TL;DR

Marketing and communications don’t have a skills gap; they have a judgment gap. Most teams already have the talent and tools to execute campaigns. What’s missing is a clearly defined strategy strong enough to anchor decision-making. When execution becomes the goal instead of the expression of strategy, teams default to activity instead of outcomes. The competitive advantage belongs to organizations that operate from a strategic plan and operating system, like the PESO Model®, and use judgment to decide what truly moves the business forward.

Key Insights

• Most teams already have capable professionals. What they often lack is a strong enough strategic foundation to guide confident decision-making.
• When strategy is vague, everything feels possible. When it’s clear, tradeoffs become easier.
• Speed, volume, and optimization have historically been rewarded, but reflection, prioritization, and integrating efforts are the way to succeed today.  
• Judgment is a leadership skill, not a title. It’s the ability to anchor decisions in vision and outcomes, even when the options are imperfect.
• Strong judgment shows up in behavior. It looks like selecting metrics before tactics, aligning your PESO efforts around one objective, and filtering noise through strategy.
• Clarity is the new competitive advantage. Creating content at scale is easier than ever, so the edge belongs to teams that can consistently decide what supports the objective and what doesn’t.

MarComm Doesn’t Have a Skills Gap, It Has a Judgment Gap

I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some of the most talented marketing and communications professionals in the industry.

These are people who have honed their crafts. They’re creative, disciplined, strategic, passionate, and loyal to their teams and their brands. And it’s been across a variety of roles and industries. 

I’ve worked in corporate communications, as a publicist, and on marketing teams. I’ve handled crisis communications and reputation management, led social and digital media efforts, and overseen large advertising budgets. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to be in rooms where decisions are made, and in rooms where decisions stalled.

Through all of that, one thing has become very clear to me: what we’re facing right now is not a skills gap, it’s a judgment gap.

Training is important, and skill development matters. In fact, it’s at the core of what we do at Spin Sucks—helping teams build fluency across marketing and communications so they can operate with confidence and intention, using the PESO Model® as their marcomm operating system.

But when I look at the talent and diversity of experience in this industry, we have to ask a harder question.

How can we keep calling this a skills problem when the industry is filled with people who can do the work? 

The real issue is something else entirely.

Training Builds Skills, but Strategy Builds Judgment

I want to be very clear: I believe deeply in training. 

At Spin Sucks, we teach professionals how to integrate paid, earned, shared, and owned media so they can operate from a place of clarity instead of chaos. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when someone finally understands how all the pieces fit together. It changes the way they approach their work, and it’s an amazingly fulfilling moment for me. 

So, skills matter. If you don’t understand analytics, you can’t measure progress. If you don’t understand media relations, you can’t build credibility. If you don’t understand AI, you risk being left behind. 

But here’s what I’ve observed, especially in recent years. You can train someone to use the tools, and they’ll get very good at them. What you can’t do quite as easily is teach them when not to use them.

I’ve watched incredibly talented teams execute flawlessly on campaigns that never should have launched in the first place. Not because they weren’t capable or lacked effort, but because no one stopped to ask whether the work supported the strategy, or whether the strategy was clearly defined to begin with.

That’s not a skills problem; that’s a strategy problem. And when strategy isn’t clear, decision-making becomes reactive. Teams optimize for what they can measure, they chase quick wins, respond to the loudest internal voice, and stay busy because busy feels productive.

But judgment, or the ability to weigh tradeoffs, prioritize under pressure, and confidently say “this supports the business” or “this does not,” comes from understanding the bigger picture and having strategic guardrails.

When those guardrails are in place, skills become powerful. But when they aren’t, even the most talented professionals default to activity. 

That’s the distinction we need to talk about.

We’re Not Lacking Talent, We’re Lacking Confidence to Decide

Teams understand the channels, know how the algorithms work, can pull the right data, and explain audience behavior in detail. They’ve taken the courses, read the reports, and know what “good” execution looks like.

And yet, when it’s time to make a clear recommendation to say, “This is the direction we should take, and here’s why,” there’s often hesitation.

Not because they lack skill, but because the strategy isn’t strong enough to anchor the decision.

I’ve watched talented teams debate minor tactical adjustments for an hour because no one could confidently point back to the larger objective. I’ve seen campaign ideas gain momentum simply because they sounded exciting, and not because they clearly supported a defined goal. I’ve watched dashboards grow more complex as teams tried to prove value rather than simplify around the few indicators that actually reflect progress.

When strategy is clear, decisions get easier. When it’s vague, everything feels like it could be right. So,  everything gets considered and tested.

Without realizing it, the work expands because there isn’t a strong enough strategic filter to say, “This supports the goal,” or “This does not.”

That’s the judgment gap.

Judgment isn’t a personality trait or about boldness. It’s the byproduct of a clearly defined strategy. When the strategic foundation is solid, even difficult decisions feel grounded. 

When it isn’t, even smart teams hesitate, and that hesitation can look like a capability issue. But it’s actually a strategy issue masquerading as a skills problem.

