Belief System Analysis · Updated on .
The first months of a communications department should lead to an agreement: what decisions should it inform, which audiences should it understand and what commitments can it keep? A hundred-day calendar is an organizational tool, not a standard. Its value lies in clarifying the mandate, before the accumulation of operations.
An appointment often triggers a list of requests: redo the site, make the manager more visible, modernize internally, improve the reputation. All may be relevant. However, their addition does not constitute a strategy. The first responsibility consists of discussing the links between these requests and the problems they are supposed to solve.
Listen to the decisions that are being prepared
An interview with a member of the executive team should not be limited to their expectations regarding communication. We must understand the choices he will have to make, the resistance he anticipates and the information he is missing. A site opening, a reorganization or a change of offer involve different audiences and different responsibilities.
At the same time, interviewing operational teams makes it possible to identify gaps between the organization's promise and actual experience. Employees in contact with customers, site managers and institutional relations often hold information that is absent from central presentations. The objective is not to collect as many opinions as possible: it is to identify contradictions which could modify a decision.
Formulate a contribution contract
The mandate can be contained in a short note. It describes the decisions to which communication contributes, the subjects for which it coordinates and the points on which another function retains responsibility. It also specifies the conditions of access to information and the alert procedures.
This clarification is in line with the attention paid by the OECD and G20 Governance Principles to responsibilities and transparency. It does not mean that all organizations must adopt the same structure. A small team may have a clear mandate; a large management can remain confined to execution if it discovers the trade-offs once they have been decided. [1]
Go from catalog to choices
For each project, ask three questions: what change do we expect from which public, what operational conditions must be met and what are we giving up to achieve it? An internal campaign does not compensate for the lack of response to a change of profession. A speech does not become a priority because a media window opens.
The roadmap can then distinguish recurring obligations, projects that support a major decision and experiments. The latter need a hypothesis, a duration and a stopping criterion. They must not be added without limit to an already saturated production. The AMEC measurement framework helps separate what is produced from what actually changes for audiences. [1]
Scenario: a group in transformation
Let's imagine a company that asks its new communications manager to quickly launch a campaign on its merger with another company. The interviews reveal that managers do not yet know how to explain the future organization. The priority becomes the preparation of the responses, the climbing circuit and the information calendar. The external story comes next, based on sufficiently established decisions.
In this illustrative situation, a first result is not necessarily visible externally. This may involve an agreement between general management, human resources and communications on what will be announced, to whom and in what order, respecting the applicable procedures. This preparation avoids presenting a hypothesis as a decision or promising the teams unavailable precision.
What must be acquired at the first review
The mandate review examines a few concrete elements: a map of the issues, three or four priorities explained, those responsible identified and an arbitration mechanism. It also looks at what has been stopped or simplified. A successful takeover is not measured by the number of new devices.
The last point concerns the right to disagree. If communication cannot signal that an announcement contradicts the facts or that a commitment exceeds means, its mandate remains incomplete. The first hundred days serve to establish this advisory capacity: a precise contribution to decisions, based on knowledge of the public and the reality of the organization.