Internal communication is regularly invoked as a remedy: the teams are not following, so we must explain better. Sometimes that is true. Often the problem is not that the message lands badly, but that there is no message.
What internal communication actually does
Once leadership has decided, internal communication serves three concrete functions:
- Aligning — everyone understands the direction taken and their place in it
- Settling — disagreements are resolved by reference to a known decision
- Surfacing — teams flag what leadership cannot see
All three assume there is a decision to refer to. Without one, the first produces noise, the second bogs down, and the third surfaces signals nobody knows how to read.
Clarity is not a quality of the writing
Misunderstandings are readily blamed on the wording. But a clear message about a confused intention remains confused. The clarity at issue here is that of the decision, not of the sentence carrying it.
A perfectly written message that does not say what the business has decided informs nobody.
The four elements, and the forgotten one
Sender, message, channel, recipient: the model is familiar. A fifth term is always missing — what the recipient is supposed to be able to do with the information. Communication that opens no decision at the level of the person receiving it is information, not communication.
The right order
Decide, then explain. The reverse — explaining and hoping discussion will produce the decision — consumes a great deal of time and wears out the teams’ trust, since they work out very quickly that they are being asked to buy into something that does not yet exist.