Each week in this newsletter I tackle a question from a reader. This week’s question comes from a Senior Internal Communications Manager in a tech company who says:
Hi Joanna, Thank you so much for your newsletters - everyone in our team reads them avidly and the phrase ‘as Joanna said...’ often passes between us!
One thing that I’m curious about how to handle effective internal communication in an environment of constant change. So, you align your comms strategy to the business objectives, but those objectives might change. How can you navigate that kind of thing?”
Fantastic question, thank you for sending in this. Honestly I wonder why I've never written about this topic before because constant change is EVERYWHERE now and it can make planning and strategy feel so much more difficult for comms teams.
I hear this same kind of question from lots of different clients in lots of different industries and there is often a feeling of overwhelm or frustration from comms professionals who really want to deliver great work but feel a sense of whiplash dealing with endless change in the company.
Let's dive into this today and I'll do my best to give you some practical advice.
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Ok let's talk about strategy and objectives in times of immense change.
In my experience, your best starting point is this: your internal comms strategy needs to match the rhythm of your business.
If your company operates on a stable 3-year strategic plan with fixed priorities for that period of time, brilliant - you can go ahead and create a comms strategy with your own objectives and priorities to align with the business over the same period of time.
But if your leadership team changes direction every quarter then it's probably pointless for you to develop a 3 year strategy because you won't be able to align your work to the business priorities for that long of atime frame. You'll need to work differently.
Understand the planning cycle
Your first step is to understand your company’s planning cycle. Every organisation has its own rhythm for setting and reviewing strategic priorities. Some companies have rock solid 5-year plans that are pretty much set in stone and won't change. Others operate on more 'agile' plans that may not even be written down anywhere but are just verbal agreements in leadership meetings. And some fall somewhere in between. Your job is to figure out where your company sits on this spectrum.
Start with curiousity (of course). Here are some questions to help you get started:
- When does your leadership team typically set strategic priorities?
- How often do these priorities genuinely change? (Not just tweaks, but real shifts in direction)
- What triggers these changes? [Is it market conditions, competition, new leaders?)
- How do you hear about changes to company priorities - are you given updates or do you hear about it on the rumour mill?
Once you start to understand your company’s strategic rhythm, you can build a comms approach that matches it. Maybe it will never be realistic for you to build a 3-year internal comms strategy in your company. But you could build something with a shorter time frame and build in mechanisms to help you check business alignment on the way and see if things need to change.
Building an adaptive strategy framework
A practical approach you could try is to develop your strategy in two layers. The first layer is the fixed, stable layer that won't change unless there's a really massive, disruptive change in the business. This part will simply set out your overall internal comms goal for the next 12 - 24 months. It could be something like "Internal comms will align employees around the company strategy so they focus their efforts on delivering work that matters" or "Internal comms will build culture and connection to drive higher levels of productivity" or "Internal comms will deliver operational efficiencies through improved communication" or whatever you think matters most to your company.
Then the next layer of your strategy, your specific objectives, you can consider these more flexible and create them to serve shorter periods of time. These can shift and change as your leaders pivot. Maybe this quarter you’re focused on digital transformation, next quarter it might be about cost reduction messaging, the next it might be about upskilling managers to be better comunicators.
For example, your stable goal might be 'Build an engaged, informed workforce that delivers business results.' This doesn't change. But your quarterly objectives might shift from 'Increase understanding of new product launch by 80%' in Q1 to 'Support cost reduction initiatives through clear change communications' in Q2 when priorities change.
This kind of approach gives you stability without rigidity. You’re not constantly reinventing the wheel (your overall goal remains stable), but you’re also not stuck to delivering objectives that may be outdated if your leaders change direction.
Practical steps to stay aligned
Here’s what I’d recommend if your company is always changing:
Get closer to where decisions are made. Can you find out when and where strategic decisions happen in your company? Maybe it's the monthly board meeting or the quarterly business review. Get yourself a direct line to a source of information about this so that you're on top of what's coming and you can plan for it.
Build in regular review points for your planning approach. If your company changes plans a lot, then you plan for this. Schedule reviews and check-ins for yourself into your diary. Are your plans still aligned to what your leaders need or do you need to change a bit?
There’s no magic wand to make your company stop changing so fast. But you can learn to identify the rhythm and go with it so that you're not left scrambling. Align your work to priorities of the business and review and change this as you need to. A startup might need monthly strategic reviews while a utility company might work perfectly well with a 5-year plan.
Your value as an internal communicator isn’t in having a perfectly polished long-term strategy that never changes. It’s in being so connected to the business that you can adapt quickly while still maintaining strategic focus.
I'd add that you’re not being flaky or unstrategic by adapting to business changes. You’re being responsive and business-focused, which is exactly what great internal communicators do. So embrace the rhythm of your organisation, build in the flexibility you need and don't apologise for pivoting when the business does. After all, isn’t helping the organisation navigate change part of what we’re here for?
Thanks for reading and stay curious,
Joanna
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