A couple of weeks ago the internet was ablaze with word of a memo, penned by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, decrying the company’s current market position and chances for success in an increasingly competitive environment. The memo began with the story of a man standing on the burning platform of an oil rig, facing the difficult decision of whether to perish on the platform or dive into the icy waters of the Atlantic.Elop equated Nokia’s current position to that of the man on the platform, stating plainly, “we must decide how we are going to change our behavior.” He then spent roughly 20 or so more paragraphs telling employees what was going wrong before stating that the company would be revealing a new strategy in the coming days.As a practitioner of internal communications, I had multiple reactions to the memo. My first thought: the frank tone and candor was, in a way, refreshing. We talk constantly about the need for authenticity in communications and a human voice, and this particular memo was overflowing with both. As I was reading, it was plain to me that a man under siege had written it.But we also talk a great deal about higher purpose and about giving employees a vision to strive toward, and that’s where things fell apart for me.Fast forward a few days and Nokia did indeed make a big revelation: it would discard its own cell phone operating system in favor of software made by Microsoft. While I haven’t seen any further internal communications, no doubt there was a companywide meeting or another executive message explaining how this move would be the cornerstone of a new business strategy that would guide Nokia successfully forward in the future.That said, even two or three days is a long time in this age of lightning fast communications. In other words, that’s two days for internal memos to spread like wildfire across the internet, and two days for employees to fret only about the bad news they’ve just heard without knowing the rest of the story.Was this frank discussion of Nokia’s current situation warranted? In my book, absolutely – but as the rationale for the shift in business strategy, not the suspenseful build-up to the announcement of the shift.When working with clients on any internal communications, we always try to begin with the desired outcome. What do we want employees to feel or do as a result of this communications effort? Will the approach we’re considering have the desired effect? Without knowing what was still to come, it’s hard for me to imagine feeling anything but depressed after reading the internal Nokia memo.One final note: I’m a huge fan of story-telling to bring communications to life, but I found the “burning platform” tale in the beginning of the memo a bit disconcerting. For one thing, the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year is still quite fresh in many peoples’ minds. For another thing, no matter how dire Nokia’s current situation might be, losing ground in the smart phone market simply doesn’t compare to the potential loss of human life.