One question that I’ve been asked again and again over the years is, “what does a great comms team look like?”.

This recurring question comes from leaders who are clearly unconvinced their communications function is anything close to ‘great’.

So what’s going on and what’s the answer to that question?

First, it has to be said that anyone who works in the world of ‘comms’ will say they often feel like the whipping boy for just about any organisational failure. Unhappy customers? Probably a failure to communicate. Stakeholders rebelling? The comms team stuffed the engagement. Getting bad news headlines? Well, you get the point.

Sometimes the criticism is valid, but not always. Communications is broadly speaking, a support function.

It’s worth stating that a comms plan should support a business plan, not the other way around.

Often, I have found organisations that haven’t done their strategic thinking, request a comms plan to lead them. Please don’t. I’ve worked with some outstanding comms professionals and many of us specialise in strategic communications. But this is not the same thing as business strategy!

Likewise making good operational decisions, limiting errors and doing right by stakeholders and customers, will build on a good reputation and make the job of any communications a real joy. When these things fall down, the comms team are called in to fix it.

My favourite story came from a colleague whose boss stormed into the office in the morning holding the Dominion Post, shouting at her to get this story off the front page! Sir, the horse has already bolted and this is not the factory of miracles.

Mistakes happen. By fronting up, owning the error and doing something to put it right, forgiveness follows more readily than if the comms team is tasked with trying to bury the issue instead. Inevitably when that doesn’t work, the fall out is so much worse.

So it helps to first make sure there is a robust organisational strategy, then let the communications team work out how to best support it. If the team struggles with that job, then sure, a capability issue may exist.

But if the strategy is there, the operational elements are humming and leadership is strong, how can a communications team add real value? Obviously it starts with good people, with the right range of skills. Communications is multi-disciplinary and includes media management, internal comms, external comms, stakeholder engagement (a hideous buzz phrase if ever there was one), design, web, social media and strategic comms. You’ll find the range of job titles seemingly limitless.

Some of that is nonsense in my view, but we do seem to enjoy complicating things to suit our egos.

Every organisation is different so the structure of the team and the skills needed must be bespoke. If the organisation is highly operational and touches a lot of people it may be worth having engagement specialists, marketing and social media expertise.

For those that operate a bit more in the background and mostly communicate via websites and digital channels, a great digital designer and content writer will be worth gold. Obviously, any organisation that could end up in the news needs staff who can manage media. This role by the way , is usually the most time consuming and thankless of all, but it’s critical. The media have a job to do and when they come calling, we have an opportunity to step up and have a voice in the story. If not, someone else will set the narrative.

In a time when people prefer to consume information through digital content, collateral, and images, I always prize in-house digital designers who understand communications. If you find a smart, creative whizz of this kind, never let them leave you!

As with any team, you want skilled people with complimentary personalities, headed by a leader with a clear vision who can inspire and motivate. The discipline of communications is continually evolving, so let’s upskill, retrain and broaden our experience too.

Finally, the best comms teams I have seen have great skills, energy and drive and critically, they are well linked into the organisation leadership. This means they know the direction of travel, likely roadblocks and where the potholes are so they can really add value by pre-empting what’s needed, rather than trying to fix things after the wheels have fallen off.

The key elements:

1. Start with an organisational strategy

2. Select the mix of communication disciplines your organisation truly needs

3. Get in-house design expertise if you can

4. Connect comms to the leadership and direction of travel

So, have you got a great comms team? Well first tell me, have you got a great strategy, are operations running well, is leadership strong and connected and have you thought about the exact communication skills needed to support all that? OK, now let’s talk.