Common Communication Breakdowns: PwC’s JC Lapierre On The Most Common Communication Breakdowns In Corporations And How To Avoid Them

In the dynamic world of business, where rapid decision-making, seamless collaboration, and innovative strategies are critical, effective communication is essential. Yet, we find that even in the most successful corporations, communication breakdowns can become a regular occurrence, leading to misaligned goals, misinterpreted strategies, and missed opportunities. In this series, we are talking to CEOs, COOs, CTOs, and other C-Suite leaders, to discuss what leads to communication breakdowns, and more importantly, how they can be avoided. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing J.C. Lapierre.

J.C. serves as Chief Strategy and Communications Officer for PwC, in which capacity she creates strategy and collaborates with leaders to help develop, communicate and sustain corporate initiatives. J.C. has created investment capacity, designed digital transformation and helped architect and launch PwC’s Trust Leadership Institute as well as its New Equation strategy update. She also helped create and guide PwC’s CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion — the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She was named a 2022 PRWeek Woman of Distinction, as well as 2022 Outstanding In-House Professional of the Year.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about communication, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

Honestly, it was happenstance that first brought me to PwC. A temp agency placed me in the HR department here for two weeks, and I found that I loved the people so much that I wanted to stay. Two weeks turned into 27 years, and I’ve met so many amazing people and had the opportunity to have five different careers so far during my time at PwC. More than anything else, what has gotten me to where I am now is a love of learning, a willingness to try new things and my incredible network of mentors and colleagues.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

The people and the way we live our values each day. No matter what, I know I’m part of a team and I never have to go it alone.

Early in my career at PwC, a mentor of mine saw me really struggling with a problem I just could not manage to solve. I was so stressed about the possibility of failing at a job I cared so much about. She told me to pause and remember that this firm is one that has been around for 150 years and has done so because there is always a large group of people working together to solve problems. Nothing I or any one person does is going to break it (or make it succeed!). And no one has to go it alone. When you get stuck, you just have to reach out to your team and we’ll help you solve it. To me, the joy in PwC is doing it together — that’s what makes it stand out for me.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Hustle — Since my very first job working in a restaurant, when those busy times feel so overwhelming that you’ll never get through them, I learned that the only way out is through, and the only way through is to hustle. There’s no replacement for hard work.
2. Curiosity — I am a lifelong learner. What has sustained me and allowed me to have so many different career opportunities within PwC is not just a willingness to learn, but a fundamental curiosity to know more and grow my skills. And that curiosity extends to people as well. I love to learn about people and want to hear their stories.
3. Teamwork — The best thing about my job has always been the people I get to work with. The energy, collaboration and sheer joy I get from working on a team is irreplaceable. And I’ve learned that the way to be a good teammate is to be a utility player, willing to step in in any capacity, especially when the going gets tough.

Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.

Often, when you have to make a choice between multiple possibilities, what you’re really doing is saying ‘yes’ to one person and ‘no’ to another. It’s one of the hardest things you have to do as a leader, both the yes and the no. The key is how you say it. It’s never just ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but ‘yes, and’ and ‘no, and.’ The yes needs to convey a sense of responsibility and accountability to execute their idea, while the no comes with a thank you and a way for the individual to keep contributing so that person feels comfortable continuing to come forward with ideas.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic question. Why is communication within an organization so essential? Can you recall a specific situation where effective communication within your organization led to a significant breakthrough or success?

Humans are storytellers. We understand the world through stories and we’re constantly telling ourselves and one another a story about who we are and what we value. As an organization’s primary storytelling function, the communications function is fundamental to how we relate to our people as well as all of our stakeholders. Also, when you consider the many priorities leaders have to juggle, and the many gaps that can emerge as a result, communications is one of the most strategic assets a leader has to mobilize their people toward a common purpose. Communications, when closely intertwined with business strategy, can be the thread that holds everything together.

Last year, we launched My+, a big, bold reimagination of our people experience that is changing the way we work, using technology to personalize careers at PwC, all while keeping our clients’ needs at the center. We envision a future where there is increased emphasis on growth and development, rewards and benefits are customized, well-being is further stitched into our daily experiences and there is flexibility to support our people as their lives and needs shift over time. A $2.4bn investment is a big deal — so how we communicated it was incredibly important.

