Why Your Communications Team Should Not Be A One Man Show!

A one man show (in business or work context) is defined as a person who does and manages everything by themselves.  And while there are some contexts where this may be necessary or useful, strategic communications is not one of them.  For a communications team to be effective, it must be a team of at least 2 or 3 people. This is because you need someone else to edit your work, discuss your strategy with and think through your problem and solution.

Strategic communications is a team effort. And the bigger your organization, business, brand or risk – the more time, resources, skills and expertise you need to invest in structured and strategic communications.

The following are 5 reasons why your Communications Team should not be a one man show:

1. To create an end-to-end communications strategy and plan requires multi-skills working simulataneously.
2. It is practically impossible to run internal and external communications simultaneously as a one man show without one being de-prioritized over the other.
3. Managinag internal communications for a big organization i.e. 100+ employees is a full-time job.
4. To establish an effective communications structure and team requires the development of functiona and fit-for-purpose systems, protocols and processes. It is impossible for one person to do the strategic thinking, strategy development and implementation by themselves alone and manage it effectively.
5. One person cannot manage media, brand, communications, content development, events, campaigns, sponsorships, donations, internal communications, issues and crisis management by themselves in one role. Many things will suffer.

How to Resource Your Communications Team Effectively

1. Get external support – If you insist on having just one person as a full-time employee in your communications team, then you need to have standing retainership agreements with competent external agencies to help with media relations, online and social media management; brand visibility, events and campaigns – while the in-house person focuses on strategy, oversight/overall communications strategy and internal communications.
2. Build a strong internal team – The much better approach for major organizations, brands and institutions is to build a strong internal tea of experts of at least 3 or 4 skilled professionals ( a Communications lead, media specialist, internal communications support and a communications advisor). External agency support would only be necessary for media buying, in-person events management and for designs, printing, imagery and visual communications. The advantage of this approach is that you grow your own timber and develop internal resilience and capacity that would be useful for issues and crisis management when the time comes