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More Than Messaging: Your Impact as a Communicator is Bigger Than You Think

August 14, 2024

As a communicator, it’s easy to feel like a mere vessel: message in, message out. After all, running the company is the job of the people who, well, run the company.

But as anyone who’s worked in the communication field knows, communicating is only one part of the job. Organizations don’t just need someone to hit “send” on an email. They need people who can understand how to work and maintain the systems that support their communications. People who understand what’s happening in and around the organization and how it all fits together. People who can provide counsel on how the organization can use communication to further its aims and make a difference.

Because of these divergent needs, the inherent role of the professional communicator encompasses many functions. Though diverse in nature, these functions can be categorized into four primary roles: Communicator, Operations Manager, Change Champion, and Strategic Partner. Earlier this year, we explored these roles as the base framework for how to tackle your many 2024 priorities. Now, let’s consider how these four roles function through the lens of tactics and strategy.

  • Communicator: This is the role with the most direct contact over the daily fundamentals of communicating: developing comms plans; creating messaging, content and collateral; preparing for crises; and responding to the needs of leadership. Essential skills for this role include writing and project management.
  • Operations Manager: This role is focused on the effective delivery of communications. Processes, channels and measurement are the focus, in the service of ensuring that employees are hearing what they need to hear as smoothly and efficiently as possible. The emphasis here is on technology and logistics.
  • Change Champion: This role sees and leverages opportunities to use communications to drive change within the organization. Practitioners are focused on how the principles behind successful organizational change are implemented to ensure that desired changes and transformations are achieved, which ultimately improves results. The watchwords here are empathy and innovation.
  • Strategic Partner: This role takes in the big picture and advocates for communications as a key tool in achieving the organization’s goals, both internally and externally. It requires a deep understanding of the company’s mission and objectives as a means of anticipating and responding to changing needs and challenges. It’s a role that requires critical thinking and leadership capabilities.

While these four roles could be looked at as a graduating scale of tactical to strategic, ROI sees them as a Venn diagram or four-quadrant square, with each role overlapping the others to varying degrees based on department needs, professional level and organizational goals. For example, a Chief Communications Officer will have a much higher ratio of Change Champion and Strategic Partner than an entry-level hire, and a director will likely bounce back and forth regularly across all four roles.

Many communication professionals’ careers likely began with a strong emphasis on the tactical functions of the Communicator role, before growing to increasingly encompass the strategic responsibilities of the other roles. But that’s not the only possible career path. Because every job contains a different balance of the four roles, smaller communication teams may require each team member to spend relatively equal amounts of time in each of these roles. Regardless of how your career develops, movement between the four roles is ideally a cumulative process. What you learn in one quadrant stays with you as you activate the others.

Communication teams often need to grow their capabilities and learn how to embrace the full range of roles available to them. Sheryl Lewis, President of ROI, emphasizes that this is especially true when developing the mindset of a Strategic Partner, which is “simultaneously the subtlest and most sweeping part of a communicator’s job” and requires time for communicators to cultivate.

“Communicators tend to be very solution-driven,” says Lewis, “so there’s often a push to come up with quick answers. But acting as strategic partners requires patience and a deeper approach. It’s important to pause and fully understand an organization’s business needs to shift from tactical messaging to strategic communication that actually drives goals.”

This business-centric mindset, developed over time, ensures that internal communication is integrated into a company’s strategy from the outset, rather than just getting involved once it is already underway.

Proactively developing a strategic perspective can significantly enhance a communication team’s impact, transforming it from a reactive function into a true driver of the business that senior leaders will want at the table when important decisions are made.

ROI has many resources that can help you and your team transform into more strategic practitioners. To get a taste, you can sign up to learn more about our interactive workshop “Getting out of the tactical and into the strategic.” This workshop and others can be delivered through an online session or onsite at your organization.

Visit our workshops page for details and reach out for further discussion!

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Contributors:

Jeff Lewonczyk ROI Internal Communication Agency Employee.
Jeff Lewonczyk

Director

Jeff is a strategist and award-winning illustrator with a background in theater, music and arts advocacy. A resident of Brooklyn, he directs musical comedies and helps clients connect with their audiences through compelling stories and messaging.

Sheryl Lewis ROI Internal Communication Agency Employee.
Sheryl Lewis

President

As a founding member of ROI, Sheryl has played a crucial role in the company's success. With over 30 years of experience, she has spearheaded a wide range of initiatives, including strategy development, change management, leadership alignment, and organizational design. Her favorite part of her job is serving as a strategic advisor to many of ROI’s Partner Group members. She holds a BA in Economics from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard University.