How 2 CCOs embed their teams across the business

You’ve likely heard Ragan’s goal ad nauseam by now—to help aspiring communications leaders shift from being order-takers to becoming strategic advisors. We repeat it for a reason.

The most effective comms leaders understand what behaviors their teams need to cultivate to function at an advisory level. This requires tactical touchpoints, consistent and visible workflow expectations, forward-thinking upskilling that connects personal goals to business needs, and the soft skills to foster relationships that make it all happen.

Karl Houston, CCO for the Tennessee State Government and Matthew Hutchison, CCO at Xometry, shared their strategies for ensuring their teams are embedded across business lines to serve all stakeholders —and help them learn more about advising other business units along the way.

“Uniting forces’ through regular engagement with business units

Houston encourages his team to increase their knowledge of different business units by exposing them to cross-functional initiatives. “The entire team gets to understand the other divisions and what they have going on, so it increases their knowledge of the business,” he explained.

“We meet with each business unit monthly, and call those ‘Uniting Forces,” Houston continued. These structured conversations with the decision makers from other departments allow communications to understand how they can best support the objectives and challenges elsewhere across the organization, better aligning their efforts with the division’s needs and enhancing collaboration across the organization.

“Instead of waiting to be invited, we take the initiative to invite decision makers from every division we support to discuss what’s on their radar in the next 30-60-90 days,” he explained.

These conversations are followed up with a summary of action items and support needed. The action items from each meeting become part of the communications’ “radar report” and are discussed at weekly team meetings.

“Team members typically have two weeks to complete anything on their to-do list from the ‘radar report,’” added Houston. “However, we are finding that the team is completing projects much sooner than projected because of the coordination of activities and support across the team.”

“This process allows the team to understand the future needs of our stakeholders and the business, celebrate wins and prioritize our work and resources.”

Stakeholder mapping with a horizontal perspective

Hutchison encourages his comms teams to begin by mapping all business unit stakeholders to understand each department’s specific challenges better. Whether it’s Marketing, HR or Finance, knowing what each unit is trying to achieve helps comms frame their strategies in ways that directly address business needs.

Positioning communications as a horizontal function, Hutchison believes that his team has a unique ability to observe and connect dots across departments. He encourages comms teams to “go deep by function, but also higher level and say, I’m sensing a theme here.” This allows you to identify company-wide issues or opportunities that might not be visible to individual departments.

“You might have a customer service issue that only individual business units are looking at, or data isn’t showing it because they’re looking at a very narrow slice it,” he said.

After identifying the theme and framing it as a common denominator, you can share what comms is doing to address it.

Hutchison encourages his team to ask, “Would a potential narrative or story, some sort of internal event or partner event, work to help cement a partnership with the business unit leads? “

This exercise positions comms as a valuable strategic partner instead of a support structure.

“If you put yourself in that mind frame, you will ultimately inherently understand the concerns and opportunities of the business,” he said.

Prioritization by business impact

Houston’s team workflow manages the prioritization of tasks on its radar list through communication briefs. This system helps the team manage expectations and prioritize projects by business impact. His team requires 14 days business notice to provide support, and anything needed sooner must be approved directly by him.

Once a communication brief is submitted, the “2-4-24” process begins for his team. This customer service approach ensures that the team acknowledges a request for support within two business hours, schedules a consultation within four business hours, and no more than 24 hours. During the consultation, the communication team clarifies the project expectations and offers advice on best practices to achieve the desired outcomes.

Houston’s team uses structured timelines to handle the workflow efficiently, ensuring project milestones are met, and projects are completed on time. This approach helps the team consistently deliver high-quality work while meeting project deadlines ahead of schedule. The RACI framework, meanwhile, ensures the collaboration is effective and everyone is accountable for their role.

Hutchison’s approach to prioritizing business impact is less regimented, but no less effective.

“I’m a big believer in having open conversations, open dialogue,” he says, highlighting the importance of adaptability and ongoing engagement to driving comms success

While this doesn’t replace structured cadences, and those change depending on the executives, keeping the channels open is crucial to understanding business impact. It requires the comms team to think like a journalist and do some fact-finding.

“If I see or hear something from one part of the business that I think might affect the other part of the business, I’ll engage with both sides of the business and say, ‘Hey, I’m hearing this — is my gut right?’” said Hutchison.

“That art of just surfacing ideas and not being afraid, even if your thoughts are wrong or misguided, they at least surface. You engage in a dialogue, that makes you smarter, and you’re able to move faster.”

Building business fluency with a focus on skill development

Continuously focusing on skill development requires team members to self-identify where personal areas of growth intersect with business needs.

Houston prioritizes continuous professional development by encouraging team members to identify areas for growth.

“I’m always encouraging them to look at those competencies they’re weak in… and improve upon two to three competencies each year,” he said. Performance reviews take place on an annual basis with quarterly interim reviews.

This proactive approach to skill development ensures the team is equipped to handle future challenges and enhances their long-term value to the organization.

Houston takes a forward-looking approach to skill building by preparing his team for upcoming organizational changes, such as upskilling on change management and encouraging the team to build their knowledge of new processes.

“Change management is something that’s going to be very real for our department in the next 12 months,” he explained. By preparing his team in advance, Houston ensures they can handle strategic shifts and adapt to new challenges before they surface.

“I involve them in conversations where we’re developing a particular service that we will be offering and ensure we have all the skill sets on our team to get to the next level,” added Houston.

“It starts with preparing staff to increase their competency and knowledge about where we’re going.”

Building business fluency through osmosis and exposure
To cultivate business acumen in communications teams, Hutchison recommends taking a hands-on approach.

“I bring them into conversations even with the CEO, allowing team members to learn by observing senior leaders in action,” he said, explaining how the process fosters a broader understanding of organizational goals.

“I pre-brief the employee,” Hutchison continued. “I say, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking. We’re going to go in and meet with the Chief Product Officer. I don’t know if it’s going to be right or not, but here’s why I want to test this.’”

“Then they learn through osmosis and by seeing it put in practice. The best thing about it is they often things that I don’t see, which I absolutely love.”

Justin Joffe is the editorial director and editor-in-chief at Ragan Communications.  Follow him on LinkedIn.

More counsel and strategies for CCOs, from CCOs are available exclusively to members of Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council. Learn more about joining here.