You Don't Prioritize What You Don't Invest In

Most leaders will tell you communication is critical.

On paper, communication looks covered. There’s an intranet. There are newsletters, Teams channels, email updates, and quarterly town halls.

It feels like enough.

But ask employees how easy it is to find the information they need to do their jobs, and you’ll often hear a different story.

The Illusion of Investment

There’s a difference between activity and impact.

Leaders would never expect Finance to run the company on calculators and spreadsheets when systems like SAP or Oracle exist.

Sure, those basic tools technically get the job done. But they’re slower, less accurate, and costlier in the long run.

That’s what happens when communication runs on “good enough” infrastructure.

It functions. It just doesn’t perform.

Why Systems Matter

Communication is more than transmitting information. Real communication turns strategy into something people can believe and act on.

Modern systems amplify that connection.

They make communication measurable, dynamic, and two-way.

They tell you whether your people read the thing, understood, and did the thing.

They show where clarity breaks down and what employees need next, in real time.

According to an Adobe Document Cloud survey, nearly half of employees say they struggle to find the documents they need quickly—and about 10% spend more than four hours each week searching for files.

Every minute lost to searching is a minute strategy can’t turn into action. And if people give up, that delay turns into disengagement.

Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report found that organizations prioritizing delightful employee experiences saw a 12% increase in productivity. And in, Frontline Worker Productivity Enabled by Technology, Deloitte reported that giving employees better digital tools delivered an average 22% productivity improvement.

Gallup’s research connects the dots:

Business units in the top quartile of engagement deliver 23% higher profitability, 14% higher productivity, 18% higher sales performance, and 10% greater customer loyalty than those in the bottom quartile.

When communication systems enable people to find what they need, measure what matters, and open true two-way flow, they make every other investment work harder.

The Leadership Mirror

Budget season always reveals what companies truly value.

If communication is treated as an afterthought, that choice will echo in engagement, retention, and execution next year.

You can’t say communication is a priority and then leave them using tools designed for other purposes.

Budgets tell the real story.