Moving from Little-c Communication Execution to Strategic Big-C Communication
Public-sector and not-for-profit leaders are operating in sustained constraint. Financial pressure is ongoing. Expectations continue to rise. Stakeholders demand transparency, clarity, and accountability, often simultaneously.
In this environment, communications is frequently treated as an execution function, producing announcements, reports, web updates, and social content to keep information moving.
That work is necessary. But increasingly, it is not sufficient.
The organizations navigating complexity most effectively are making a deliberate shift from little-c communications to Big-C Communications. The distinction is more than semantic. It is strategic.
Little-c Communications: Execution After the Fact
Little-c communications is tactical. It focuses on outputs and is often reactive, explaining decisions once they have already been made.
It includes familiar activities such as announcements and media releases, briefing materials, website updates, campaign content, social media posts and stakeholder notices. These activities are essential. They ensure transparency and maintain operational flow.
However, when communications operates solely at this level, predictable challenges emerge. Messages lack a clear priority hierarchy. Initiatives compete for attention internally and externally. Teams work diligently but without a shared narrative. Leaders often revisit decisions because the broader context was not fully understood.
Under fiscal pressure, increasing output can feel responsible. Channels remain active, and materials are delivered efficiently.
Yet activity does not automatically produce alignment. Little-c communications explain what an organization is doing. It does not necessarily strengthen the organization's performance.
Big-C Communications: Integrated with Strategy
Big-C Communications operates at a different level.
Rather than sitting downstream of decisions, it is embedded upstream, shaping how priorities are defined, sequenced, and understood. It connects individual initiatives to a coherent narrative and ensures leadership is aligned before messages are shared externally.
At its core, Big-C Communications clarifies what matters most. It strengthens internal alignment, ensuring staff understand how their work connects to strategy. It anticipates stakeholder concerns before they escalate and ensures difficult trade-offs are articulated with discipline.
This approach does not increase volume. It increases precision.
When communication is integrated early, it strengthens decision-making. It tests whether the strategy can be clearly explained and consistently executed. In constrained environments, that clarity becomes operationally critical.
Why the Shift Matters Now
Financial constraint magnifies misalignment. When priorities are unclear, duplication follows. When context is missing, stakeholders interpret decisions through their own assumptions. When communications is reactive, leaders spend valuable capacity managing avoidable friction.
Big-C Communications reduces that drag by ensuring alignment before action. Strategic communications also forces discipline around choice. As Michael Porter observed:
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
— Michael Porter
The same principle applies to communications. In constrained environments, clarity about what will not be pursued is as important as clarity about what will. Without that discipline, volume increases, but alignment does not.
Alignment Over Volume
Many organizations respond to complexity by increasing communication output. But volume does not resolve fragmentation. Alignment does.
When communications are anchored in a clear strategic narrative that links mandate, priorities, and outcomes, effort compounds. Each initiative reinforces the broader direction. Staff understand how their work contributes. Stakeholders see continuity rather than contradiction.
The organization expends less energy on clarification and more on advancement. This is the practical advantage of Big-C Communications. Not more messaging, but greater coherence.
A Leadership Decision
The shift from little-c to Big-C Communications is not about expanding budgets or building larger teams. It is a leadership decision about how communications is positioned within the organization.
If communications are engaged only after direction is set, it will remain tactical. When it is embedded in shaping direction, it becomes strategic.
Leaders who make that shift strengthen more than perception. They strengthen alignment, reduce execution risk, and enhance their organization’s ability to deliver on its mandate.
In an era of constraint, clarity is not cosmetic. It is performance-critical.
Let’s Build Something That Matters
At McGill Buckley, we partner with organizations to help define what they stand for, express it with clarity, and evolve it with purpose. If you're ready to lead with relevance, we’re ready to help.
