IABC Master Class: From Shared Clarity to Coherent Action: What Senior Leaders Told Us About Communication's Role in Strategic Alignment

To execute a strategy, someone needs to connect it with the people who carry out the work. That means helping them reach a shared understanding of the direction, then keeping their decisions, trade-offs, and course corrections coherent as the strategy moves (a constant reality today). Senior leaders in our research see communication professionals as well placed to play that role. They also see a function too often stuck at the tactical end, asked to announce strategy only after it's set. The gap between the role comms could play, and the one it is usually asked to fill is the opportunity this masterclass explores.

IABC is proud to have partnered with Zora Artis and Wayne Aspland on their third global study on strategic alignment. This study draws on 55 interviews with CEOs, Chiefs of Staff and senior leaders across five continents. Those leaders were candid about where communication falls short today, and equally clear about what it could become.

Session 1 (1 December): What the research found and the four shifts organisations need to make: from a group of leaders to a leadership group, from proxies to proof, from cascade to conversations, and from annual to agile. We finish with the first step: making the case that earns executive backing for the work.