Today companies are operating within a complex environment – navigating deep cultural divisions, challenging externalities and complicated media dynamics where everyone is an activist, witness or journalist.
Whether you’re navigating an issue that directly impacts your business or responding to external developments, this environment demands rigor and authenticity when it comes to decision making, communication and engagement.
How do you prepare, when to take a stand, what does it take to weather the storm? Can there be any way for a corporation to win in this environment? What does winning even mean? You must be credible, authentic, and follow through. The goal isn’t to spin or craft the perfect statement – you must achieve LEGITIMACY.
It involves real preparation and real work and coordination among the various parts of your business – integrated across investor relations, marketing/brand positioning, corporate social responsibility, government relations, internal communications and the media.
Most of this needs to be built into how you operate. Audiences will judge you based on what you say, not do.
You need to do it all the time: it is about looking at everything you put out into the world and subjecting it to the lens of a political campaign.
Companies must have a systematic C-suite led strategy for engagement.