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Passion for change
How to get employees on board with change
By Brooke Bates
Smart Business Pittsburgh | March 2009
Page 1 of 2
Jeff Battin
founder and chairman, Communifx
Twenty years after Jeff
Battin founded his company, people have finally
stopped asking if he sells fax
machines for a living.
Communifax, the marketing
company Battin founded, confused clients because the message wasn’t strong and clear. So
last summer, Battin guided 82
employees through a rebranding process that restructured
the company’s mission, down to
the name.
Communifax became
Communifx, with a nod toward
the company’s “effects” on customers.
“Everybody is charged with
part of the process,” says Battin,
the chairman of the company.
“That project is only as strong
as its weakest link.”
Smart Business spoke with
Battin about how to drive a
change as big as rebranding
through your company.
Q. How can a leader involve
employees in rebranding the
company?
I have to be out there listening. We’ve grown so fast
that it’s hard for me to keep
up with the new faces. I’m
constantly out there, putting
my hand out, introducing
myself. I don’t introduce
myself by title; I introduce
myself by my name: ‘Hi, I’m
Jeff. What’s your name?
What do you do?’
I think it says a lot for the
chairman and owner to reach
out and learn a little bit about
these people that are actually
driving your business. I get a
sense of whether or not that
vision’s shared by keeping my
ear to the ground as much as
possible.
Every single employee was
interviewed as a part of this
[rebranding] process. We
involved the associates so
that they felt they were part
of it. Every employee was
interviewed for at least 15
minutes to half an hour
through an independent company and so we learned our
weaknesses our strengths.
Based on that, we developed
the brand personality, the
brand pillars, the essence.
Q. What’s your advice for a
leader during the change?
Commit yourself in a
very passionate way. If
you’re not almost to the
point of overzealous about
your position and your
new strategy, then you’ve
not sold yourself on it. And
if you haven’t sold yourself
on the new vision or the
new strategy, then it’s
going to be impossible to
sell your associates. And if
you can’t sell your associates, then you’re dead in
water.
A lot of it starts with your
passion. You can’t walk in
the office in a bad mood.
You have to leave your frustrations — whether they’re
personal or even if they’re
business-related — at the
door. Passion starts from the
top, and it works its way
down. If I show up to work
with an attitude or I carry
issues or problems around
the office, it zaps their vision,
it zaps their attitude.
They view me as the leader,
not only for my strategic vision
but as the one who started the
company, who drives the passion. I have to articulate that
vision not in what I say all the
time but in my actions.
