The Comms Chameleon
TL;DR
Communications professionals are really good at adapting to the environments we work in. Usually, that’s a strength. But there’s a difference between strategically adapting to the room and slowly becoming the version of yourself the room expects.
Sometimes playing the part is the smartest thing you can do. Just make sure you know you’re playing it.
We’re All Performing a Little
One of the stranger things about being a communications professional is how different the role can look depending on where you work and who you work for.
In one environment, you’re a strategic advisor. You’re brought into conversations early, asked for your perspective, and expected to challenge assumptions. In another, you’re handed a nearly finished solution and asked to wordsmith it, “make it pretty,” and send it out same day.
Same profession. Very different job.
I learned this particularly well during one period of my career. I had recently transitioned out of a highly challenging supervisory relationship and was hoping for a reset. Instead, I found myself in an environment where communications was still treated as highly tactical and operational.
Same flavor of ice cream. Different sprinkles.
And here’s the part we probably don’t talk about enough: when expectations are low and your energy level is even lower, that can actually be kind of nice.
Someone tells you what they want. You make it. Someone has already decided on the solution and needs you to communicate it. Fine. What time would you like the email to go out?
There’s no need to expend precious energy convincing someone that communications should have been involved three meetings ago or asking the strategic questions nobody particularly wants you to ask. You can just do the job they’ve decided your job is.
Welcome to autopilot.
Enter: the Comms Chameleon
Communications professionals are particularly good at adapting because we do it all day long. We adjust our language for different audiences, learn how different leaders like to receive information, and figure out who wants the strategic rationale versus who will stop reading after the second bullet. We read the room, manage personalities, and learn the unwritten rules.
That adaptability is an important professional skill. It also makes us particularly good at becoming whatever an environment expects us to be.
If the organization sees communications as an order-taking function, you can become an excellent order taker. If your leader occupies most of the strategic thinking space, you can become an excellent executor. If stakeholders consistently come to you after the decisions have been made, you can get extremely good at communicating decisions you had absolutely no role in shaping.
Huzzah?
The danger isn’t adaptation itself. It’s adapting so successfully that eventually everyone, including you, forgets there was another version of the role you wanted to play.
Never Outshine the Master
This makes me think of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, specifically Law 1: Never outshine the master.
The premise is essentially: understand power. Being the smartest person in the room isn’t particularly useful if proving it makes the person with actual authority feel threatened.
Some leaders genuinely want a thought partner. Others want a thought partner right up until the thought is different from theirs. Some value your expertise but still need to feel like they co-authored the answer.
Recognizing that doesn’t mean making yourself smaller. Sometimes strategic communication is knowing when to push, when to make a recommendation without making someone defensive, and when to let someone put their own sprinkles on the ice cream.
That’s also communication.
So, How Do You Know When You’ve Adapted Too Far?
Not every tactical request needs to become an existential debate about the role of strategic communications. Sometimes you just do the thing. And sometimes going on autopilot for a while is completely rational. There are seasons when protecting your energy matters more than proving what you’re capable of.
The operative words are for a while.
If you find yourself becoming a Comms Chameleon, ask yourself three questions:
1) Am I adapting strategically, or am I just going along?
Maybe you’re building trust. Maybe the battle isn’t worth the political capital. Maybe you’re tired. All valid. But there’s a difference between deciding not to push this time and realizing you haven’t pushed anything in six months.
2) What does strategic value look like to this person?
For one leader, it might be a clear recommendation. For another, it’s data. For someone else, it’s connecting communications to a business outcome.
If you keep demonstrating strategic value in a language your stakeholder doesn’t recognize, you may spend a very long time wondering why they don’t see it. Understanding what someone values isn’t surrendering your expertise. It’s translating it.
We are comms pros, after all.
3) Am I still operating at the level I want to be known for?
You can build an excellent reputation doing work that is smaller than your capability. You can be responsive, reliable and easy to work with. You can become the person everyone trusts to get things done.
But are people asking for your judgment? Are you helping shape decisions, or mostly communicating decisions other people have already made?
There’s nothing wrong with being an excellent executor. Unless that’s not what you want to be known for.
The REal Question
I don’t believe the goal is to stop being a chameleon. Adaptability is part of being good at communications. Sometimes you should challenge the premise. Sometimes you should influence quietly. Sometimes you should let someone else feel like they came up with the idea.
And sometimes you should make the damn newsletter and go home.
The question is whether you’re making that choice intentionally. Because there’s a difference between playing the part because it serves you and playing the part because everyone has forgotten you can do anything else.
Including you.
