To change leaders, the communication plan. In an earlier video, we looked at your stakeholder analysis. And the end point of that analysis was to start to sketch out the strategies and tactics that you're going to use to persuade your stakeholders. The next step is to build a communications plan. For key stakeholders, you may develop a communications plan for each stakeholder. But in general, you will have one broad communications plan covering a range of stakeholders.
So let's take a look at what you need to document for each of your stakeholders. The first thing is some definition of what you mean by that stakeholder. So if for example, you're referred to into a stakeholder as being staff in the IT department, then you need to be specific about who is and is not included. And it makes sense to also document their primary concerns. but crucially, what you do need to document is the outcome you want from the communication program. Remember that for many stakeholders, it's not just going to be one communication.
It's going to be a series of messages and consultations and other communications. So what are you trying to achieve? The next thing is to separate the plan out into one line for each communication. And for each communication. There are six things that you'll need to document and the first is the message that you're trying to get across. Secondly, the tone of voice that you want to communicate with, are you going to be consulting or commanding, informing or instructing?
It's crucial that you think about the tone of voice because that way, once you've drafted the message, you can then test it with colleagues to make sure it strikes that right tone. And this is important to prevent miscommunication, where what you say is perfectly reasonable, but the way it's received as a result of the tone of voice that you use, is entirely unwanted. The next thing to think about is the ideal medium to use to communicate that particular message with that particular tone to the stakeholder. And there is an enormous choice of media that we can use for communicating in the modern world of work. Next, think about timing. For a recurring communication, like a newsletter, or an update, email Status Report.
It makes sense to document the frequency for individual communications on a program, set the date, and possibly even the time for the message to go out. Next, we need to think about how you're going to gather feedback so that you can test the extent to which your message has been properly received, properly understood, and if appropriate, has been acted upon. And finally, document who's going to be responsible for drafting and sending out that communication. So a stakeholder communications plan is a very simple tool to use, but it gives you control of the communication process and is therefore an essential part of any change.