Building Brand Gravity Podcast

Anne Green: [00:00:00] I will say lean hard into the human aspects of this transformation, and in doing so, be open. Encourage your teams to speak about and hold the paradox of AI upsides and downsides that exist simultaneously. And I think that speaking to the nuances and the realities here is more likely to help catalyze change than.

Sweeping all that complexity and the stuff that's inconvenient under the rug.

Hello and welcome back to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Anne Green.

Steve Halsey: I'm Steve Halsey.

Anne Green: Steve, happy 2026. It's January

Steve Halsey: already, already. The new year is upon us with excitement and I guess for some maybe a little trepidation,

Anne Green: I am still reeling at how fast 2025 went. That was somehow the longest and shortest year that I've experienced in a long time, but it is January.

And predictions are [00:01:00] everywhere, and we wouldn't be good podcasters if we didn't have our own. So I think we have to get into it today.

Steve Halsey: Yeah, I think you know what we should do today is let's start with each of our predictions, but rather than going through them one by one, by one by one. Maybe we can, uh, can spend a little time talking about the broader trends and the things that are impacting that drove us each to come up with those predictions and really talk about how they're shaping the way that brands operate, communicate, and even the way leaders need to lead here in 2026.

Anne Green: Yeah, and as you and I were comparing notes before this recording and sharing our personal predictions, we each came up with six of them interestingly. So that's a nice parallel. Um, some really clear through lines emerged and the five of them were AI surprise, um, trust pressure. People and also something close to our heart, Steve narrative.

So it's exciting. We can unpack these piece by piece. So I'll start and let me [00:02:00] give you my six without a lot of detail. I'll just give you the top line and then I know you can do the same, Steve. So my first one's going to be AI standardization. And also acceleration. We talked about 2024 is the year of AI exploration.

We dubbed it this year, or 2025. It actually been the year of ai, um, acceleration, and now we're getting into AI standardization. So that'll be okay. I have to, we're gonna have to cut that. Let me do that part again. We dubbed 2024 as the year of AI exploration. 2025 was the year of AI enablement, and now we're getting into AI standardization and acceleration.

My second one is going to be intensifying stressors on the healthcare sector. No surprise, not the only sector under stress, but a big one. My next one is an interesting one that I've started to see pop up, which is rehiring. Which we'll talk about that more a little bit later. Another is [00:03:00] GLP-1s shaping and reshaping literally everything.

A very interesting and exciting topic. My fifth is a pair, cyber and slop. And by the way, slop is the Merriam Webster word of the year for 2025. And then the final one for me is the rise of the counselor.

Steve Halsey: Well, that's a, that's a really interesting, uh, list that you have there. And, uh, you know, I think for me it really captures kind of both the human and system pressures that we're seeing that so many organizations are feeling right now.

But I also think there's some really interesting things in there, like the rehiring, the. You know, there are some really good signs of a positive movement as we come into 2026 that, that I think are, are good to make sure we capture and talk about. So here's my list. My first one is this idea that corporate narrative becomes an operating system.

So I'm excited to get into that one GEO and narrative intelligence move from nice [00:04:00] to have to absolute, must have to any well-managed corporation. Here's a new one I'm coining this year: The trust crisis of synthetic reality. What is reality? What isn't? It just gets harder and harder every year. The compressed news cycle is really forcing us to be always on.

Volatility as we're seeing every day in the news remains a baseline, and recovery is uneven across industry. But I also think 2026 is the year where we see a significant shift in even more external influencers becoming core to the go-to market strategy for B2B companies. So those are my six.

Anne Green: I love those.

There's so much good stuff in there. You know, so much of that, Steve, comes back to the idea of trust and also coherence. In an AI mediated world, I, you heard me in 2025, Steve and our other colleagues have heard me talk about making things legible. Are they readable? Can you tell what they are? So there's tons of, um, to unpack here.

So [00:05:00] as we said, instead of going one by one, we're gonna kind of use these 12 predictions as anchors for these key themes. And the first theme we wanna talk about, we're calling it the pressure stack. Which is volatility. Yeah. Pressure. A couple good songs on that front. Some uh, Bowie, some Billy Joel. But the volatility and the sector stress and also the pace of change.

And the intensity of that pace. I mean, the, the way I would think of one of my anchors here, and I mentioned it 'cause it's one of my trends, is the stressors on the overall healthcare system. I think healthcare is a real leading indicator for many parts of our. Society and systems and other industry sectors, it affects everyone.

It has a massive workforce. It has huge interdependencies. It's very linked between the private and public sector, and it's massively impacted by economic pressures, demographic change, just income inequity, everything that we see. And it's also incredibly impacted by technology and advancements. So. [00:06:00] There is not all negative stuff here, but I will say that that sector, I work in that sector a great deal.

We have clients in that sector across many different aspects of the sector, so that's something that's top of mind for me when you talk about the pressure right now.

Steve Halsey: Well, and and, and, and particularly when you think of that, that's also one industry that you have such the overlay of personal emotion.

About yourself, about your loved one, about your, about your friends, um, and, and that, that stress we're seeing play out huge, huge in healthcare, but we're also seeing it, I think, across a lot of other industries. I think as we look ahead at 2026. Recovery is gonna be uneven. I mean, you have industries like healthcare where again, a lot of these different groups are actively competing and trying to restructure what everything looks like.

But in other sectors, we're seeing a lot of uneven recovery. And even where we're seeing rebounds, there's still regulatory uncertainty, geopolitical shocks are happening on a daily basis, [00:07:00] and really AI disruption in terms of what can be and what's going forward. Is really making this environment tough to really know what clarity exists, how to be consistent, like you said, all that stuff, like you said, is just multiple pressure points stacking up at once.

Anne Green: Yeah, it, it is not one big disruption. It's that multiplicity. And I think one thing we've talked about an earlier podcast, one of my quotes was. The fact that humans have a hard time holding paradox and multiple things in our head at one time, and we have to create certainty where we can. But it's not easy.

And that, that's, that's a leadership pressure for sure. But it goes all the way down the chain. So that, that's a good one. I like that first theme, Steve.

Steve Halsey: Nice, simple and easy. The the, the next one I wanna, I wanna talk about, and I, I kind of teed it up there, is the trust crisis of, uh, synthetic reality really hit me the other day when I was just scrolling through my thieves and all of a sudden this thing popped up that says, Hey, [00:08:00] record 22nd of your voice.

Pick any song and you'll sing it. Pitch perfect, "Bohemian Rhapsody", whichever, whichever one you wanna do, do. And it just struck me that at that moment, it used to be deep fakes. Took a lot of effort, took a lot of, lot of, lot of time, took a lot of, uh, of knowhow. But now with the AI tools, being able to create videos, music, videos, all this stuff, once it becomes mainstream, at what point.

Do you know what's real and what doesn't and what isn't? What isn't real? So, so to me, I think that is going to be a huge, huge challenge for us as we think about all this synthetic audio video identity that's just out there in the mainstream. How do companies manage that?

Anne Green: I, I like that idea of synthetic reality.

