Organizational Name Change

Q. We are embarking on a name change which will involve a lot of internal and external communication. If you’ve gone through the process, can you share best practices or lessons learned?

A. Here are some key points to keep in mind for the rollout:

• Develop relevant messaging to key groups, addressing why the name change is important to them and explaining the strategy and rationale behind the decision.
• Start by communicating internally to the board and executive team, then physicians and then line staff. (Work closely with human resources on the process.)
• All employees should be considered brand ambassadors. After all, they are the brand!
• Customer-facing staff must be on board and in sync prior to rolling out the brand to patients, donors and other external audiences. This can be accomplished through presentations (think storytelling).
• Once you have educated internal groups, launch your external communications to educate referring physicians, strategic partners, patients and the community and the media.
• Develop a calendar to map out the steps in your internal and external communications plan.

A. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to follow the advice to "think storytelling" when engaging all staff. I would even go as far as to say that it should be similar to an agency pitch. Sell the story and the idea before you even get to the name.

Here is a guarantee: there will be people outside of the organization that will scoff and chuckle and say things like, "Whose idea was that?" You will want your staff so engaged that when they hear this kind of talk they will defend the story and the new name/brand.

There is another option though – the benign political rename. Maybe your health system is being acquired or is merging with another system and a legal entity name is chosen. In those situations, you'll want to play up the story and value of the new organization and allow the name change to be an extension of that.