As part of CEC’s work on Managing Communications across Global and/or Virtual Teams, we’ve created easy-to-use tools to help you better collaborate and partner with your colleagues down the hall or in a different time zone. Here’s the first of many tools to help you determine how and when to cascade sensitive information.

Spotting Sensitive Information Issues
But first, how do you even know when something qualifies as “sensitive information?” The short answer is when it poses a risk to the entire company’s reputation or it could get you in trouble legally (e.g. potential insider trading issues, health and safety issues, etc.). For those types of issues, you need to have a coordinated and structured response from the center. Here are some quick points to help you spot “sensitive information”:

• If it affects stakeholders’ decision to do business with you
• If there is no stated company-wide view on the issue
• If you wouldn’t be comfortable with this information making front page headlines
• If the news will have long-term effects

Now that you know how to spot sensitive information, check out some guidelines for effectively cascading that information across the organization.

Considerations for Cascading Sensitive Information

• Who Should Use This Tool: Local communicators who need to cascade a sensitive/confidential corporate message.
• What This Tools Helps You with: Prioritize timing and content of information locally, based on who needs to know first.
• How to Use This Tool: Answer these questions around audience and content of messages to prioritize who receives what information, and when.
• Benefits of Using This Tool Clarity for local communicators around what to share and with whom.

Sneak Peak! Audience Considerations
To determine who will be most interested and affected by the information, ask yourself:

1. Who needs to know this information?
2. Are those people in the public domain?
3. Is anyone else outside that group that is impacted and needs to be notified immediately?

Once you’ve answered these 3 basic questions, ask yourself 5 additional questions to prioritize who receives what information, and when.

Sneak Peak! Content Considerations
To share the most helpful information, ask yourself:

1. Is some or all of the information in the central message marked as confidential or sensitive?
2. Is the information relevant enough or do we need to translate/tailor this information for local context?
3. Do we need to provide additional context for local stakeholder groups, or is information sufficient as-is?

Ask yourself the other 3 critical content questions.

CEC Related Resources:

• Managing Communications across Global and/or Virtual Teams (Toolkit)
• Managing Communications across Global and/or Virtual Teams with HSBC and Novo Nordisk (Webinar Replay)
• Building a Collaborative Global Function
• Managing Communications in Global and Dispersed Organizations

CEC Related Blog Posts:

• 6 Questions for More Effective Central/Local Communications Partnership
• Want Excellent Global Communications? Give Local Communicators a Say

• Managing A Truly Global Communications Function