Trust the Process: It Worked For the Sixers (& It Can Work For Your Communications Team, Too!)

For Philadelphians, the phrase “trust the process” became part of the lexicon about the Sixers, our NBA team, who played through a series of rough years before emerging as a stronger, more cohesive team. 

Throughout those dark, very dismal seasons, they admonished fans to trust the process. They couldn’t build a strong team overnight; it would take years. It was a process.

For diehard fans, it was a grueling wait, but the process led to a team that plays more like a team, and the slogan breathed life into a city and a fanbase that desperately needed it. Nothing happens overnight; just about everything has a process before you reach success.

Trusting a process is a tough ask for the impatient. (I know; I count myself among them.) But trusting the process, and respecting the steps in that journey, usually pays off in dividends. 

In a corporation or an organization, when it comes to building a team – or dismantling and rebuilding one – it’s a process. Major change simply can’t happen overnight, because when it does, when the process isn’t followed, the results can be calamitous and the ripple effects will never be measured.

In business, in academia, and in the nonprofit world, there are times when a new CEO or an executive director takes the helm and inherits a team that may not be up to his or her standards. Which area should be tackled first? What help does that person need in addressing these issues? What should the priorities be? And where is that CEO’s area of expertise? In the sales process? Supply chain? Communications? Finance?

It can be overwhelming to take on a new role, but strong, confident leaders know when they need to bring in outside eyes to help.

Assessing the value of a communications team (sometimes called the PR team or the marketing communications team) may not be as high on a leader’s agenda as the financial health of the organization, but it baffles me when it’s not near the top of the list. A communications department is responsible for the company’s voice, the CEO’s words, and the language spoken internally – and externally! All of those areas impact how the company or organization is viewed by employees, clients and stakeholders. 

As experts in building, dismantling and then rebuilding communications teams, we’re often called in to help with this process. This is real, valuable work that the CMO, COO, CHRO, or CEO simply doesn’t have the bandwidth or ability to tackle. 

Our Communications Audits & Assessments playbook includes both qualitative and quantitative research. We start with one-on-one interviews with team members and their primary stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization. We do a deep dive and ask probing questions. We ensure complete confidentiality and our work results in very nuanced insights into what’s working, what needs help, and who is playing out of position. 

Based on the findings from the interviews, we create a quantitative survey, expanding the reach of the assessment and ensuring the findings from the qualitative process match the candid responses from the personal meetings. 

Those findings – unabridged, and sometimes difficult to hear – include recommendations for next steps. In many instances, Albert Communications helps to guide our clients through those next steps to effectively implement the recommendations. Like we said in the beginning, it’s a process.

The tortoise knew that “slow and steady wins the race.” Today, for Sixers fans and those needing to increase the efficiency and output of their communications team, we’ll just say it this way, “Trust the process.”