In most organizations, communication is fundamentally reactive. Managers are forced to deliver urgent messages out of sequence, in unexpected channels, and with sudden, urgent tones. This isn't a strategy; it's a constant, unscheduled disruption. When a message lands outside of the established rules (at a strange time, in an unusual channel or from an unexpected leader) it forces every employee to stop what they’re doing and evaluate the immediate risk.
This constant need to stop, filter, and prioritize unexpected information creates an enormous tax on the organization's focus. Most of the friction felt during change doesn't come from the change itself; it comes from people being left to guess what's happening next. Predictability, on the other hand, stops the guessing game immediately; it replaces guesswork with structure.
Predictability means every employee knows precisely when, where, and why they will hear from you. They know the intranet is for policy updates every Monday, the weekly strategy update comes by email every Thursday, and Teams is for immediate action. When communication is reliable, employees don't spend time hunting for information or wasting energy filtering out noise. The sheer consistency reduces the mental work required to process the message.
More importantly, predictability builds deep, quiet trust. When a communication leader or executive consistently shows up on time and delivers the expected type of message, they prove that the communication system itself is reliable. This reliability transfers directly to leadership and strategy. Building that rhythm requires the discipline to update people even when there’s not much new to say, showing that communication won't disappear when things get complicated. When you make your process predictable, you free up the employee's focus to concentrate solely on the content of the message, not the urgency of the channel.
The most valuable thing communication can deliver isn’t information; it’s certainty.
