Getting the whole team speaking as one

Do we work at the same place?

Silos and not understanding everything your organization does.

I work at a large organization that holds several large grants and thus has several objectives. When staff speak about our department, we’ve got a lot to share but we often don’t speak the same talk.

How do you deal with messaging in such a large organization? How do you get everyone to agree?

Our organization pulled together one staff member from each unit in the department to synthesize all we do into a statement of purpose. This team incorporated minds that are task-oriented and were voluntold by the division’s assistant directors. The point is, these individuals are efficient workers that don’t get overly lost in minutia (yeah I’m kind of talking about myself).

Unfortunately, this work will always have a little controversy. Some who think that we missed the mark on their program, went too far towards brevity, or didn’t go brief enough. I have been here long enough to know I will never make everyone happy. For the statement of purpose, we did have one round of feedback from all-staff. After we refined the statement it was approved by the director and assistant director so we’re expecting minimal pushback at its unveiling next month (fingers crossed).

And ya know what? It isn’t done. Our organization is always growing and evolving and so will our purpose. As we rollout our messaging campaign and messaging curriculum, we have pre-planned future check-in points to review and update all of our work (we started with a statement of purpose but we made other talking point materials).

It’s never done when it comes to messaging.