'cause in some ways this is going to be our reality living in that. What comes to mind for me under this? This anchor of [00:09:00] trust in the synthetic sloppy world is the two sides of the coin, which is cyber. The incredible threats. That are happening on the cybersecurity front with ai, you know, fueling it at scale.

But on the other side, just the proliferation of what people are calling AI slop, which is an ever changing entity in one person's slop, is another person's, you know, Sistine Chapel. I guess maybe not that extreme, but it, it's very much in the eye of the beholder. And I would say like most things humans create, it can be great and it can be awful.

And that's why I do think we have to hold these two things in our hands at one time and in our minds at one time. I think what's most salient to our. Business, our sector, and all of our clients is how that synthetic reality is reshaping and polluting the signals that they try to use to understand their audiences.

So for example, if you look at some of the big news stories on the social side, from 2025, let's say the Cracker Barrel [00:10:00] logo. There was so much media coverage of this outrage on social media, ascribing reality that, oh, these are the customers of Cracker Barrel, or a portion of them who are so angry. What turned out being the case once there was forensic sort of cyber analysis.

It's not that hard to do now. Is that a huge portion of that social traffic was not real. It was bot networks, it was fake, it was AI driven, and there's a lot of social engineering at the societal level happening. There's a lot of outside parties that would like to get. America is just one example. This is happening all over the world.

Get us very riled up. And think that we are the strident voices. We are angry at each other. We are tearing each other down, and that's not always the case. And so whether you're looking at the engagement metrics and what are your customers actually feeling and getting more instrument with them to really know, not just looking at the social channels or organic social.

But also what is the data you're using to look at the effectiveness of your digital ad [00:11:00] campaigns? How much of that, those clicks and engagement is real, and how much is synthetic? So I mean, those are the things that come to mind for me, and they're very top of mind for our clients.

Steve Halsey: And you've got, you've got so much integration of this synthetic world into, uh, into different feeds.

Uh, TikTok, Instagram, things like that. It looks really real that, hey, when you save the bear cub on the side of the road, grizzly mama's gonna come up and give you a hug. I don't think in reality, if you tried that in Yellowstone, that would, uh, would quite work that way. But it's interesting to me that. In some ways, you know, there there's almost celebration with these tools of the synthetic imaginary world we can create.

But the challenge for us as communicators is how do you then prove trust in this world? Right? Because you're not really telling story anymore, you're trying to prove what's real and, and we'll get into that in a little bit. I think that's where it really becomes to. You can't just communicate at one point in time about something.

It's gotta [00:12:00] be that consistency. So you're actually generating authenticity through. That kind of, uh, kind of consistency is something that we're gonna need to think about. You know, and that's also one of the reasons, one of the trends I threw out there was, I think external influencers are going to become even more important in B2B.

And, you know, we've, we've used. What we dubbed influencers for decades. You know, those would be the scientists, the university researcher, you know, the third party expert. But I think, I think what we're seeing, even with the shift that we were talking about earlier, about just how everything's instantaneous and lives in the feed.

In B2B marketing, leveraging more and more this year influencers for really adding that authenticity and becoming more of a go-to discipline. I thought this was interesting. I saw recently in Fortune that this year 75% of enterprise B2B [00:13:00] companies. Plan to increase their budget for influencer relations engagement, uh, particularly around subject matter experts, third party voices.

So I think that's kind of interesting here in, um, an AI powered discovery environment. Buyers are relying on more and more external validations and just trying to find different ways to get into their feed, even in really complex B2B sale. I, I've just found that fascinating.

Anne Green: I, I think it makes total sense.

I'm not, I mean, that's a huge stat. I guess I'm not totally surprised, but it's exciting to hear, and in some ways, as we talked about in a more synthetically created reality, different types of influencers, whether it's the ones you write, Steve, in the communication setting, and in many of the works we've done, we've done this for years.

Whether it's those types of influencers or ones that. Have created a following in different online channels or social channels. There's a sense that they've created trust with their audience and the audience knows who they are and they, [00:14:00] there's a sense of familiarity and, and I, I also feel this ties very tightly to something we're seeing strongly in our sector and in our kind of business, which I'm calling the rise of the counselor.

We need. In this world today to really know who has true expertise. Where do you seek that expertise? And frankly, the AI of it all, and using AI as a thought partner, as a force multiplier and enabler, it's augmenting that intelligence. It's those who have sector expertise and have seen a bit. And you know, it can come at at many different ages, but especially those that have been seasoned in their field.

You know, that level can become quite supercharged by technology today. And we see both, um, within our clients and also between agencies and clients that need of the counselor to show that human expertise as a stabilizer and as a filter, a cultivator, an assessor powered by technology. 'cause the noisy [00:15:00] systems, those trusted perspectives and voices start to matter a lot more.

Steve Halsey: And you, you and I are hearing though that hearing that a lot in all the conversations we're having, even just. How the, uh, agency client relationship is, is changing a bit based on that, that need for that counselor. It's no longer, Hey, I need you to help put together the strategy and let's do a quarterly check-in.

Now it's just with a pace of change and all those stacking pressures, you know, how do you make sure you've got access to more senior council on a more regular basis? And that's, that's really is changing some of the, some of the dynamics, um, in terms of. How we staff, how we interact with our corporate clients.

I mean, what, what's, what's kinda your perspective on this shift and how it's gonna shape out over the course of this year?

Anne Green: Yeah. I, I, I just feel that we need to empower all the levels within an agency environment to really use technology and the knowledge that surrounds us. One of our strengths is we have [00:16:00] multi-generational workforce that's learning in all directions all the time, mentoring, cultivating, and so in that way.

Helping folks leverage technology to become stronger, faster, smarter, quicker to become orchestrators of many different tools, agents, knowledge bases, and then raise that up to sort the wheat from the chaff along with the council for maybe more senior people. I think that's going to be, say, professional services in our sector looks like going forward.

To me, the AI piece brings us to our next theme, which is AI grows up or under pressure, and I just wanna put the pin in the fact that I do need to hear you singing Bohemian Rhapsody at some point, like all the parts. So if that was AI generated, then I think we may need to put a link in the show notes, but we'll, we'll see if we can get that out of Steve later.

Um, but the AI grows up piece I'd said earlier. We had informally dubbed for our own team because again, making it legible, knowledgeable, understandable that 2024 was [00:17:00] about exploration, 2025 was about enablement. We've dubbed this coming year, the year of standardization and acceleration, meaning. What are the standard operating procedures for, in our context, any given type of client, what are the types of agents prompts, the knowledge base that should just be standard?

How are we using AI to onboard, do all the different things and how are we using it at a ground operational level as well as a very high level thought partner? So that's the standardization piece. That standard operating procedure, that's something we're talking about a lot and I'm hearing. That in many different conversations I'm having and I'm evangelizing it, and I'll talk about this more later about the human side of this transformation.

'cause I got a real soapbox on this one. But with the standardization, the other piece I'm seeing about AI growing up under pressure before, you know, you jump into this anchor theme, Steve, is this question of. 2025 was a year where a lot of companies cut a lot of jobs, [00:18:00] and in some cases the rationale was very tied to AI and AI efficiency.

