What? When? How?

Bird by Bird is one of the great books on the craft of writing. The title comes from a story Anne Lamott tells about her older brother, who had an assignment to write a school report on birds. He procrastinated until he was so overwhelmed he just hid under the table. That’s when his dad gave him the excellent advice above.

When I feel overwhelmed, I list everything I have to do and everything I’m worried about. I look at external requirements and dependencies. Then I figure out where I have some control or influence and where I don’t. And then, finally, I can decide what to do and what to say.

Let’s say you’re running comms at a fast-growing tech company. You come in on Tuesday and your CFO pokes her head in to tell you she’s resigning EOD. That’s fine, you’ve got nothing on your plate today! NOT.

OK, you have seven hours.

You need to make sure every audience gets the news the right way at the right time, check in with the CEO and General Counsel to see what the guardrails are, nuance the CFO’s own agenda re: her LinkedIn post announcing her departure. You ALSO need to discern whether the CFO’s departure is the first sign of a larger crisis. You may not get 100% of the story in those first few hours.

First step: you get everyone to agree on a timeline. Then you gather facts. Then, based on the facts you have, you prepare the communication for each audience, one message, one audience at a time. Bird by bird.

Finally, no matter how intense the day was, you flip into coach mode to help prep your CEO and CFO for their end of day All Hands to inform the company.

And when you finally get home, and collapse to binge your favorite show, you’ll know you’ve earned it!