Leadership Feels the Confusion, Even If They Can’t Name It

We all want to impress leadership, but from the executive seat, this doesn’t show up as a “judgment gap.” It shows up as something more dangerous: inconsistency.

Leaders see activity everywhere, and the idea is that the team is clearly working. But when they ask, “Is this moving the business forward?” the answer isn’t always clear.

For decades, marketing has framed success one way, while communications has framed it another. Paid, earned, shared, and owned teams each demonstrate performance through their own lens. Individually, it makes sense, but collectively, it can feel fragmented.

And when it feels fragmented, it doesn’t feel strategic; it just feels busy. And that matters more than ever. 

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that only 32% of people globally believe the next generation will be better off. At the same time, business and employers remain among the most trusted institutions, with 64% of people trusting business and 78% trusting their employer to do what is right. 

Marketing and communications are the public expression of that trust. So when leadership senses that inconsistency or uncertainty, even if it’s part of that judgment gap, they don’t interpret it as a strategic nuance. And uncertainty, at the executive level, quickly starts to look like a capability issue.

When Execution Became the Goal

Like most issues we all manage, this didn’t happen overnight. Over time, our industry slowly shifted what it rewarded.

Speed became a virtue, volume became a signal of relevance, and optimization became proof of sophistication. The faster we could execute, the more modern we appeared.

I was just reminiscing with some colleagues about dropping off multiple media clip books to a client, feeling like we had changed their world. Did it create meaningful results? Probably not, but we’ll never know because we didn’t measure it. That wasn’t the goal. 

To be fair, that shift made sense. Things were changing rapidly, and teams had to adapt. So, we trained people to move fast, optimize channels independently, report activity in real time, celebrate spikes in engagement, and show bigger numbers.

What we didn’t consistently train was to pause long enough to ask whether the work was compounding toward a meaningful outcome. As a result, metrics multiplied, dashboards expanded, and reports became more sophisticated. We got very good at proving we were busy.

But, as we’ve discussed, being busy is not the same thing as being strategic. And when execution becomes the goal instead of the expression of a clear strategy, judgment dwindles. Not because people lose it, but because they’re rarely asked to exercise it.

Ultimately, execution requires movement, and for years, we rewarded movement.

Judgment Is a Leadership Skill

Unfortunately, when judgment erodes, influence tends to follow. 

Not because marketing and communications become less talented, but because when recommendations sound optional, and strategies sound flexible, leadership stops treating them as directional.

Expertise starts to feel like opinion, and once that shift happens, the function moves from shaping priorities to reacting to them.

That’s the real cost—the slow erosion of strategic authority.

But here’s the part we don’t talk about enough: judgment isn’t reserved for the C-suite. It isn’t a personality trait, and it isn’t something you magically earn with tenure. 

Judgment is a leadership skill. It’s the ability to understand the vision and make decisions that move it forward, even when the options are imperfect. And marketing and communications professionals are uniquely positioned to do this.

We sit across channels, understand audience behavior, and translate complexity into clarity. When that vantage point is paired with a strong strategic foundation, something shifts. Clarity becomes leadership, and integration becomes judgment in action.

When you operate from a strategic communications plan grounded in the PESO Model operating system, you don’t just execute better; you know what supports the strategy and have the confidence to act accordingly.

What Strong Judgment Looks Like 

Strong judgment isn’t about restraint for the sake of discipline; it changes how a team operates.

You see it in planning meetings where the first question isn’t, “What channels should we use?” but, “What decision are we trying to influence?”

You see it when success metrics are selected before tactics are debated, and when those metrics stay consistent, even when a shiny new platform appears. 

Strong judgment also shows up in how teams handle noise. A competitor launches a splashy campaign, an executive forwards an article, or a social trend starts gaining traction. Instead of reacting immediately, the team filters it through strategy.

Does this support our priority? Does it reach the audience we care about? Does it build toward the outcome we’ve defined?

If the answer is no, they move on. Not defensively, but strategically.

And perhaps most importantly, strong judgment creates consistency across paid, earned, shared, and owned media. Not because someone mandates alignment, but because the objective demands it.

Judgment looks like a clearer intention, not louder execution. 

Judgment Is the Differentiator

We are working through a moment where execution is the norm. Ideas can be generated instantly, content can be produced at scale, and distribution can be automated. 

Execution has never been easier, but clarity has never been more valuable.

When everyone can create, creation stops being the competitive edge. AI has leveled the playing ground. The edge belongs to the teams that can confidently and consistently decide what supports the objective and what doesn’t.

This is not the era of more content; it’s the era of more discernment. The brands that stand out won’t be the ones that react to every trend or amplify every message. They’ll be the ones whose decisions feel deliberate, cohesive, and grounded in strategy. 

That happens when marketing and communications professionals embrace the role we’ve been training for: strategic leaders.

The opportunity in front of us isn’t to prove how much we can produce. It’s to demonstrate how well we can decide, and get clearer about what we’re solving, how we measure it, and what we’re willing to say no to.

Because this was never a skills gap, it was a judgment gap. Closing it starts with us.

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