At the same time, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that the real ROI of AI was still yet to come. And I'm not throwing shade here. I'm just trying to figure out what is actually happening, because you and I have both been having deep conversations with this, with pretty much anyone we can, and my hypothesis here is that there was a lot of cutting that had to take place anyway.

Yes, AI is a part of it. But it's not the only part. And in some cases, I think there was an over indexing on the narrative that it was ai because in many cases we're not seeing the implementation of AI throughout enterprise organizations to the point yet where agents are truly replacing humans if they ever should.

Right. Um, so my sense may be, and I'm just gonna put a stake in the ground here, that we may see some rehiring in certain sectors for, for cuts that were made too deep. Where AI can't pick up the slack yet, knowing full well [00:19:00] that many of these companies have said all along, look, we're going to be trimming, but we're also gonna be shifting roles and hiring at the same time.

So, you know, let's watch those trends. I think we may see more about. The movement of jobs and rehiring than we will about, oh, this, we're cutting 'cause of ai. But I, I don't know. What's, what is this AI grows up piece signaling for you?

Steve Halsey: Well, I, I, I think it, it's interesting with, with disruption, everybody e even those in Silicon Valley at the Edge everybody's just working through this at, nobody really knows, uh, knows what, what the end game is.

So when I think about something like rehiring, I think that's all part of the learning process, right. Rehiring isn't really a failure of ai, so to speak. I think it's a sign that humans were removed before the systems were really ready to, to leverage 'em. And so when I'm thinking about the real gap as it relates to ai, it's, it isn't who is using it, but who is using it with discip.

Right. And [00:20:00] getting back to what we were just talking about a few minutes ago about the senior counselors, that's where it's so critical as to who is training your model and how are you constantly putting in your ip. 'cause that's when you can leverage it across the full generations of your workforce and really, really tailor it to something that, that creates value.

So, so that's kind of, kind of, kind of my take on it. And you and I were talking the uh, uh. The other day and you, you referenced a, a Fortune article you saw, which, which I thought just captured exactly what you were talking about on the spend of AI versus just humans.

Anne Green: Deloitte, this is hot off the press, um, like right at the end of December.

So it's really quite fresh still as we record this in early January that, um, Deloitte came out and their CTO was saying that they have research that says 93% of spend on AI transformation. I'm sure they surveyed, uh, they always survey [00:21:00] tons and tons of enterprises, you know, and, and c-suite or tech leaders.

So 93% of the spend in AI transformation is on technology, and 7% of the spend is on the people side of it, which I think is deeply problematic and that's certainly what they're. Deloitte, CTO was saying. And I, I think you look at that and that is a stark stat and needs to shift. And I, I'm gonna have a soapbox on that at the end of, of our podcast today, when we talk about one shift, leaders can make

Steve Halsey: Well, and, and what I, what I thought was interesting that, that struck, struck me about that article was, um.

You know, I always like a, like a good anecdote. And in that it was, it was he, he compared it to basically trying to make paella and ending up only with cilantro. You know, you've got all the ingredients, but none of the recipes. So how does it come through? And I just. To me, I just think that's a really powerful reminder that technology alone doesn't transform business leaders, like you [00:22:00] just said, have to invest in that human side of it.

Training, process, redesign, culture evolution. 'cause without that balance, even the best models or even the best computer chips aren't gonna deliver meaningful impact. So I think getting back to what you were talking about with rehiring and those types of things, I think that's what, what. Business in general across all sectors is trying to figure out.

What is that new operating system going to be and look like? Which bridges me to actually, which was my first prediction, which is basically we're sitting in a world right now where content is infinite, right? Narrative really is becoming that both a constraint and an advantage. So in 2026, I think. As I talk about narrative as an operating system, I mean, we need to move beyond just messaging a campaign to really think about how do we align leadership, culture, AI output, crisis [00:23:00] preparation and posture, market presence.

How do you use all those to create a narrative spine that is always on? Because before a human even curates something, it's constantly being curated by ai.

Anne Green: Yeah, it's, it's interesting, this idea is corporate narrative is an operating system. It reminds me of conversations we've had in past podcast episodes about how comms or corporate affairs is structured in different organizations.

So you both have speed, agility, knowledge of the business units, but also you have a very strong center of gravity that's agile can pivot, has access to leadership. So that corporate narrative remains solid and repeatable. I remember hearing from, you know, a friend who runs another agency, leaders are repeaters.

Um, another thing it reminds me of is, um, our conversation on the podcast last December with Benjamin Thiele-Long, who wrote an incredible book about the unified skillset of public speaking and interviewing and your presence, and how do all of these things [00:24:00] create a narrative coherence. I think in sometimes like training or the narrative, it's been largely located at the most senior levels and more episodic in how it's trained.

And maybe it's episodic in how that narrative is updated. But truly, and I, I think you see this, you know, we talked earlier about sort of Verizon being restructured under Dan Schulman and bringing corporate affairs back together. And he talked about that brand, the importance of, um, that through line. So the idea of narrative coherence.

Is more important than ever in all the voices that are bringing it forward. So yeah, I, I resonate with that a ton.

Steve Halsey: I like that narrative, narrative coherence. So I guess as we kinda wrap this section, it's almost like. AI doesn't really create clarity. The organizations have to have to bring that. And it's not always easy.

Anne Green: No, it's, it isn't. And you know, I'll talk again about the people stuff, but to me the people are equally as important as the technology. Clearly the technology is striking, but we don't have 7 billion books [00:25:00] about change management written because the people piece is unimportant. It's, it's literally the most important piece.

So. Um, our last anchor theme we're calling cross sector signals that Leaders can't ignore. And one that I've been hearing a ton about that I find very, very fascinating is the impact of a drug. GLP-1s. We have all heard about them, they've exploded onto the scene. It's funny in some ways. They're not as big as maybe the AI revolution, but if you think about how chat GPT sprung onto the scene, it had been around for quite a while, this kind of machine learning moving into their attempts to create these large language models.

But there was a moment when that certain model of chat GPT changed everything. Same thing with GLP-1s. We've had diabetes drugs, they've been researching them. They've seen some of their impact, but suddenly. The move and it was Novo Nordis with Ozempic. Although Eli Lilly has really taken the poll position now, um, in the [00:26:00] sector, it exploded on the scene and it's reshaping everything.

And the reason I was thinking about this is, you know, a group that we continue to do work with pwc, um, I'm, I'm citing all the big four today. Um, Ali Furman, who's head of their consumer markets that she and Paul Lineal just wrote a piece in HBR in in last October, and they were talking about how GLP-1s are across sector phenomenon.

So if you think about impact not just in the healthcare space, and that could reduce spending through reduced comorbidities and better health, especially if it spreads beyond. Just weight and obesity into heart disease or other, even addiction. I mean, there's so many as form factors change. Is there a weekly pill?

