Hey there, I'm Devin!
Most of the time you can catch me deep in the world of internal comms at Workshop (yes, the Happy Mondays folks!), and while I love AI, there are just some comms questions that need a human who really gets it… that’s me!
Hey Devin! In communication processes that require a leadership cascade, how do you determine which levels should be involved? In an organization with multiple layers — directors, managers, coordinators — what criteria do you use to decide where the cascade starts and who carries it forward? I’m especially thinking about culture-related messages and broader organizational communications. Are there established best practices or decision frameworks for getting the cascade structure right?
Okay if I’m being honest… this is one of the trickier judgment calls in internal comms and the fact that you’re thinking about it this carefully already puts you ahead. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) there’s no single “right” answer, but there are a few filters I’d suggest running every message through before you decide.
The first question I always ask is: who needs context before everyone else does? If a message is going to generate questions (and most culture-related or organizational messages will) the people responsible for fielding those questions need to hear it first. That usually means managers, because they’re the ones in 1:1s and team meetings when the reactions start coming in. A manager who’s blindsided by an announcement is a liability, not a resource. So if your message requires follow-up conversations at the team level, start your cascade there at minimum.
The second filter is about the weight of the message. A light, celebratory culture update probably doesn’t need to travel through every layer before it goes broad. But anything that touches org structure, role changes, policy shifts, or anything employees might read between the lines on? That warrants a more intentional cascade, starting higher up. The more sensitive the message, the higher you start, and the more time you build in between each layer.
For broader organizational comms specifically, I think about it less like a hierarchy and more like a ripple. Who’s closest to the impact? Start there, then move outward. Directors and above for context and alignment, managers for fielding questions, and then everyone else once the people closest to it are prepared. And the timing between each ripple matters just as much as the order — a cascade that moves too fast doesn’t give leaders the space to actually absorb and respond, which kind of defeats the whole purpose.
Apologies on the lengthiness of this response, but one more thing! Document the logic as you go. The first time you work through one of these decisions, write down why you made the calls you made. Over time, that becomes your framework — something you can point to and refine. It’s a lot easier to get leadership alignment on a cascade structure when there’s a pattern to reference instead of a case-by-case negotiation every time.
