As businesses scale through mergers, acquisitions, and expansion, maintaining alignment across employees, systems, and communications becomes increasingly difficult. Information fragments. Priorities shift. Teams operate in ambiguity. And employees need clarity more than ever.
That was the focus of Unily’s recent IC for Growth webinar featuring First Tech Federal Credit Union, which shared lessons from navigating what was described during the session as the largest merger in credit union history.
The conversation explored what it really takes to manage organizational growth successfully – not just from a technology perspective, but from a communication, governance, and employee experience standpoint. Here’s a quick overview of the biggest takeaways from the session.
1. Growth creates communication complexity
One of the strongest themes throughout the webinar was the reality that growth changes how organizations communicate.
As businesses expand, communication becomes harder to manage across:
- multiple business units
- distributed teams
- evolving systems
- changing priorities
- new stakeholder groups
And during periods of transformation, leaders are often required to communicate before every operational detail has been finalized.
As Tess Jennings, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications at First Tech Federal Credit Union, shared during the discussion:
“There’s going to be a significant amount of time where there’s ambiguity and you’re operating in the gray.”
That observation resonated because it reflects the reality many organizations face during large-scale change initiatives. Maintaining trust during those moments requires more than frequent updates. It requires clear ownership, operational discipline, and consistent employee experiences.
2. Governance helps organizations scale with confidence
The webinar also highlighted the growing importance of governance in managing organizational growth effectively. Rather than slowing organizations down, governance creates the structure needed to maintain consistency and alignment at scale.
For First Tech, that meant establishing clear communication processes and improving collaboration across business units and stakeholders throughout the integration journey. One of the clearest lessons shared during the session was the importance of cross-functional communication early in the process.
As Lindsay Steen, Corporate Communications Program Manager at First Tech explained:
“Collaboration and communication with other business units and stakeholders is so, so important.”
The team reflected candidly on the operational lessons learned throughout the merger process, particularly around involving technical stakeholders earlier and more consistently. That level of transparency made the session especially valuable for organizations navigating similar transformation initiatives.
3. AI adoption depends on strong communication foundations
AI was another major theme throughout the discussion.
Unily’s Charlie Kennedy highlighted that growing organizations are uniquely positioned to benefit from AI because of their agility and ability to move quickly. However, the session made an important distinction: organizations seeing the greatest value from AI are not simply rolling out new tools, they are building strong communication foundations first.
As Charlie explained:
“The businesses seeing the fastest gains aren’t just rolling out tools, they’re really keeping their people engaged through times of change.”
That framing reflects a broader shift happening across enterprise organizations today.
AI can help scale communication, improve personalization, and create more accessible employee experiences. But without trusted information, clear governance, and aligned teams, those benefits become much harder to realize.
4. Internal communications is becoming a strategic growth function
One of the biggest takeaways from the webinar was that internal communications is evolving far beyond a publishing function.
As organizations grow, communications teams are increasingly responsible for helping employees:
- navigate change
- access trusted information
- stay aligned across teams
- adapt during periods of uncertainty
- engage with organizational priorities
In other words, communication is becoming operational infrastructure for growth.
The organizations that manage transformation successfully will be the ones that invest not only in technology, but in governance, employee experience, and communication discipline. Because as organizations scale, alignment doesn’t happen accidentally. It has to be designed.
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