The First Huddle

In January, Pivot Strategies had the privilege of hosting our first Huddle. The Huddle is an opportunity for Internal Communications practitioners to come together to share best practices and network.

We were fortunate to hear from Stephanie Joranson, Director of Corporate Communications at Medtronic; Beth McGuire, Vice President of Provider Marketing and Communications at United Healthcare; Marie Yarroll, Global Communications Leader at Cargill Business Services; and Christopher Truscott, Internal and Executive Communications Lead at Target.

For those who missed this session, we want to share some of our favorite take-aways from the evening. In this issue, we are sharing tips for creating boundaries to ensure the most important work gets done:

1. 80/20 rule – Reserve 20% of the teams’ capacity for unplanned things that inevitably come up.

2. Apply the strategic yes, thoughtful no approach. Items that are included in the strategy and can be backed by data, receive the strategic yes. Those items not in the strategy or backed by data, receive the thoughtful no or alternate ideas for achieving their desired outcome that will not direct the team away from the most important work.

3. Create an enterprise employee narrative that prioritizes key employee messages. Have confidence in your expertise and get everyone aligned to the common strategy. Use the narrative to guide your employee communications.

4. Ask powerful questions to guide the requestor. Sometimes a leader requests a specific tactic. Rather than saying yes, ask powerful questions to get to the purpose and outcome they’re trying to achieve (i.e., What are you hoping to get out of this? What do you want your audience to do?).

5. Know how long things take and the value of your time. Ask how it aligns with the strategy and what item will drop off the priority list if you take that on. Understand what it will cost you (e.g., time with your family, a workout, etc.).

6. Know when to let go. You can’t do everything. Learn when to shut down for the day and let things go.

We will share more take-aways on creating and protecting boundaries to ensure the most important works gets done and tips for becoming more strategic in upcoming posts.