Before you can effectively communicate change to employees, you need to understand their point of view. And although employee surveys are the most common way to collect data, they don’t necessarily get at the heart of what employees feel about the brand. At Tribe, we take all of our clients through the Discovery phase to get a better understanding of the people behind the brand. Here are three suggestions for developing more engaging questions for employees:

• Employee interviews. Interviews with a dozen employees in a variety of functions is a great starting point. From these interviews, we ask questions that will reveal what employees want most in terms of content and how willing they are to share their voice. From there, we develop strategies to close that gap. Qualitative interviews tend to reveal much more valuable information than a bunch of numbers from a poll. And by asking questions in a different way, you can often get a more “real” response, not just someone repeating back to you what they think they’re supposed to say.

• Leadership interviews. How well does leadership see their vision being communicated to employees? When it comes to a new project or initiative, ask questions that will help foster a greater understanding of what motivates management to not only becomes engaged with a project, but become ambassadors for it. The most important group to interview may be the fulcrum group, that critical group of managers just under the leadership team who lead the general employee population. If the fulcrum group jumps on-board with your project, it’s much more likely to be a success. The findings in this phase will help guide future communications around the project.

• Communications audit. Once you’ve finished with interviews, it’s time to develop your communications strategy. Take a look at your existing channels and determine the best way to communicate your message. This often involves using multiple channels to reach different internal audiences.

Once the Discovery phase is complete, it’s time to develop tactics and content from the information you gleaned during interviews. Communicating change is more likely to be successfully if you anticipate and explain any hurdles that employees expect to face along the way.