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 — help me make the case that we can’t be strategic and proactive unless we stop doing so many tactical things other teams should be doing, especially when it comes to operational customer communications. How do I sell that internally?
Ahh, I hear you! It can be super frustrating to watch your goals/priorities get buried under tasks that, if we’re being honest, aren’t really yours in the first place. And trust, I’m all for leaning in to help, but you can only do so much! So your instinct that something has to give is spot on. You can’t build a proactive function while you’re the help desk for every other team’s messaging.
That said, here’s what I’d suggest. The case you’re describing (“we can’t be strategic unless we stop being tactical”) is a bit of a binary, and binaries have a funny way of losing in a room full of stakeholders. The second you frame it as this or that, you’ve basically handed everyone else permission to argue for “that”… and suddenly you’re the team trying to offload work instead of the team trying to elevate (or at the very least prioritize!) it. And from what I’ve seen over the years, almost no company splits cleanly into strategic-only or tactical-only comms anyway. Most often it lands right in the middle.
So instead of “stop giving us the tactical stuff,” I’d build your case around making your strategy visible and shared. If I had to guess, all that tactical work keeps landing on your desk because nobody outside your team actually knows what your strategy is or what it’s there to do. And strategy that only comms can see isn’t really strategy… it’s a secret! Show your leaders a clear picture of what proactive customer comms could unlock (plus what the current scramble is costing).
Here’s a move I love for getting there: go on a little listening tour. Before you make any case at all, sit down with the teams leaning on you and the leaders you’re hoping to win over. Ask them what they think comms is for, where they feel the gaps, what they wish they could count on you for. You’ll learn a ton! And you’ll quietly be building the coalition that makes your pitch land later, because people tend to support what they helped shape. (Bonus: you might find some of that tactical work genuinely should stay with you, and some of it the other teams would happily take back if there were just a clear process. Gold!!)
Then, once you’ve made your case, try not to treat it as a one-and-done. Build in some regular feedback (a standing check-in, a quarterly pulse survey, even just an open door/Zoom room) so the boundaries you set can flex as the business shifts. You’re not after a rigid line between strategic and tactical — you’re after a shared sense of who owns what and why. Do the listening first, and I think you’ll find the case mostly makes itself!
