Sunday, November 16, 2025
Sunday, November 16, 2025
Sia Papageorgiou:
There’s a trend I see on LinkedIn and other platforms that makes my heart sink every time.
You’ve probably seen it too. Posts asking: “What are the top five ridiculous things you’ve been asked to do as a communication professional?” Or memes showing a character from a sitcom rolling their eyes with a caption like: “That feeling when someone asks you to make this look pretty.”
These posts get likes, shares and lots of laughs. They build instant camaraderie. But they do nothing for our profession. Instead, they reinforce the very stereotypes we’ve spent years trying to dismantle.
When you joke publicly about being asked to “just send an email” or “make it look nice,” you’re not educating anyone. You’re glamourising tactics. You’re highlighting the problem while contributing to it. You’re essentially telling the world: “We’re not strategic, we’re order-takers and that’s really funny.”
It’s not funny. It’s corrosive. And it has to stop.
Why it matters
Communication is not about fonts, formatting or fire-fighting. When it’s done well, it’s about building alignment, trust and performance. It’s about enabling people to understand the strategy, feel confident in their role and deliver meaningful business results.
Every time we reduce our work to a punchline, we chip away at the very credibility we’re trying to build with leaders, employees and importantly, each other.
Think about how it looks to the C-suite. Imagine a CEO scrolling your feed and seeing you mocking your own profession with jokes about PowerPoint slides and emails. Does that signal confidence? Does that build trust in your strategic value? Or does it confirm every suspicion they’ve ever had – that communication is “nice to have” rather than business-critical?
We can’t expect leaders to see us as equals if we don’t treat ourselves with respect first.
I totally get it. These posts resonate because they capture a shared frustration. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been asked to do something tactical that felt beneath our role. Venting can feel good. But venting in public is different from venting with a trusted colleague over coffee.
Every communication request, no matter how tactical it appears, is an opportunity to think strategically.
That doesn’t mean you have to say “no” to everything. It means you should use curiosity and strategic framing to elevate the conversation. Instead of feeding the stereotype, you challenge it constructively.
So why do we keep glamourising tactics online?
But remember, every time you trade strategy for sympathy likes, you reinforce the idea that communication is tactical. You add fuel to the very fire you want to put out.
What to do instead
If you feel undervalued, the answer isn’t to post memes. The answer is to practice and showcase strategic communication. Here’s how:
When asked to perform a tactical task, don’t roll your eyes. Ask questions. Demonstrate curiosity. Position yourself as a business partner who can help solve the business problem.
When I was working in-house, an internal client once handed me a 40-page slide deck at the last minute and said: “Can you tidy this up before the all-site town hall?”
The easy thing would have been to do exactly what they asked and send it back. That would have fed the stereotype of communication professionals as “decorators.” Instead, I asked a different set of questions:
As a result, I cut the deck to ten slides, simplified the narrative around three key priorities and built in two live polls to gauge understanding. After the event, 82% of employees could accurately describe the key priorities, up from 37% in the baseline pulse.
My approach turned a “make it pretty” request into a measurable business outcome. And it reframed the communication team in the eyes of leadership – from order-takers to trusted advisors.
Stop reporting how many emails were sent or how many clicks you got. Start reporting what changed as a result. Did understanding increase? Did confidence rise? Did adoption happen faster?
When leaders or colleagues don’t understand the value of communication, assume ignorance, not malice. Take the time to explain how communication drives results. Show them evidence and teach them how to use you well.
If you want to post on LinkedIn, share a story of how your communication initiative improved safety, sped up adoption or built trust. Show your peers what’s possible. Inspire them to step up too.
If you don’t feel confident working strategically, invest in yourself. Learn about measurement, change communication or leadership coaching. Being strategic isn’t just a mindset, it’s a skillset.
Humour isn’t the enemy. But use it wisely. Instead of laughing at our profession, laugh with it in a way that teaches. For example, a light-hearted post showing how many acronyms employees juggle in a day can segue into a serious point about clarity. Humour should reinforce your expertise, not undermine it.
I know some people will read this and say, “But Sia, it’s just a joke. It’s harmless.”
It’s not harmless. It shapes perception. It influences how leaders, peers and even future communication professionals see the role of communication.
If you know me, you know I care deeply about our profession. I’ve dedicated my career to elevating its standing. That’s why I’m challenging you, not to shame you but to invite you to do better. To think critically about how your words and posts contribute to the narrative about our work.
We can keep feeding the stereotype or we can dismantle it
We are at a serious inflection point. The world of work is changing faster than ever. AI is changing how people consume information. Employees are demanding more meaning, more trust and more humanity from their organisations.
This really is our moment. Communication professionals (especially those working internally) can step forward as strategic advisors who help leaders navigate complexity, build alignment and create cultures of care. But only if we stop glamourising tactics and start owning our true value.
So, the next time you feel tempted to post a meme about being asked to “make things pretty,” stop and ask yourself: Is this helping or hurting the way people see communication?
We can’t control every perception. But we can control how we present ourselves. We can choose to position our work as strategic, not trivial. We can decide to demonstrate value instead of mocking the absence of it.
Please stop glamourising tactics and start demonstrating impact.
Respect yourself, respect our profession and respect the people who rely on you to help their organisations succeed.
Because communication is not a punchline. It’s a business driver. And the world needs us to act like it.
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Sia Papageorgiou is the Co-Founder of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence and is a Strategic Columnist
Written by: Editor
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Sia, I agree that the memes and self-depreciating jokes don’t help elevate the profession. I also know that misery loves company and those jokes help show others that we share their pain. That said, I see a lot of ‘strategy documents’ that are not strategy at all but a list of tactics to take an organization from A to B. Our lexicon is in need of a retrofit. Words like communication and strategy have become so misused, they have lost their meaning. It is unfortunate that communication has become synonymous with distributed text, videos, etc. and doesn’t have the greater meaning of connection, engagement, understanding. Likewise, strategy, is too often misconstrued as a collection of tactics rather than a chosen direction to achieve something new/different. I don’t have answers to this but I feel that until we can “communicate” the memes will continue.