I am completely gripped by the Winter Olympics.

I couldn’t tell you the rules of most of the sports. I have no idea what separates a good snowboarding run from a medal‑winning one. And yet thanks to BBC commentators Ed Leigh and Tim Warwood. I find myself fully invested. They have a gift of bringing the viewer up to speed on the technicalities without jargon or being condescending. They explain what matters, what to watch for, and why a moment is significant.

What Ed and Tim are doing isn’t that different from what organisations ask of leaders during change. Help the audience understand what matters and why it matters.

The importance of understanding 

Understanding is critical to successful change because people don’t change their behaviour simply because they’ve been told something is happening; they change when they can make sense of what’s changing, why it matters, and what it means for them personally.

I was speaking with an exasperated leader last week. They told me they had “done comms,” but people still didn’t get it.

They felt staff were being deliberately obstructive and was quickly running out of patience from employees resisting change. From their perspective, the change had been communicated the change multiple times.

As gently as I could, I suggested that communication and understanding are not the same thing. Understanding does not happen because information has been transmitted. It happens when meaning has been absorbed. It takes time, repetition and space for dialogue. It requires managers who are confident enough to listen to frustration without becoming defensive. It requires leaders who can tolerate discomfort rather than interpreting every challenge as resistance.

Understanding is evidenced when people can explain the change back to you in their own words, when they can see how it connects to the wider context, and when they can articulate what it means for them personally. That level of clarity rarely comes from a single town hall or slide deck.

It’s also important to clarify that understanding does not mean agreement; it means people can see the rationale clearly, even if they still feel conflicted about it.

The role of internal comms

Communicating change is not a one-off act. It is a process of sense-making. And helping people make sense of what’s happening requires listening as much as explaining. It requires patience. It requires the willingness to hear the same question more than once without assuming ill intent.

Internal communications supports this by helping the organisation move beyond one-way information sharing to create space for dialogue, listening and sense-making clarifying the rationale for change, acknowledging uncertainty, tailoring messages for different audiences, and enabling managers and teams to have ongoing conversations that help people explore implications and build meaning over time, rather than just receive messages.

Five questions to check whether you are understanding change: 

1. Have employees genuinely shaped this change? Not consulted at the end or invited to validate decisions already made, but involved early enough to influence direction. Real involvement builds ownership and credibility, and it dramatically increases the likelihood that people will understand not just the outcome but the thinking behind it.

2. Do we understand the emotional landscape? Organisations are dealing with multiple overlapping changes and this is having an impact on people’s wellbeing. If you haven’t taken time to explore how different groups are feeling, you are guessing and your communications will miss the mark.

3. Is the ‘what’s in it for me’ clear for different groups? The same change can feel like opportunity to one team and threat to another. If you cannot clearly explain what it means for people in their specific context how do we expect them to understand?

4. Have we built time into the plan for sense-making? Most change plans are structured around delivery dates and implementation phases. Very few make time for alignment. Without deliberate space for questions, dialogue and reflection, people will create their own

5. Are leaders equipped to listen, not just transmit? People managers are asked to land messages they did not shape and answer questions they cannot always resolve. If they are unsupported or uncomfortable with challenge, understanding breaks down at the point where it matters most, and trust erodes quickly.

If internal communication provides the commentary for organisational change, our role is not simply to describe what is happening. It is to translate complexity into meaning and help people understand even when the rules are unfamiliar and the conditions keep shifting.