I put a lot of thought into my marketing team’s purpose when I started as a full-time manager.  I landed on this: “Communicating clearly in a coordinated way.” 

That covers two things I value as a MarCom professional — three, if you want to count alliteration. 

“Communicating clearly” starts with losing the jargon, the fluff, the long-winded introductions. This applies across the board to web copy, emails, social media, blogs. Get to the point. Get in. Get out. As a professional writer for the past 20 years I love nothing more than a clever turn of phrase, or an in-depth feature profile. But that belongs in Vanity Fair, not an executive update. 

The “coordinated way” represents strategy. What are our goals as an organization? What actions are we trying to inspire, internally and externally? What do we want people to know? I lean on the executive team to provide these answers, then distill the big picture into smaller and smaller pieces that fill a cohesive communications calendar.

Coordinated also extends to working in concert with other units. I believe strongly in “seek first to understand” so I often lead with questions before I speak. What are they communicating? Is there an opportunity to send one email instead of three?

Collectively, these two halves provide guidance and purpose. And we can all use more of that.