Trust in your brand builds crisis resilience
You might not be able to stop a crisis hitting, but you can control your brand’s reputation going into that crisis. Using a combination of long-term public relations work and…
Crisis Communications
What does trust mean for your organisation?
At the Corporate Affairs Summit towards the end of last year, I heard Dr Steve Van Riel (Head of insight and innovation at Teneo) talk about what trust means to an organisation. He talked about the…
Why information alone doesn’t change minds in a crisis
For many years, communicators (including me) have told companies to focus on communicating only high-quality information during a crisis. A crisis is no time for niceties, or corporate messages. No-one…
Doing the right thing is hard, risky and worth it
We know that allyship, and acting in line with your values, isn’t easy. If those values are to support, work with, recognise and represent marginalised communities putting those values into…
Lessons in activism
Values aren’t about marketing, they’re about strategy. It’s easy for brands to say what people want to hear (and to switch messages once the political climate changes, as we’ve recently…
Team psychological safety and avoiding a culture of fear
Team psychological safety in the workplace plays an essential role in creating a healthy culture. The term was first coined by psychologist Carl Rogers in the 1950s, and the…
Whistleblowing – a cautionary tale for organisations
A couple of weeks ago, Tamara and I had the privilege of speaking to Jonathan Taylor, a whistleblower whose world was turned upside down when he exposed his employer for…
Why organisations need diverse crisis teams
Organisations that work to create more diverse cultures and hire diverse teams perform better than those that don’t. It’s something that researchers and analysts, like McKinsey, have reported for years. …
The biggest brand crises of 2024
2024 saw some big crises for brands. Here is our pick of the biggest: Boeing’s bad year It was a(nother) bad year for Boeing. A 737 Max 9 lost a…
Why every crisis team needs a challenger, holding the team to account
When we run simulation exercises, almost every team says the same thing: “We were too slow to act. Time ran away from us!” They’re right. Time does run away from…
United Airlines passenger removal scandal – what can leaders learn?
When Dr David Dao was dragged off a United Airlines flight in 2017, there was international outrage. For anyone who doesn’t know the story, he had been selected to give…
Tylenol’s 1982 recall and lessons in leadership from Johnson & Johnson
The first episode of our new Polpeo podcast, ‘What Just Happened?’ explores the so-called ‘Tylenol Murders’ and subsequent mass product recall of Tylenol in the US by owners Johnson &…