A practical guide to diagnosing shallow change communications strategy and rebuilding it with clarity.
Most organizations don’t fail because their teams lack skill.
They fail because their teams lack sense-making.
Work slows down, decisions bottleneck, and change efforts stall — not because people aren’t capable, but because what’s being called “strategy” is really just a list of tasks wearing a strategy costume.
The uncomfortable truth is this:
If your team can’t explain why they’re doing the work, you don’t have a strategy.
You have instructions.
This article walks you through the five signs your strategy isn’t actually a strategy — and how to rebuild it with clarity, scalability, and leadership.
1. Your Strategy Fails the “Explain the Why” Test
A real strategy passes one simple test:
If you left the room, could your team explain why the work matters?
Not:
- the deliverables
- the timeline
- the talking points
But the why.
If the answer sounds like:
“Uh… let me check.”
Your strategy isn’t clear — it’s fragile.
This is where most strategies fall apart.
If people need you to translate it, it’s not strategy — it’s dependency.
Try this: Ask your team to articulate the strategy in one sentence.
If it takes a paragraph (or worse, a PowerPoint), it’s not strategy.
2. Your Plan Is Full of Directives, Not Strategy
Here’s how you know you’re dealing with preference, not strategy:
Someone asks:
“Why are we focusing on managers instead of sending an all-staff email?”
And leadership responds with:
🗣 “Because that’s how we’ve always done it.”
🗣 “Leadership prefers this.”
🗣 “That’s the direction we were given.”
None of these are strategic reasons.
They’re opinions wearing authority.
A real strategy is rooted in logic that:
- travels through the org
- holds up under scrutiny
- survives without you narrating it
If your responses collapse under pressure, the strategy isn’t strategic.
3. Your Strategy Can’t Travel Without You
Here’s the real test of strategic integrity:
If your strategy falls apart once it leaves your mouth, you do not have a strategy.
A strong strategy is:
✔ Clear enough to explain
✔ Compelling enough to defend
✔ Consistent enough to travel without you
If you need to personally “walk everyone through it,” you’re not building strategy.
You’re babysitting it.
And if only one person can articulate the plan, it’s not a strategy — it’s a hostage situation.
4. You Can’t Defend the Strategy With Evidence
A strong strategy sounds like this:
“We’re focusing on managers because employees trust information from their direct supervisor 3x more than corporate channels. If we want behavior change, we need to activate the voices people actually listen to.”
This is:
- data-backed
- purpose-driven
- outcome-aligned
- defensible
If your justification doesn’t sound this clear, you’re not leading a strategy — you’re reciting tasks.
5. Your Team Isn’t Showing Autonomy
When a strategy is clear, three things happen instantly:
- People make better decisions in real time
They don’t wait for direction — they understand direction. - They defend the work instead of escalating everything
Because they can articulate the logic without you. - They show alignment instead of compliance
Alignment is chosen.
Compliance is forced.
Clarity makes teams autonomous.
Ambiguity makes teams dependent.
If your team needs you in every meeting to clarify the why, you haven’t cascaded the strategy — you’ve hoarded it.
How to Fix a Communications Strategy That Isn’t Actually a Strategy
This is where communicators become strategic leaders.
Here’s how to rebuild the clarity your organization is missing.
1. Document the Why
If your strategy doesn’t explicitly state the reason behind the decisions, it’s not repeatable.
People can align to logic.
They can’t align to mystery.
2. Cascade Context, Not Slides
Most cascades fail because leaders circulate artifacts — not understanding.
Your job is to explain:
- how you think
- why decisions were made
- what logic holds the strategy together
If you want a structure that helps you do this cleanly, you can explore The Clarity Framework™, my method for making complex strategies understandable and repeatable.
3. Repeat Until You’re Tired of Hearing Yourself
People don’t hear you the first time.
Or the second.
Or the third.
Communication doesn’t land when you say it.
It lands when they start saying it.
Repetition isn’t redundancy.
It’s alignment.
4. Ask for the Echo, Not the Nod
Alignment simply means they nodded.
Echo means they understood.
Ask:
“Can you explain this back to me in your own words?”
If they can’t, the strategy isn’t clear yet.
5. Make Strategy Portable
A strategy that requires your presence isn’t scalable.
A strategy that travels without you is.
Your goal is to build a strategy that:
- holds shape
- holds meaning
- holds direction
Even when you’re nowhere near the room.
The One Question That Changes Everything
Before you send your next strategy deck, ask:
Could my team explain the why without me in the room?
If not, it’s time to clarify.
And that’s exactly what we do inside The Clarity Line — my weekly newsletter on clarity, communication, and change.
FAQs: What Is (and Isn’t) a Real Strategy?
If it’s focused on deliverables instead of direction, it’s not strategy.
Strategy tells people why the work matters — not just what to complete.
Because organizations mistake volume for clarity. When change is complex, teams need simplicity, direction, and rationale — not more slides.
Clarity, defensibility, and portability. A strategy should survive being forwarded without explanation.
Anchor it in:
– data
– insight
– psychology
– real behavior patterns
This makes your logic stronger than preference.
By building structure — not slides. This is exactly what The Clarity Framework teaches: turning complex decisions into clear, human, repeatable narratives.
Because alignment can be faked. Echo can’t.
If people can repeat your strategy in their own words, you’ve achieved understanding — not compliance.
✦ About the Author
Ana Magana is a strategic communications and change management consultant based in Calgary, Alberta. She helps organizations navigate transformation with structure, empathy, and storytelling through her signature Clarity Framework.