Purpose under pressure

Silence is becoming something of a default for communications leaders. 61% of communications leaders reportedly prefer to keep silent on divisive issues even where their organisation could speak authentically. So, when is silence the right approach and when is it not? This episode identifies five different types of silence and how and when to use each of them.

I used to be responsible for assuring the communications plans for each risk in the UK's National Risk Register. The risks it catalogues range from the hair-raising (“nuclear miscalculation”), to the familiar (“storms”), to risks you didn't even know you needed to worry about (“major outbreak of African horse sickness”). This episode explains how government assesses and manages risks and what lessons it holds for communications leaders.

The best advisers are able to disagree with their CEO or Minister and avert bad decisions. Yet somehow they always do so with their reputation enhanced rather than diminished. They don't just say ‘no’. In fact, they rarely say 'no' at all. So how do they do it? This episode examines five practical techniques.

Frontier AI may or may not represent a threat to humanity. But there are more immediate risks for corporate affairs directors. Those include the risk of falling behind on AI adoption, the risk that AI misrepresents your business, and the risk you’re not involved in decisions about how to deploy AI across your organisation. Those risks are ones I expect most companies to encounter in the next three years. They are also risks corporate affairs directors can do something about.

In this series, I have argued that good communications leadership involves bringing clarity, capability, and confidence. Yet, there is one other important source of advantage. The best teams do not simply execute the original plan: they look for a better route. Continuous improvement is about creating a mindset in which everyone is thinking about how the team can do better.