Is there a annual injection? All of these things are gonna be explored, but PWC was charting the impact on grocery spend decline if the main purchaser is on one of the GLP-1s. Apparel spending increases fitness and wellness, [00:27:00] spending shifts, travel shifts, restaurant patterns, less quick service, more.

Full service. Just I, I think I had to respect. The massive cross sector change that not just AI is making, but GLP-1s and how many people in the financial sector and others are talking about this as one of the big trends. So again, that to me is a great example of cross sector signals. What do you take away from all this and what, what's on your mind in this theme?

Steve Halsey: Well, on that one, I've been surprised how much I've heard that conversation in spaces I didn't expect logistics company actually talking about how that's fundamentally changing things. And I, I guess when I think about the, the GLP-1 impact, I'm, I'm just reminded of the saying. Disruption doesn't stay in its lane, right?

So you're seeing it with something like a medicine like GLP-1s. We're definitely seeing it with things like ai and we're kind of seeing the framework that if your [00:28:00] story only works in one sector, you may be a little bit too niche for what may be what may be coming. Because the interconnectivity of everything in these industries that, I mean.

Think about how quickly that story about GLP-1 changed, right? Five years ago it would've been medication. The medication would've worked. So these would've all happened in like a sequential series of storytelling versus boom, it's everybody everywhere. Trying to think about what is the real. Financial impact as well as the, the, the health impact on those, those individuals.

So to me that's where this whole idea of narrative becoming the, the connective tissue and in a lot of ways, being prepared to respond to things that you otherwise wouldn't have anticipated coming. Because in the past it had been said as well, this is a healthcare issue. This isn't a grocery retail issue.

Anne Green: It kind of is this example, to bring it back to your idea of connective tissue, we we're having a lot of [00:29:00] metaphors around narrative because I think it's just so powerful and, and helping us create systems of thinking about how do, how do we respond to this? But I guess I was summarizing it, GLP-1 show, what does it mean to stay in your lane?

You know, as, as a company, as a sector, as a topic, as a theme, it's hard to think that there's. In some cases there may be, but there the lanes are much more interconnected and there's a lot more shifting and moving between them in a world where everything is so interconnected and I think it's actually really fun and exciting to think about this new challenge.

Not easy, but you're right. When something that might've sat purely in the healthcare pharma. HCP healthcare provider setting, insurance payers, like the, the purview of that world becomes, you know, something that logistics in the cold supply chain has to worry about. That, that, that shows you that the matrix is ever more interconnected.

Steve Halsey: [00:30:00] Well, I'm gonna be really interesting to see how, uh, how these predictions played out, uh, for those listeners of the show. You'll remember at the start of 2025, we gave our predictions and we revisited those, uh, uh, midway point of the year. And, uh, we were remarkably on track. So we will, we will see whether our predictions for 2026, uh, hold up and what other exciting things, uh, come down the pipe.

As we're working our way through 2026. So I guess as we get ready to wrap this predictions episode, and I think we really need to think about what do we need to tell the leaders that we're working with and our peers? You know, if you have one big leadership shift lesson that you wanna talk about for 2026, what advice do you have for our listeners?

Anne Green: Yeah. And check back in June. We'll be accountable June or July about our predictions. We, we love to check in, but, so one shift. It was great. I love [00:31:00] that you challenged me to think about this. Um, so I wanna get back a little bit of my soapbox. I don't throw rocks in glass houses. This is hard, what I'm gonna talk about, but I, I, I think it's important.

I wanna encourage leaders. To embrace the recognition that AI enablement and transformation is as much about people as it is about technology. People are talking about this, but I don't know that the depth and importance of it is really embraced. And that Deloitte quote, about 93% on tech, 7% on people, if that's at all true, if that's even within a 10% margin of error, we are in trouble societally, I feel, because, um, it's not just the question of upskilling.

I, I think upskilling is something we're sadly quite poor at in the United States and other nations. We talk about the need for it a lot, but I see very little will or energy or hard dollars put against it at a truly macro level. So we've, we've run into this before, say the globalization craze that close a lot of factories and plants, [00:32:00] so much talk about.

Relocating jobs and upskilling. Very little of it done. So that's a piece of it. But the bigger thing I'm thinking about is the urgent need to shift mindsets and understand the cultural and personal psychological impacts of this kind of rapid change around ai. In particular, it's both filled with potential and excitement, but it's also tied to really intense dialogues around workforce loss, around massive societal shifts, around a lot of consequences.

We'd like to avoid. I'm hearing some very nuanced discussions around water uses and energy uses, but these things are hard. So our people who are trying to get to embrace these technologies and our organizations as a whole, we know we only change as much as our people change with us, you can only evangelize from the top so much because you need everybody throughout the organism to change.

So. If people are not allowed to be holding both of these complexities [00:33:00] at once, it's really hard to change. It's actually a very scary, and it can feel disingenuous. So I will say lean hard into the human aspects of this transformation, and in doing so. Be open, encourage your teams to speak about and hold the paradox of AI upsides and downsides that exist simultaneously.

And I think that speaking to the nuances and the realities here is more likely to help catalyze change than just sweeping all that complexity and the stuff that's inconvenient under the rug. So that's what I'm offering leaders for 2026.

Steve Halsey: Those are great insights and, uh, certainly not a boring time to be be in a leadership position.

Mine's, mine's, uh, kind of shocker to you. I'm gonna go back to this whole idea of a narrative system. So the one shift I would really encourage leaders right now to do is to stop thinking about communications as managing messages or managing campaigns and really start thinking about it as a governing [00:34:00] narrative system, or like I said, an operating system of, of.

Of a company because in a world of instantaneous AI summaries of synthetic content that we had talked about, incredibly compressed always on news cycles that don't always have a human curator anymore, and a lot of more third party influence. You really can't control every output, but what you can do is really govern that story.

People encounter over time. What is that consistency? What is that cadence that you're delivering, but to what you were just talking about there in terms of leaders and organization and culture? It also means being really, really clear on what you stand for, how you show up in those moments of pressure matter now more than ever, and how ai your people and your partners are aligned with that same narrative is really important for, for your success.

So the leaders who treat the narrative as an operating system and [00:35:00] not a department or a group that sits over there, they're gonna be far better positioned in in 2026. So. That's kind of what, what I'm predicting here. I think 2026 is gonna reward those leaders who at the same time can really hold and handle that pressure, uh, that can maintain trust, and that can communicate with clarity.

So I, I think that's our roadmap ahead for 2026.

Anne Green: I love it. We'll try to practice what we preach here. You know, we, we have our predictions and we're trying to bring it to life in our own little pond here at G&S, at our integrated marketing communications group and our two agencies. And we're trying to help our clients bring it to life.

So, as Steve said, we'll be excited to check in in a few months to see how our predictions are unfolding. But before we close here at the start of the year, just wanna thank every listener of Building Brand Gravity. We are. This is the start of our fourth season, Steve. It's very exciting. We have fourth

Steve Halsey: season.

Anne Green: Thank you

Steve Halsey: listeners.

