I was working with one of my teams recently on an exciting and important strategic initiative. Everything was coming together nicely. They had a solid approach, good stakeholder engagement, and a reasonable plan. There was just one thing missing. Apart from the direct team and the direct stakeholder group, almost no one knew anything about it. That’s when I said, “It’s time to come out of stealth mode!”

What is stealth mode?

This is a legitimate business tactic employed by technology startups to avoid alerting their competitors to their disruptive market solutions. You can read more about it here. While this may apply to several IT initiatives, that wasn’t the case in my situation. So, I’ll admit that I am using the term liberally, and will use this article to explain why.

Other reasons to be stealthy

While keeping competitors in the dark is a good reason to be quiet, there are much more common reasons why IT teams don’t communicate:

1. It is in our nature as IT professionals, to keep our heads down and do, not pop our heads up and talk. Even those of us in leadership positions need to fight this tendency.
2. Communication, especially good communication, takes time and energy. We have a lot going on, and this is easy to put on the back burner.
3. We aren’t “ready.” We don’t want to sell half-baked solutions. We don’t want to shine a light on something with rough edges. We don’t want people to ask questions we cannot answer. In other words, we don’t want to communicate to the masses until it’s “ready.”

Those are all solid reasons to keep something in stealth mode regardless of how innovative it is. However, I’ll contend that we are still missing a golden opportunity. I’ll explain.

Here are the reasons to come out of stealth mode early:

1. Buzz. There’s something to be said for generating a little anticipation ahead of a big launch. You can go light on the details and big on the vision. Think about your target audience. Whet their appetite. You aren’t doing a whole lot of specific communication at this stage, but you are preparing your audience for the communication that is yet to come.
2. Displace the grapevine. Communication very well may be happening anyway, but you aren’t controlling the message. Proactive communication quells the rumor mill. People may be talking and coming to some odd conclusions. Be the one to fill the vacuum. Don’t let the rumor mill take the place of strategic communication.
3. Bring people on a journey. Leaders go through a journey in their minds from the current state to the desired future state. This may have developed slowly over many weeks or months. We rarely afford our target audience the same opportunity to walk the journey. We just give them the final solution in one big dose and are sometimes surprised when it doesn’t go down well. As a leader, you are going somewhere important. Make sure you bring everyone along for the ride.
4. Get early feedback. As stated earlier, you may get asked questions that you cannot answer. That’s not only okay, but it’s also quite helpful. You may have not anticipated certain questions or concerns, but now that they are on the table, and you can address them in future communications. Without this, you are guessing.

Those are the opportunities we leave on the table. Yes, communication takes time, and it could even delay the “actual work.” Yet, communication is important enough that I consider it to be a key component of the work.

In general, we don’t do this enough. Our default mode is to communicate too little and too late. I’m guilty of this and am writing this to remind myself in addition to teaching you. Let’s do a little more communication and let’s do it earlier in the process. It’s time to come out of stealth mode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download