In our recent webinar, Roasting the EX Playbook, Internal Communications veterans Jason Anthoine and Joanna Parsons pulled apart the "best practices" that get handed down at every merger, reorg, and transformation and decided whether they still hold up or not.
The result wasn't your typical best-practice guide. It was a live roast of the old playbook and a clearer picture of what actually works now. Here's a quick guide to the biggest "what not to do" takeaways from the session.
1. Don't communicate more
The default advice in a lot of organizations is simple: if people aren't getting it, say it again, louder, everywhere.
As Jason Anthoine, Senior VP and MD at Arketi Inside, shares,
“At some point, more does not mean better. Better means better."
More channels and more messages don't add up to more understanding. They add up to noise, and employees who are saturated with updates stop listening to all of them, including the one that matters. The fix isn't volume. It's targeting. Decide on one audience, one action, and one channel, and ask "so what, then what?" before anything goes out.
2. Don't Let Official Comms Carry the Weight
Leaders trust "Big C" comms, the polished, official updates that come from corporate, because they’re the easiest to measure. Open rates, clicks, and views all look great on a dashboard. But that's air cover instead of understanding actually happening.
Jason explains,
"The ratio should be about 10% Big C and 90% everybody else in the organization talking about those topics."
"Little C" comms, a.ka. Teams messages, manager briefings, and hallway conversations, are where employees actually build trust and make sense of change. If managers are your real cascade, they need three sharp bullet points and the confidence to answer hard questions instead of a 30-slide deck they'll forward and never explain.
3. Don't Rely on AI as a Magic Bullet
Plenty of leaders now assume AI can absorb the entire communications function: personalize the message, write the update, and answer the question. The reality is that AI is only as good as the information it’s drawing from.
Joanna Parsons, CEO at The Curious Route, explains,
"There is no judgment in this robot. AI really is just a tool."
Point an AI tool at a site full of duplicate, outdated, or conflicting documents, and it won't know what's true. It will just serve up the wrong answer with total confidence. Governance and an accurate system of record has to come first with clean content, clear ownership, and a simple AI charter that defines what AI is good for and what stays firmly human.
4. Don't Build a Champions Network Without a Real Job Description
Every transformation seems to spawn a champions network, which is a volunteer army meant to carry messages into every corner of the business. In theory, it's a great idea. In practice, it needs a lot of work.
Joanna continues,
"Do champions networks meet expectations? Very rarely in my experience."
Most networks start with a flurry of enthusiasm with a kickoff and dedicated chat and then go quiet within months because members are competing with the job they're actually paid to do. The problem usually isn't the people. It's that no one defined what a champion is meant to do, how often, or why. Before you launch a network, get specific. Ask what a champion does this week, in this meeting, or in this conversation. Enthusiasm alone isn't a strategy.
5. Don't Stack Town Halls Without a Clear Purpose
The answer to the question of all-company town halls and AMAs was consistent. There's no universal best-practice cadence, and running more of them isn't automatically better.
Joanna shares,
"The more town halls you do, the more you're probably lowering the value of all of them."
A town hall asks every attendee to stop working and pay attention, which has a real cost in time and productivity. If leaders can't say exactly what a specific town hall gives employees that no other channel can, it's not earning its slot on the calendar. Get clear on the purpose of each one, and move everything else to a channel built for it.
The overall takeaway is clear. Getting communication right during constant change isn't about doing more of everything. It's about being deliberate with less volume, more trust in the channels employees already believe, clear ownership behind every network and meeting, and governance before automation.
Watch the Webinar On Demand
Want the full roast, plus live audience questions on town halls, change fatigue, and manager cascades?
Watch Roasting the EX Playbook on demand for the complete conversation.
Get started. Get your personalized demo.
