Internal Communications

Internal Communications

Internal communication fails in predictable ways: the wrong people hear it first, the message explains the decision but not the consequence, and nobody tests the draft before it reaches 2,000 inboxes. This skill treats an announcement as an artifact with a blast radius, a sequence, and a pass/fail quality bar — not as a writing exercise.

The three levers are who hears it in what order, what the message must contain, and which channel carries it. Get those right and tone matters far less than people assume.

When to use this skill

• Announcing a reorg, layoff, or leadership change where sequencing errors are unrecoverable
• Rolling out a policy change (RTO, expenses, security, performance process) that people must act on
• Communicating a product or system migration with a deadline and a required user action
• Structuring a recurring all-hands or weekly exec update that currently reads as a status dump
• Pressure-testing a draft before send: reading level, jargon density, missing elements
• Deciding channel and cadence for a multi-week change programme rather than a one-shot email

Inputs the skill expects

• The change itself: what is changing, effective date, whether it is reversible
• Audience list with impact level (high / medium / low) and rough headcount per group
• Draft text, if one exists (plain markdown or text is fine)
• Constraints: embargo, legal review, regulatory disclosure, market-sensitivity
• Available channels and which ones your org actually reads
• Who can answer questions after send, and where

Clarify First

Before generating, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• Blast radius — who is materially affected vs merely informed — this decides whether you need a cascade (manager-first) or a single broadcast, and cascades cost 3-5 days
• Reversibility of the decision — reversible changes can be announced as proposals with a feedback window; irreversible ones must never be, because inviting input you will ignore is the fastest way to lose trust
• Effective date and the required user action — sets every T-offset in the plan and determines whether the message is informational or instructional
• Whether anything is legally or market-sensitive — embargo constraints override the ideal sequence and force simultaneous rather than cascaded delivery

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Workflows