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Reform without a comms strategy is just noise
In 2003, I was a gunner officer on the ground in Iraq. I watched the campaign achieve its objective, and I watched how quickly the picture on the ground can outpace the plans made for it. It taught me something simple: achieving the goal is only half the job. Communicating what it means, and what happens next, to the people who need to know, is the other half. Miss that half, and even a good plan starts to unravel.
I think about that lesson often in my current work supporting major defence reform and technology programmes. It applies just as much to a boardroom decision as it does to a battlefield.
On 1 April this year, the National Armaments Director Group was given its operating instructions to carry out a major reform mandate, bringing together nine separate organisations, from procurement and logistics to digital, commercial and innovation, into one. It's one of the largest organisational changes in modern UK defence. And like every reform of this size, its success won't just be decided by how well the new structure works. It will be decided by how well people understand it, trust it, and know what it means for them.
Strategy first, messaging second
The instinct with any big reform is to get the structure right, then explain it. That instinct is understandable, but it's the wrong order.
A communications strategy needs to start where the reform itself starts: the strategic aim.
Get that right, and communication becomes part of how the reform succeeds. Get it wrong, and you end up firefighting confusion instead of building support.
A good comms strategy for a reform like this answers four questions clearly:
- What are we actually trying to achieve, in terms everyone across the organisation can recognise and repeat back?
- Who are the audiences that matter, industry, the workforce, ministers, the public, and how do we prioritise between them?
- What does each audience need to do or believe as a result, and by when?
- How will we know it's working, so the strategy can adjust rather than assume?
Without answers to those questions, even well-intentioned communication becomes noise: technically accurate, but disconnected from the outcome it's meant to support.
A live example
We're seeing this play out on a current Army programme we are supporting, formed this summer from the merger of two existing capabilities. It's a smaller version of the same challenge: multiple stakeholders, a genuinely complex capability, and a message that has to land without overclaiming or drowning in acronyms.
The approach is the same one any reform of this scale needs: start with the strategic aim, identify exactly who needs to understand it and why, build the plan around what those audiences actually need to know, and keep checking whether it's landing.
Where Canny comes in
This is exactly the kind of challenge Canny Comms exists to solve. We have a proven track record supporting leaders across defence and security with communications that are built on a clear strategy, not just good writing.
We start with who the audiences are and what they need to believe (Audience Priorities). Then we set the core messages (Messaging Foundations). Then we build the full strategy and the plan. Only then do we write the content.
Look back at the four questions above and you'll see they map almost exactly onto that first step: audience priorities and messaging foundations, before a word of content gets written.
The National Armaments reform mandate is a genuinely big task. Getting the structure right matters. But getting the communication right, built on a proper strategy from day one, is what will determine whether the people this reform depends on actually understand it, support it, and help it succeed.
If you're leading a reform and you haven't got the strategy nailed yet, give us a call.
