is the easy part. The hard part—and the real work—is getting people to trust it, use it, and embed it into how they work. That’s where the value lives. And that’s where transformation actually happens. #DigitalTransformation #ChangeManagement #Adoption #Leadership #TechEnablement #AI #ProductDelivery #DigitalStrategy P.S. Nothing beats a good team lunch to bring people together. At the end of the day, transformation is about people—sharing ideas, building trust, and yes… passing the biryani (Google it, it’s worth it). 😊