Anne Green: Thank you listeners. It's so exciting and thank you to all of our [00:36:00] incredible guests. We've had so many over the course of, of these past few years, we've had a couple repeats, friends of the pod. Maybe you'll see some of those folks again this year. But overall, as always, we've got the full library of episodes.

A lot of them are very evergreen. Check 'em out. Share, challenge us, you know, come at us with contrary points of view.

Steve Halsey: Add your predictions for 2026.

Anne Green: That's right. That's right. We love, we love to hear it. And, um, keep listening. Just check us out and thank you for going on this journey with us.

Steve Halsey: So thank you for joining us on Building Brand Gravity.

I'm Steve Hals.

Anne Green: And I'm Anne Green, and we'll see you again soon on the pod.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: [00:00:00] You as a CEO, you as a business advisor, you as a junior member of the team need to be indispensable to the team that you work on. And that comes from learning, giving good advice, and having that human impact and that empathy that allows you to communicate your ideas effectively and to be trusted. And ultimately, if you can do that, you're on the right path.

To a great communication strategy or a great career. It doesn't matter what it is, they apply the same way and we forget that to our peril, I think.

Anne Green: Welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Anne Green.

Steve Halsey: And I'm Steve Halsey.

Anne Green: And we're glad to be back with another episode. So Steve and I are both in the G&S New York City offices today. And fun fact, we are right above Macy's and Harold Square and there is a lot of preparation going on for the annual Thanksgiving Day parade right now.

Steve?

Steve Halsey: So move over Walt Disney [00:01:00] World. Just try and walk in the street in front of our office and I'll tell you one thing, Anne. If parade prep in New York teaches us anything, it's that big moments require big preparation. You think about it, the street closures, the staging of the barricades to the grandstand construction, to the parking of all the video production trucks.

And even just the sound checks that are going on an almost hourly basis, and it's a full sensory experience around here, but I think it really ties well into the theme that you're gonna be covering with our guests today. That's really, that all this rehearsing, refining, tightening of the production is so important because you've gotta get it right in the moment.

Anne Green: Yeah, I'm really quite excited for today's episode, Steve, because I'm gonna have an in-depth conversation with an expert on one of my favorite topics, which is media training and presentation skills training and speech coaching. So Benjamin Thiele-Long is joining the pod all the way from Cambridge and the UK to talk about his new book, which is [00:02:00] titled , I love the title, How to Be Utterly Brilliant at Public Speaking, Presenting and Talking to the Media, and obviously this is quite an evergreen topic in our space of communications and marketing, but in my mind, there's still, after all this time, not enough time spent, not by a long shot on thinking seriously and proactively about building these satellite of skills that's needed to be effective in these areas.

What's your take on that, Steve?

Steve Halsey: I think we all wanna be utterly brilliant and a big part of that really starts with understanding that. Public speaking isn't a soft skill anymore, and it shouldn't be a soft skill. It really is a trust accelerator. It's a strategic differentiator and leaders who have to manage a more complex, volatile environment with so many different audiences really need to master it.

And I know we've referenced this in the past, but it really is a core competency that should be taught to MBAs. It can be as important as finance, [00:03:00] it can be as important as understanding different aspect of marketing. So I think that's why your conversation with Benjamin is really important. 'cause it's not just tips, it's really about how leaders show up credibly and with influence.

What about you, Anne? You've been doing so much high level media and speech coaching lately. What's most important for our audience to understand?

Anne Green: Yeah. I think for me, and I talked with Benjamin about this too, is it's so fascinating how siloed or divided these tracks were before. So media training on one side and then presentation skills or speech coaching on another.

It's not to say they never crossed over, but in many cases they were thought of as separate practices. You'd hire them in separately, et cetera, et cetera. Since COVID. I've been seeing it come together more and it makes a lot of sense given the media landscape. I was excited to see Benjamin's book and as I got to know him, because he has such a holistic view of this, not just in terms of combining media training [00:04:00] and what we understand as speech coaching or core presentation skills.

Which to me are a little bit different. Orders of magnitude when you get from the basic skills to really coaching to be on a main stage, et cetera, but also his understanding of how it works in your personal life and your professional life. I loved that about it. The other thing I loved is that his book.

Which I'll get in into with him as well is very much like a handbook. You can open any page and get a lot of value. So I think I'm hoping that's gonna come across in the conversation

Steve Halsey: and I'm sure it will. And the other thing I think is important to stress also is a lot of times people view media training, spokesperson message trainings.

Check the box. I did it. I got my certificate, I'm good to go. And it really is a competency that needs to be revisited again and again to really keep yourself fresh. Because I think what we're seeing is so many things, internal presentations, stakeholder briefings, media [00:05:00] interviews, all really collapsing into very much the same competency.

And that's why I'm so excited to have our listeners hear your conversation. 'cause Benjamin has a way of really framing it up. That you really understand is about building up that muscle memory so that you can show up consistently and confidently in every forum. And I think the timing couldn't be better.

Anne Green: Boy, I couldn't agree more. So with no further ado, let's get into my conversation with Benjamin. I'm so pleased to welcome to our podcast, Benjamin Thiele-Long. Benjamin welcome.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here

Anne Green: and we're here to see this exciting new book that you wrote, How to Be Utterly Brilliant at Public Speaking, Presenting and Talking to the Media, which is something that's very near and dear to my heart.

I do a lot of media and presentation skills, training and coaching, and one thing that's been interesting to me as I've seen those. Skill sets, which used to be very much siloed from each other, come more and more [00:06:00] together, especially post pandemic. So I'm gonna be very excited to get into this with you, but your journey has been really interesting.

So I think just so our audience has a sense, share a bit about that journey from law and communications and back to law and what you're working on now.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me here. And it's interesting place to start about that amalgamation because when I think about my career, two very different careers in one sense, but a huge amount of similarity, which is what's always been the driving force.

That's right. I started my career as a lawyer, as a barrister in the uk. I knew that was what I wanted to do since we were about 10 years old, I knew I wanted to be a criminal barrister. And that's what I did. And I was at the criminal bar for about a decade. Just under mainly criminal work a balance of financial crime as well as serious what we call high street crime in the uk.

So offending, which meant essentially I was a courtroom advocate for those 10 years. So 99% of my time I was in court either doing trials or advising. People on issues for trial. And then I moved over into [00:07:00] communications about 10 years ago, then spent another decade in communications.

That link was a really easy one actually. There were quite a few of us in the criminal bar that actually made that transition around about the same time and joined some of those larger agencies on issues in crisis management. As you can imagine, a lawyer's skillset set. Fits very nicely with that.

And so I really had the sort of the reverse trajectory with communications. Most people start as a generalist and become an issues in crisis. I started as an issues in crisis and became more of a generalist. And my decade in comms started in the uk but very quickly moved over to the us where I was in New York and then the west coast.

So more laterally. As part of that career, I ran the West coast office for Kognito, which is an integrated communications agency, really doing financial professional services. I was then the managing director of financial communications at Ketchum. Looking over, looking after a broad range of clients.

