There is an antidote for a badly managed story. The key is building a congruent story by eliminating the very issues that create incongruence. The first step is to get a business plan in place. To do it as defined in this text, you will be forced to deal with the key planning elements as discrete elements and then again as an integrated framework. This is the only known process to make the message authentic, congruent, and believable.
Being authentic requires truth and hard work. It requires an acknowledgment of which you really are in terms of what you believe in, how you behave, and what you expect. If yours is a lethargic organization, don’t claim high performance. Being authentic means identifying all the problems in your system, communicating to employees that you know the problems, and finally telling them how you intend to fix those problems. Everyone must share this hard work across the range of business activities and down the management structure. Everyone must participate in careful organizational analysis and the required actions to fix the problems.
Being congruent requires constant vigilance on the part of the whole management team. This means you must do what you say—every single time. There are situations where you will slip. Honest mistakes are okay. Employees do not expect their management to be perfect. They do expect them to live up to their word and match word and deed. Reaching a state where you and your management team are believed is a journey with history working against you. A mismanagement example made public doesn’t help your case. Building trust to counter this history is not an overnight event. After your story is completed, communicated, and demonstrated you will experience hesitance and resistance from employees. Remember two points: Employees have heard it all before, and actions speak louder than words.