FEATURED INSIGHTS

Before You Hire Someone to Do Communications

Understanding the Difference Between Infrastructure and Execution | By Nick Norman

Sometimes when organizations hire for a communications role, they believe they are hiring someone to “do communications.” In reality, they are often asking for two different things at the same time: someone to build the communications infrastructure and someone to run the communications itself. Those are related skills but they are not the same.

Building the Communications Infrastructure

When I helped build the communications program at Open Library, it was already growing rapidly. Today it serves more than 20 million patrons and is one of the world’s largest nonprofit, open-source digital libraries. That meant figuring out how messaging would flow across teams, how information would reach the public, and how communication could operate within an already complex open source environment that included engineers, librarians, volunteers, and global partners.

With much of the infrastructure and processes in place, that stage marked the end of what I describe as the first layer of the communications program. The next layer required a different kind of expertise focused on execution. This meant transitioning the work to someone whose strength was leading communications operations.

Transitioning to Execution

During that transition period, I worked closely with Elizabeth May, who is highly skilled in communications leadership. She brought a highly regarded journalism background, experience in managing communications programs, and deep knowledge of content distribution strategy. This expertise was crucial to the success of the program’s second layer, which focused on execution.

Part of that transition involved the two of us walking through how the systems worked, how trust had been built across teams, and which stakeholders were involved in the project. This gave Elizabeth the context she needed to step into the second layer of the work, which focused on executing communications through the systems that had already been put in place.

Questions Organizations Should Ask

This raises an important set of questions for organizations when they begin hiring for communications roles. Are you looking for someone who can build the communications infrastructure and someone who can execute communications, or are you expecting one person to do both equally well?

In my own case, even though I worked across both layers for a period of time, my core contribution was in the first layer. My experience centered on understanding systems, building trust across teams, and figuring out how a communications program could be retrofitted into the existing global architecture of Open Library. That work in itself is a skill.

For organizations building communications programs, it can be helpful to ask whether one person truly needs to carry both of these layers. In some cases, it may be more effective to bring in someone who can build the systems well, and then allow that work to transition to someone whose strength is running communications within those systems.

When that happens, the second layer benefits from understanding the systems that were put in place. The incoming communications lead gains the context, relationships, and trust that already exist. From there, the program can move forward with clarity and momentum.