And the last three years I was in-house. Petco based in San Diego, the hometown where I was living at that time. More ley being the chief communications and [00:08:00] ESG officer. And right late part of last year made the decision to move back and I'm now back in law full-time with an asterisk there being part-time still working in an advisory capacity.

So working with a few companies on comm strategies, working with a few different people in teams on public speaking or presenting or media training. So really chapter three is the best of both worlds as I see it, getting to do the things that I really enjoy and love and getting to choose who I work with and what I do.

Anne Green: Yeah, my one of my partners, Steve Halsey, who hosts this podcast with me was looking at your book and as I was preparing for this, and he's wow, you don't often see Crown Prosecutor and Petco on the same resume.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: It's quite the mix. But I think you've given me the segue because the sim, the similarity between those two is remarkable.

And it's really a question of how. The book had been something I'd wanted to do for a while. I think mainly because so many people were fascinated by my background as a barrister [00:09:00] and as an advocate and how that translated into communications. And I did find it put me at a bit of a competitive advantage.

'cause if you introduce yourselves while you're in a comms agency as a barrister, people take a second look, and then they wonder why? And then immediately if you can cut to the checks about communications and how to speak and how to be an advocate, it becomes very clear the set of skills that I come with that then translate.

And, particularly with Peco. At the time that I joined fairly new leadership at that point, three years ago an important story that they wanted to tell in terms of becoming public again, it all married with a desire of an individual with Ron as the CEO to elevate the profile. But also as a company, how can we think about this very empirically, but also.

Have a story, have some charm, have something that consumers are gonna enjoy. And I was able to marry those two in a compelling way. And that was really an interesting proposition, but one that was a lot of fun to do.

Anne Green: No, it's been great to reflect on that and I think being [00:10:00] in America how we understand practicing law, people understand there's prosecutors, litigators, but mostly they think of lawyers in a more generalistic way.

So the difference between being a solicitor. In the UK versus being a barrister and being at the bar, and how it is you're speaking the persuasion. It's actually interesting watching so much get argued in front of the Supreme Court right now. I think that's getting a little bit more in the public sphere, but it's always interesting to me and I'm sure you as well, to see how certain threads of things are understood, how they're reflected through the media, what seems to be landing and being absorbed.

So I love you laying that out and the fact that. It's interesting to hear that people, as you would interact with them. Would recognize. Wow, I see the connection with that skillset. And that's what I wanted to bring out at the beginning here, which is that connection. And I think for me and I really felt this in your book, and I wanna get next to why you decided to write it.

I have a sense of it, but I'd love. Love you to share more because [00:11:00] that's not an easy endeavor, to take on. There's a lot of books on how-tos out there in the business world as well as the personal world. But for me, these skill sets of speaking, presenting talking to the press, et cetera, talking to the people in our lives, any stakeholders.

So holistic, so symbiotic with everything we do. And I think one of the things I try to say to my trainees is. The mindfulness and the active engagement, you need to see. It's all around you all the time. There's examples of this everywhere, but people really don't pick up on that and they don't see the connections.

They're like, oh I'm gonna prep for this big presentation, but am I using those same skills in my daily life and business? But tell me, are some of these resonating with you relative to why you wrote this book?

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Yes. Just to pick up on that last point the cues are around us all the time, every day.

And one of the things that I was really quite I would say dogmatic on when I was in communications agencies, were [00:12:00] instilling this proactive nature in my teams to read, to watch, to see, to be a sponge because the more that you see and absorb whatever it is taken from. Can inform a communication strategy, whether it is, how do you make a technical message more appealing?

How do you take a big story and make it a small one in one says, all of these things are around us in what we read, whether we enjoy television programs, whether it's opera, whether it's book, it doesn't matter. They're all around. And this is why reading is such an important part of what we do and we take time to do that.

And the first agency I was at. At Page field, when I moved from law to comms, the first thing all of us did, regardless of our title or what level we were, everybody had TM toast together. Very British. We have team toast together and we'd read through the newspapers, physical newspapers, and I can hear some millennials just gr grabbing their brains going, what?

What do you mean? But we did, and we would thumb through, but it would, we would. Look at things like editorial tone. We would look at what stories being picked [00:13:00] up in one outlet versus all of them. Is it a general interest story? Is it something more specific you'd say, Hey Jim, you aren't you working on this with your client?

And that, that is such an informed process. It informs what we do, and I think that. That is part of the book. The part of the book is there to try and instill people and just to remind people that there is no one way of doing things. There are fundamentals, there are techniques which I'm sure will come on to.

Later in this conversation that underpin. But just like architecture, not every building looks the same, but funda fundamentally, there's principles of structure and geometry that make buildings stand up. It's really the same kind of principle. So if you get the structure right in the foundations, then you can be as creative as you would like.

And why I wrote the book, and I genuinely mean this. This is not a money spinning exercise. This is me. Sharing the knowledge that I've been lucky enough to have, and I think that this is one of the most important things we can do as business leaders when [00:14:00] we get to the top of our careers as running an agency or chief communications officer.

It is, I believe it is a fundamentally important role that we have, is sharing that knowledge that we've been gifted, not keeping it for ourselves, and I was incredibly lucky. To work with some wonderful people in agencies that showed me and taught me things that I have carried forward, which I share in the book.

I also recognized that as a barrister, I was incredibly lucky to be taught public speaking skills. Most of us are not taught. These skills. We don't, there's no courses at college or school that say how to talk well in a group or how to present a keynote, or how to give a wedding speech or any of those things.

We, we are just expected to know how to talk well in a group, and I think this is fundamentally why I hear so many people say, oh, I can never do that. I can never talk in front of a group and this book is here to prove people wrong. I wanted to dispel that rumor, but I'm sharing. All of the knowledge that I've gained over 20 plus years.

And essentially I'm sure a lot of people will be very cross with me [00:15:00] for writing this book because I've distilled what one might get in a $3,000 presentation training seminar and put it into a $15 book. And that's very deliberate because this is my way of sharing all of the benefits and the good knowledge that I've had to allow other people to apply it and be brilliant themselves.

Anne Green: I love that. I think there'll still be a business model just given. Not a lot of people are self-motivated, but I do, for those that are, I, and I wanna get into this in just a minute. This is so accessible and clear, but I wanna double click as the tech folks say on something you said that is so real to me and been such a pet peeve and pain point, which is.

The lack of formal training or attention to that. And I used to notice it early on, and I hope this has changed, let's take the MBA for example, which is training chief executives especially those that will end up in the C-suite which are the individuals that folks like you and I are counseling, and it's truly the most [00:16:00] senior executives that I still actively work with as.

I'm gonna own my skill enough to call myself a master media trainer. I've put in way more than 10,000 hours over 30 years. So when you look at the MBA line, of course, heavy on finance, operations, et cetera, but the communication skill piece of it and the formal skills, but also the soft skills and the emotional intelligence that's required.

To connect across stakeholders and take an issue that's perhaps very contentious and find the humanity and connection in it. Find the shades of gray. I just think it's woefully under leveraged. And for our young people, there's so much discussion today about AI and what are the careers of the future, and it's very interesting to hear a lot more discussion of the liberal arts, of connection, of emotional intelligence.

