We don’t have a communication problem, we have an alignment issue

Sherley Pothen

Having led integrated communications and marketing across global, matrixed organizations, I always thought the issue was communication. It wasn’t. It was alignment. I’ve worked across teams where marketing was running campaigns, internal communications was driving engagement, leadership was sharing vision, and ESG and corporate teams were building reputation all doing the right things, but not together.

The moment it really hit me was in a meeting where another team presented something that could have significantly strengthened what we had just launched. We just didn’t know about it. That’s where organizations lose scale and business impact not because of lack of capability, but because communication across Corporate Affairs, Internal Communications, Marketing, GTM, and Content is fragmented. This is where the shift needs to happen from function-led communication to integrated, outcome-driven communication that aligns narrative, audience, and execution.

What started working for me was keeping it simple and bringing teams together early. In a consulting engagement with a surveillance and security solutions organization that I partnered with, this meant aligning teams on one clear message enabling safer, smarter environments through reliable surveillance and broke it down into practical focus areas: safety, smart monitoring, and reliability. Each team used this in their own way. RFPs focused on compliance and risk, digital and retail highlighted real use cases, sales conversations focused on multi-location deployments and scalability, and internal communication ensured leadership and employees were reinforcing the same priorities in meetings and updates not different messages.

I also introduced planning checkpoints and dependency mapping so teams were not just aligned in messaging but in timing and sequencing. But this is also where most organizations struggle. Even when a central theme exists, teams continue to work in silos with little visibility into each other’s work. Everyone creates their own version. The result is familiar repeated messages, too many emails, too many channels, and eventually people stop paying attention. The message gets diluted or lost, and impact drops.

What helped was simple visibility and discipline. Basic trackers, early check-ins, and encouraging teams to reuse what already existed instead of starting from scratch. It wasn’t easy. There were different priorities, strong ownership, and resistance to change. But once it started working, the difference was clear less duplication, better alignment, and communication that actually felt connected and more effective.

This becomes even more critical in GCCs, Shared Services, GBS, and Enterprise organizations where complexity is the default. I’m starting a short series on how project management, change management, and content strategy help make this work because communication today is not just messaging, it’s how strategy gets executed.

What’s one moment where you realized teams were working in silos?

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Sherley Pothen is a strategic communications and program management leader.