“Life moves pretty fast… if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller, 1986
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be Ferris Bueller—that guy who was chill enough to take a break and think about things and look around while the rest of the world overlooked things because they were too busy.
(Alas, as a Type A personality, it wasn’t meant to be for me.)
That advice still rings true, both in our personal lives and in our professional careers: if you move too fast, you’re liable to miss something.
One of the things you hear quite often as you begin working in a new industry, whether as a fresh college grad or if you’re switching sectors, is how “things move pretty fast around here.”
It’s one of the most common things we hear from clients and prospects. And in many cases, it’s quite true. It can make leading marketing or communications teams in these industries feel like orchestrating a choreographed game of whack-a-mole.
But those high-velocity industries are the ones that need structure the most. They need the PESO Model©.
The Illusion of Unstructured Speed
The idea of building structure into something that moves so fast that you don’t even know week to week which communications challenges you’ll face might seem contradictory. But implemented properly, the PESO Model actually enables speed. That’s right, you heard me: it enables speed.
Because here’s the reality: the idea that a formal structure slows you down is an illusion. When you’re moving fast and the situation demands even faster action, siloed teams and work slow you down considerably.
When paid, earned, shared, and owned teams operate independently, it leads to rework, mixed messages, and missed opportunities. And as the team leader, those misses land on you. Ultimately, as the team leader, you’re responsible for any of these misses.
Imagine a scenario—not even a crisis or major event, just a day-to-day scenario—in which your earned teams secure a substantial media hit.
Without a structure like the PESO Model to align and integrate your channel teams, the social team might already have different content scheduled that day or week, and has to reorient its entire content calendar—not to mention having to gin up content to support this hit.
And when they do, where do the social posts direct users if you don’t have owned content prepared to support it? (Sending users to the media outlet’s site doesn’t really help you move a consumer through the funnel.)
So either you miss the opportunity, or someone on the web team has to scramble and ditch their own content calendar.
If you’re a leader in one of these high-velocity industries, you can’t afford rework that slows output and burns out your team. No one wants to redo good work because the system wasn’t aligned. And if it happens too often, you risk losing the team’s trust because you don’t have a bead on how the right and left hands should work together.
And you certainly can’t afford to maximize every opportunity in an arena where competition for attention is fierce and you’re only as good as your team’s last content win.
One executive recently told us their industry moves too fast for structure. But if strategy and consistency are sacrificed for speed…what are you really accelerating?
Structure = Speed and Efficiency
I suspect that nobody really thinks their industry is slow-paced.
But, even if some industries move faster than others, structure doesn’t have to equate to red tape or delays.
When your work is done within the structure of the PESO Model, you break through the illusion that structure = slow.
You gain the confidence that your teams aren’t relying on what they heard about messaging from their best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris write the messaging at 31 Flavors last night.
Nothing will be missed in the rush to generate content, react to situations, or engage consumers and customers.
Here’s why:
- Speed through strategic clarity. The PESO framework eliminates decision paralysis by providing clear channels for different types of content and messaging. Instead of debating where to focus limited resources, teams know exactly which mix of paid, earned, shared, and owned media serves their immediate objectives. This structured approach reduces the time spent on strategic discussions during critical moments.
- Resource optimization under pressure. Fast-moving industries often face resource constraints and competing priorities. The PESO model helps companies avoid the common trap of throwing money at paid media when owned, shared, and earned opportunities might be more effective. It forces strategic thinking about where each dollar and hour will have the best results.
- Agile content repurposing. Structure enables rapid content adaptation across channels. A single piece of owned content can be quickly optimized for different PESO channels without starting from scratch each time. This systematic approach to content distribution actually accelerates time-to-market.
- Measurement and pivot capability. The framework’s emphasis on integrated measurement means companies can identify what’s working faster and reallocate resources in real-time. Without this structure, teams often continue ineffective tactics simply because they lack the systematic feedback loops to recognize failure quickly.
- Stakeholder alignment. In high-velocity environments, miscommunication and lack of alignment kill momentum. PESO provides a common language that helps different departments and external partners understand their roles and how their efforts interconnect, reducing friction, avoiding bottlenecks, and accelerating execution.
How It Works in the Real World
Not long ago, we collaborated with a fast-paced brand in the healthcare sector—think multiple stakeholder audiences, regulatory constraints, and constant media scrutiny.
The team was smart and experienced, but like many high-velocity environments, they were building the plane while flying it.
Paid media dominated, owned media was scarce, and shared media didn’t exist outside of owning their brand avatars. Earned media was taking place on the sidelines.
Everyone was doing good work, but nothing was really connected.
We didn’t start with a blank slate—we stepped into existing programs and applied PESO thinking retroactively. Even without inserting it during the planning stage, things got better fast.
- By aligning SEO insights with content, we created pieces that performed well in both traditional and generative AI search—and could be repurposed across paid, earned, and shared channels without reinventing the wheel each time.
- Teams stopped scrambling. They started sharing a common roadmap, which made it easier to activate media hits, reinforce messages across channels, and avoid duplicate work.
- And because we helped them shift away from single-touch attribution, they could finally see how their efforts were working together—not just in silos.
It wasn’t perfect (these things rarely are), but it worked. And now, that brand has a planning process that bakes PESO in from the start, not bolted on at the end.
Embracing Structure As Your Friend
You don’t need Abe Froman, the “Sausage King of Chicago,” to tell you that leading your team in a high-velocity environment comes with pressure and that even minutes can matter.
You’ve now seen how the PESO Model actually speeds you up and maximizes the efforts of your entire team.
Take a fresh look at your comms strategy. Where could stronger alignment help you move faster, avoid rework, and maintain a consistent message?
(Be honest—we both know there’s room.)
For many, embracing structure as your friend isn’t easy, especially when you’re in an industry where people have been telling you since your first day that things in your environment move too fast for structure.
Once you’ve seen how much faster you can communicate with the PESO Model, you’re going to wonder why you didn’t embrace structure sooner.
Stop. Look around. Now go do it.
If you’re leading a high-velocity team and would like to know how PESO can help you move even faster, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at cbarger@armentdietrich.com or connect with me on LinkedIn, and let’s get to work accelerating your team to match the speed of your business.
“You’re still here? It’s over. Go home!” – Ferris Bueller, 1986