And I feel like this fits right into that because this is the most essential way in which. Humans as a species connect outward and connect with each other.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: It, it's true. We are, you can't [00:17:00] deny the impact that technological changes have on society. We were talking right now about ai.

Previous to that it was the internet. Previous to that, it was other things and AI is. The most incredible tool and the way that it is changing the world. You just look at the levels of investment that are being put into it. You don't get investment in companies that are doing things that are not gonna change the world.

And that really is what we're seeing. And I think New York Times had a fantastic article weekend just gone about the 16 billionaires that have been created through ai. That there is so much money being put there and it will change the way that we live and for the better. I'm not a, a tech deni by any stretch of the imagination. But what AI cannot do is it cannot cancel. It cannot give judgment, it cannot give perspective. It cannot create trust or reliability. And this is where we come in. It doesn't matter where you are at your career, whether you are the CEO of a company focused, a company that is wanting the trust of investors, consumers, or your employees.

Whether [00:18:00] you are just starting out your career in comms, wanting to get a foot on the ladder and be part of that team, advising those people. The way that you do that, of course, is by assimilating information. It is, of course, by learning. It is of course by using technology to your strengths, but ultimately you've got to translate that.

Into a dynamic of trust, one of reliability. Mike Mohan, who was the in interim of Petco, and he was the chief operating officer of best Buy, used to just talk about the say, do ratio. And it, again, I put it in the book because it's such an important thing. Say you're gonna do something, do it.

Say that you've done it, do it. It's such an important part. And the way that we interact. It's so important that you essentially the word that I keep coming back to is being indispensable. You as a CEO, you as a business advisor, you as a junior member of the team need to be indispensable to the team that you work on.

And that comes from learning, giving good advice and having that human impact and that empathy that allows you to communicate [00:19:00] your ideas effectively and to be trusted. And ultimately, if you can do that, you are on the right path to. A great communication strategy or a great career. It doesn't matter what it is they apply the same way.

And we forget that to our peril. I think.

Anne Green: I love you centering trust. I think as one of the critical outcomes, which is a constant, you're constantly weaving and building that as we know, you put a lot of trust equity in the bank and it can get wiped out right away. But this is a good segue to something I said earlier, which is when I was first learning media training, which was at Berson Martel in the early nineties when it was the largest agency in the world, obviously Edelman.

Took that title a while after that, but, and I was in the New York office and that was the largest single office of any agency in the world, about 600 professionals. And they had a really robust media training group and some of the most incredible senior trainers that I got to observe. And then over time, I also started to observe presentation skills and speech coaching, which is, some people did both.

But [00:20:00] in terms of when it was hired or contracted or brought in, it felt to me for decades, quite distinct Now over time. To put it practically, no, duh, like I figured out how interrelated they were. But during COVD, what I really found was that these merch together, the virtual setting, but also the way media interactions are changing, let's say the rise of even this medium podcasting or.

Many of the executives I work with, they'll be doing a stage fireside chat with a reporter. So what is that? Is that a public speaking engagement or is that a media interview? It's actually both. It's very holistic and I'm also seeing, I think because again, the multichannel nature of being a front facing executive.

So much more awareness of the full package. And that's why the holistic approach, when you literally have in your title I'm looking at here at public speaking, presenting and talking to the media, I'm like, Bravo. So tell me [00:21:00] why you have that view of a more holistic approach.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: There are two parts to it. I think just picking up on the latter part is the ways in which we now communicate are disparate and changing and amorphous and also.

Any business leader is now expected to do all of them at the same time. And we gone are the days where typically your CFO might do the earnings call, they would never go on a media tour and you do your active best to keep them out of the view of your employee base and you have someone else do the, do the town hall.

That has changed COVID forced. I think accelerated the change that was already happening. But you take the modern CEO or CFO in today's world in America publicly listed, you're doing four earnings calls. That means you're talking to investors. It means you're talking to employees, means you're then probably doing some media and then you're doing a town hall and some other things.

And that town hall is probably hybrid. Those media opportunities are hybrid. All of those are happening now. And so [00:22:00] you have to be a little bit like a Swiss Army knife. And I think in order to. Both be that speaker, but also be an advisor to that speaker. You have to be able to see around all those corners and think about what is the message and what is the consistent message and message points that we wanna deliver to all of those audiences.

But then how will we nuance them to the different audiences? And I think this is to your point. About the AI versus the empathy. That's where we come in as advisors of how to tailor that message. Whether it is the language you use or the anecdote, they have to be different. They absolutely have to. And if you were to draw an analogy I'm a big fan of tennis and the fundamentals of tennis are tennis.

The game is played in a certain way, but you can't tell me a tennis. On lawn at Wimbledon in the same way you do on a clay court or the same way you might do in the rain. You have to adapt to the scenario you're given, but you don't have, we have very few tennis players that say I'll only play on clay court in the [00:23:00] dry.

You've got to be able to have that ability to maneuver. And so the more and more I thought about the book in order to cover. The different types of speaking event that we have and that we'll have. I wanted to make sure that we had fundamental principles so that the reader is not overwhelmed at trying to learn what appears to be a different technique for every scenario.

Rather, what is the fundamental thing that if you get right. You will be as brilliant as you can be. And then of course, adding a few tactical things for various scenarios. So podcasting, I include in there, talking on a panel, a competitive pitch, a keynote, immediate interview. All of those things have slight nuances, and we know those as trainers, but what I didn't want everybody to think is now I'm gonna do a panel.

I have to relearn everything. No, same things, but you might wanna also add these various elements onto them. And I think that has to be the way that we are now, partly because. We work in such an agile way. And secondly, you never know what call might come of saying, we need you on this podcast, or can you do a [00:24:00] panel?

And you have to do it at short notice. The ability to be agile is really important. And to be able to counsel that and prepare for that I try and deal within the book so that people do not feel overwhelmed at any point. The book is trying to take all those things that will be overwhelming and simplify them in a way of going, no, you got this.

You got this. Think about it. Apply it. Go get 'em. That's really what the book is of morally meant to do to people.

Anne Green: I love that. And the fact is that there's a set of practices that you build over time. Some of them relate to the content, some of them relate to the voice, some of them relate to your body and how it all comes together depending on what medium you're in and demystifying that is really critical.

So you understand what those building blocks are. Finding those moments of awkwardness you have to push through. What is the thing you do that's distracting? What, how is it that putting it all together feels awkward? So you can make, I talk about getting through the crucible to the other side, where.

You become more awkward to get more comfortable. But the other [00:25:00] analogy I try to remind people of, especially with media interviews, because I find that when executives have been trained in the past, so I've had training, but it's been a while, I remind them that if you walk into a gym. After not working out for quite a long time, and you just go full out, you will injure yourself.

You have to stretch those muscles, warm them up, build them up. And I think that's why it's important to understand these as a set of practices that you literally practice. There's art and science to it. There's the science of how the brain works, how the brain picks up information. And I wanna get into some of that in a moment.