What made it work was that our communications team was brought in from the onset to not only generate buzz and position us as an employer-of-choice, but also enable alignment within the business, and drive internal engagement. With a seat at the table, we were able to align communications with our strategy, ultimately enabling us to accelerate adoption. We also prioritized two-way communication, listening constantly and using data from our people to drive our decision-making as we adjusted and refined our people strategy along the way. And we made sure that our purpose remained at the center of everything we did and said, establishing the ‘why’ early on and clearly communicating that to our people.

Finally, post-launch, communications continued to work hand-in-hand with strategy to remain agile and refine our approach in real-time.

This approach resulted in our highest-ever internal employee satisfaction scores, as well as increased rankings on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, LinkedIn’s Top Companies list and PEOPLE’s Companies That Care list.

Is there such a thing as overcommunication? Have you ever faced any challenges or backlash due to overcommunication, and how did you address it?

Yes, in that there can be too many different messages, but I think in this crowded space, you can never repeat your key messages too much. Today’s communicators have to break through so much noise, that you really need to communicate more than you think you do and be very disciplined in what you choose to message.

At PwC, we’re communicating to 75k people, so our challenges often come if a) we’re not meeting our people where they are, and b) we’re not agile enough as the world changes. If our people receive the right message in the wrong place, or if we’re not agile enough to change our communication approach as the world demands it of us, those may feel to our people like overcommunication.

How do you strike the balance between over-communication and under-communication within the organization? What guiding principles do you follow?

I believe two things are really important: 1) We need to be more focused on our strategic agenda, delivering fewer messages overall so we have the ability to dig deep on those key messages and repeat them to make sure our people have the time and opportunity to really take them in as well as inspire them to want to be a part of executing our strategy. Importantly, you need the action to back up what you’re saying, or your messages will ring hollow. 2) We also need to meet our people where they are. That means moving toward increased personalization and better leveraging newer channels where our people and future talent are spending their time (hello, TikTok!). We need to spend more time explaining the why and the what to leadership and focus more on the how with our people — again making it personal to them. By paring down communication to the most essential messages, while personalizing that communication to better reach our people, we can strike the right balance between over- and under-communication.

The rise of hybrid work has brought new communication dynamics. How have you found this shift affecting communication within your organization, and what innovative methods have you implemented to adapt?

The unprecedented changes in the way we work have caused us all to rethink how we communicate with our people. It’s also caused us to become more disciplined and more personal. We’ve spent time reflecting upon and really reminding people of our values, our north star. A company’s values are a great way to bring people together and encourage compassion in a challenging and, oftentimes, divisive environment.

Again, meeting people where they are is important here, too. Through multi-channel communication, we’re reaching our people where they most prefer to get news. If they’re in person, when they walk into the office, they’re seeing our key messages on screens and screensavers. If they’re virtual, they’re seeing us on TikTok and Instagram, in their inboxes, through announcements on VivaEngage, on Fishbowl, etc.

In an era of specialized roles and departments, how do you ensure that different parts of the organization are not working in silos, and what mechanisms encourage cross-functional dialogue? Similarly, how do you maintain a sense of unity and shared purpose among teams in a hybrid work environment?

Two years ago, we reorganized our firm to break down silos and ensure more streamlined operations, from the macro level of bridging together the various parts of our business, to a micro level of actions like housing marketing, communications, creative and brand all under one roof. And to help us align across the firm, we activate all levels of leadership to communicate our strategy. We know that for most people, their immediate manager is the person they trust the most, so we equip them with the tools needed to communicate our strategy and ensure that our people know where we’re headed.

To maintain a sense of unity and shared purpose, we do a few things. 1) We remind people of our purpose again and again. It seems simple, but it’s easy for that to get lost in the daily grind of the workday. One example is our standard opening for each webcast, whether team-specific or firmwide, where we share how members of our community are living our purpose with one another, our clients or our communities. creating moments that matter with our people. 2) We create moments that matter. From webcasts to firmwide events to gamified learning, we work to build moments where our entire firm comes together at the same time, both in-person and virtually, for a common purpose. One beloved example is our annual Promotion Day celebration, where our entire 75k-member firm takes an afternoon to celebrate all our promotees from the past year. It’s a great reminder that we’re all in this together.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Five Most Common Communication Breakdowns In Corporations And How To Avoid Them”?

