Institute of Internal Communication

How do you make massive changes to a culture that has been in existence for hundreds of years? That was the challenge faced by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) when it embarked on its “More Foreign, Less Office” (MFLO) change programme.

Louise Boyle, director of change at the FCO, and Alex Ellis, Her Majesty's ambassador to Portugal, outlined some of the steps they had taken.

The FCO employs 15,000 people with 12,500 of them overseas. It operates in 178 countries, including 14 overseas territories, such as Bermuda and Turks and Caicos. The scale of its operation is underlined by the fact that its internet platform has to operate in 40 different languages.

The reality is that the FCO aims to grow business abroad, organises visas for people coming to the UK, handles policy work and is increasingly involved with counter terrorism.

“More Foreign, less Office” is shorthand for all the change programmes at the FCO, which consist of 11 big programes, delivering separate nuggets of improvement.

Louise said: “People could take part wherever they were. What we ended up with were more words than you'd find in a Harry Potter book.”

The content from the event was fed back to meetings where the change programme could be drawn up. This was important as it meant that everyone had contributed to it and were therefore more likely to engage with it.

Alex said that confidence has come back into the organisation as it is now being clearer about what it does and doesn't do.

A recent survey showed that 70% of people now understand why the FCO is changing and the employee engagement score is 69% - 10% higher than other government departments.

In summary Alex and Louise offered these pointers for a successful change programme:

• Senior sponsorship: having a board member drive the change programme has raised its profile and kept it at the forefront of the Board's agenda. Enlisting the support of key ambassadors to help drive change in a dispersed network was vital.
• Leadership: train leaders in change.
• Tie it to business planning: business planning and balanced scorecard contain results that are tied to change management. Directors and heads make a self assessment on how they are delivering change. They rate how well they communicate (again, using staff survey evidence).
• Transparent and honest: the high level change plan shows the good and the bad. Staff survey results are all posted on the intranet.
• You said, we did: relate back to staff the things they tell you and what has been done to change them. Include the things you haven't or can't change.
• Champions: have a network of change champions with whom you are in regular contact. They are your eyes and ears on the ground.
• Communicate, communicate and communicate!
• Face-to-face is king: supplement this with videoconferencing, teleconferencing and web-based events.