Let’s look at five things smart leaders do to lower barriers to change.

1. They sell more than they tell

Smart leaders are comfortable selling their ideas. They understand that “telling” someone what’s going to happen is very different from “selling” them on idea. I do not suggest that smart leaders use so called “high-pressure” sales tactics. By selling, I mean that they look for ways to get people emotionally committed to change.

They paint, and re-paint, vision for people. They focus on benefits, not costs. They understand that people need time to adjust, time to accept change. They work to inspire buy-in rather than compliance.

2. They help people tune-in to WII-FM

Sales and marketing professionals talk about radio station that most people tune-in to on a daily basis. They know about WII-FM (What’s in it for me?).

If it’s true about people in marketplace, then it’s true about people in workplace. Smart leaders know how to answer question on every employee’s mind: “What’s in it for me?”

Dr. Aubrey Daniels, noted behavioral analyst and author of Bringing Out Best in People, makes two great comments regarding change acceptance:

* “People don’t resist change, they resist being changed,” and * “People don’t resist change if change provides immediate positive consequences to them.”

Smart leaders know that people are generally more willing to do things that bring personal benefit than they are to do things that benefit organization. They take a pragmatic, not a cynical or negative, view of human nature. They see people for who they are and work to adjust their strategy to go with -- not against -- natural drives of people in their organization.

3. They work through “head grapes”

They have to learn "the difference between doing totally acceptable work and creating very new value...." he notes, in an Industry Week article. In other words, people in departments like Human Resources and Finance need to become entrepreneurial.

With that in mind, let's look at three ways you can use communication to add new value, whether you work in a functional department or not.

First, every department of every organization generates unique information. That comes from being astride several communication flows that come together in one office or area.

Information flows in from suppliers, from staff, and from other stakeholders. For example, people in your department read trade magazines, they attend seminars, they're in touch with people in other departments, and they may belong to trade associations.

If your department consciously gathers, sifts, analyzes, and organizes that information - formally or informally - then it's creating new value. It's now more than just information: it's business intelligence, information with added value. That's what we refer to as generating new information.

Moving to idea of condensing information, one striking characteristic of modern communication is amount of it moving around. No doubt you've heard references to information overload, an all too real problem for those whose work life revolves around information.