1 . Involving communications too late in the process — Communications needs a seat at the table from the beginning. It’s the thread that connects every part of your business, and you can save so much time and accelerate execution when communications and strategy are seamlessly woven together. No amount of communication in the end can fix a strategy gone awry. For example, when we created our refreshed people strategy, we involved communications from the outset, and have had a phenomenal response from our people as a result.

2 . Competing with your own messaging — Be strategic with the messages you’re sharing. Too many different messages, and the most important ones will get lost in the din. For example, when we know we have a big announcement coming up, we work across our communications function to coordinate on timing and be sure we are not cannibalizing our own news.

3 . Forgetting that your people are your most important brand ambassadors both internally and externally — At PwC, our 75k people are our most valuable brand assets and our greatest ambassadors. Whether it’s in their interactions with clients, their posts on social media or their conversations with one another, our people are our brand megaphone, and, collectively, can drive much more impact for the firm than any advertising campaign. That’s why branding is not simply an external exercise; a strong brand is just as important internally.

4 . Misalignment, of both purpose and leadership — Your people are paying attention. Deviating from your purpose and values, and deviating from your message, is easier than ever to spot. Your purpose needs to be your north star for any major strategic decision, and leadership has to be aligned in how we communicate that to our people. There has to be a common agreement on the most important things needed to move the organization forward, and how we are going to share that strategy. It sounds simple, but it’s a surprisingly common mistake.

5 . Communicating in one direction — Communications has to go both ways. Listen as much or more than you share. At PwC, we have grown our listening apparatus to make sure that we are truly hearing people, from expanding our suite of listening tools to better meeting our people where they are, for example running a Fishbowl ‘Ask Me Anything’ on our revamped people experience.

What role do you see for yourself as a leader in fostering a climate where employees at all levels feel comfortable voicing their opinions and concerns? Can you share an example where this openness led to a positive change?

I realized a while ago that my inside and outside voice were too different and I needed them to be the same. Once I had the courage to bring my authentic self to work, it helped create space for others to do the same. Living more authentically also meant being brave enough to share my story so that others could feel more comfortable sharing theirs — and sharing their honest perspectives on work.

One of the things I am most proud of is when my team members challenge a perspective, plan or action of someone in a higher position than them. Someone once said to me that if you can’t recall the last time you changed your mind about something after a team member questioned you, it’s been too long. The mark of a healthy organization is open dialogue. As leaders, we should challenge ourselves to ensure that we maintain the open dialogue that is the mark of a healthy organization.

Navigating the complex terrain of corporate communication must certainly present unique challenges. As a C-suite leader, what thoughts or concerns, related to this or otherwise, often keep you awake at night? How do these influence your approach to leadership?

It’s not what keeps me up at night as much as who. When you have the privilege and opportunity to lead people, staying awake at night is part of the deal. Every day when I walk through the office and see our people, I’m reminded that they have trusted us with where they come to work and how they provide for their families. We have a massive obligation to earn that trust every day and make sure we do right by them with each decision we make. That’s what keeps me up at night.

Can you share a piece of feedback or advice you received that significantly altered your leadership approach or philosophy?

I’ve worn many hats in my time at PwC, but the first time I contemplated changing roles, I was scared to talk to my mentor about it. Instead of the reaction I expected, they said, “of course. That’s what we do here, and I’d be happy to see you grow and continue to learn at the firm.” Having that person not only make it easy to have that conversation, but support my hopes and dreams showed me that I wanted to offer the same to others.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

For 13 years, I’ve served on the board of directors of the nonprofit Flying Kites, which removes barriers to education for children in rural Kenya through teacher training, health education and basic resources. That work has shown me that access to education is a pathway out of poverty, but in these communities, lack of access to basic resources such as food, water and hygiene can be an immovable barrier to education, especially for young girls. Educational equity can lead to so many positive outcomes, not just for the students, but for entire communities, including increased gender equality, reduced health disparities and economic growth.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can find out more about PwC at pwc.com and feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn!

Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Thank you for your time here!

About the Interviewer: Cynthia Corsetti is an esteemed executive coach with over two decades in corporate leadership and 11 years in executive coaching. Author of the upcoming book, “Dark Drivers,” she guides high-performing professionals and Fortune 500 firms to recognize and manage underlying influences affecting their leadership. Beyond individual coaching, Cynthia offers a 6-month executive transition program and partners with organizations to nurture the next wave of leadership excellence.