But there's also the art of it, of what you're bringing to it, of yourself. But that's why I love. Your premise that it could be the CEO presenting on an earnings call or in front of their annual customer event, or it could be the person that has to stand up and give a toast at a wedding. And it really does amaze me how, and it goes back to some, you said earlier, people.

This tends to be such a primary fear for [00:26:00] so many people. Those two things are that, that idea of getting up and speaking of course, if the wedding toast is scary, then you're very far from doing something as high stakes as an earnings call. But the thing that I wanna. Move to, is what I'm calling form follows function.

So when you go through the book, if you open any piece of it it's just like this is a whole little chapter here. It's the ideas are short, they're presented quickly, they're presented in smaller bites. There's often both. The principle behind it and the action you take, the practical skills, the literal how to, how did you come to that form and what are you trying to do with that?

It's so different.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Thank you. That, that, that is why I wrote the book because I wanted something very different and this is. Not not a knock on anyone who's written a book that is theory based, but what I did not want is a book that had long chapters that you had to [00:27:00] read through and wade through in order to get from the theory to, okay, so how do I apply it?

The point of the book was to be, I kept on calling it a desk side guide, so when I was speaking to publishers before I selected. LIDI was trying to explain this is a desk side guy. What I want people to, I want people to scribble over it. I want people to put post-it notes on it. I want people to deface it.

I want people to make it something that they can't live without and is by their desk the whole time. And why I ended up publishing with LID, who have to say had been amazing partners is they got that part of it from the off their business publishers. They understood that. The basic premise is I have something to teach them and I have the experience to do it.

And the basic premise that. This is a book for busy people that if you are gonna be public speaking, presenting, you're probably fairly high level. You're busy. You don't have time to wade through theory. You wanna be able to pick up something and get to it. So that was the first step. The second step, and I have to say the writing of the book.

Was fairly swift. The [00:28:00] editing of the book was the longer part of the process, which took the be part, best part of the year because I constantly wanted to go through it applying Occam's razor all the time. What have I written myself that is waffle and what do I really need to communicate?

Quickly, succinctly, so the reader has something quick and succinct that they can apply that makes every page of the book worthwhile. And I think I, I even said it when I was doing the initial pitch, I really don't mind if somebody reads the book from cover to cover or opens it at one page. Reads it and uses one skill that they can then apply.

My promise to any reader of this book is you can open a single page. You will learn something new on that one page and can apply it, and that will immediately approve your ability. And so this was really the driving force behind. The book, the way it was written, but then we got really focused with the team about the layout.

We went through several sets of the layout because they even said with an idea, oh, it's on the page and you have to turn it over to get to the [00:29:00] conclusion. No, if it's on a double page, it's left and right. You will never have to turn a page to get to the conclusion of an idea that I'm trying to convey, or the idea will be on the left and a visual representation will be on the right, so you can really absorb it very quickly.

Even down to the font, the layout, the color, simple things like that were really important so that even people with dyslexia can find the book. Very easy to read and to digest. This was important that this is an accessible book for everybody, number one and number two. It was littered, and you and I have talked about this littered with positive examples of how to apply it.

Gone are the days in. These are all the things not to do. That is not helpful. That is not helpful. When I'm busy and I've gotta go on Bloomberg in 15 minutes time, or I've gotta run a team meeting in 10, that is not helpful. What I gotta do, how do I make it work for me and how do I go get it? And [00:30:00] that process was a long process, but the most joyful.

One for me because seeing that come to life in a way that then is a physical book or an ebook or however people want to use it that's the real joy I think, in what I've, my vision coming to life as to what I imagined, but also just partnering with LID to make that happen in a way that is exactly how, as I envisioned it on my first day that I thought it through.

Anne Green: I love the idea of making something truly accessible in all senses of the word, and that's a wonderful thing and I think under. Represented and under thought of. The other thing I pick up from what you say is that, communicators, we can weave a lot of narratives very quickly. We tend to be verbal, communications focus, but perhaps what you took away from the law and also practice of a communications art form is that old phrase, less is more.

How do you. Bring it down and bring it down. I remember, like you, I've got PowerPoints galore with tons of tips and I've got full trainings if I'm gonna train someone who's [00:31:00] never encountered some of these concepts before, and you have to go back to fundamentals of how the media work or what does it mean to be successful in presentations, but.

I remember years ago, I, for a very senior executive, I'm like, how do I put for media skills the most important things on a single page so that if he or she were gonna carry it around, there's, it's just absolutely right down to the meat of it. And they can glance at it and take something away. Just a reminder, because you can do trainings and then it fades away.

Unless, as we said before, unless you're exercising that muscle. What are your three golden rules, Benjamin, that you start the book with?

Benjamin Thiele-Long: The three golden rules, and I've got them here. These are things that I really thought and these were rewritten probably about 25, 30 times each of them to make sure I got them really right.

But the three golden rules are essentially three principles that I believe apply to every speaking scenario. And I really mean every speaking scenario that if you do no more than apply [00:32:00] these, you will improve what you have to do. And probably. Make it the most impactful it can be. Golden rule is number one, very simply, communication is an audience defined action.

We have to think about who we're speaking to. Most of all, and that is the scenario, the audience, the size, what time of day you're talking, the level of experience. It can be all manner of things, but we forget that at our peril and so many poor presentations that I've seen are by brilliant people that have just not tailored what they're saying to the audience they're speaking to.

The second is persuasion achieves irresistible outcomes. I don't think that we spend enough time really thinking about the most important question of all is why am I speaking in the first place? What is it that I'm trying to achieve? And quite candidly, I'm sure every leader or every listener on this to this podcast can imagine 18 meeting that they've been in that's lasted 35 minutes or an hour or what have you, and they got to the end of it and saying.

What was that about? That is just a prime example of [00:33:00] whoever was running that meeting, just not thinking what is the actual outcome we wanna try and achieve? And really thinking about persuasion. And then number three is to set the path with a compelling narrative. If you have a set of ideas, they can be really strong.

But if it is hard for your audience to work out how those points come together to your conclusion, you are making them do too much work, rather than thinking, what is the most straightforward way that I can explain this? Not only for me to explain it, but for someone else to understand it. And again, this is really tying back what I think.

We think about in law all day, every day, and about persuasion and what is the most straightforward common sense version of events that leads to the outcome that we want. Usually it's either to, in a jury trial, convict or not convict. If it is in a litigation to come to a conclusion rather than going litigation.

Doesn't matter what it's, but we're trying to lay that path. And so what I put is these three golden [00:34:00] rules. There's, they're like a GPS. If you think about. Who are my audience? What is the outcome I want, or the action that I want to achieve? And what's the narrative that will weave all these ideas together?

You'll automatically have a more persuasive, compelling, and brilliant. Set of talking points than if you didn't think about those things. And those golden rules in my view, underpin everything we sell do. They've underpinned my prep for this podcast. They underpin what every CEO will think about in an owns call.

What anybody might even want to think about very simply in a wedding toast, whatever the scenario, apply them, you will sharpen and hone your focus. 'cause if you don't do that, the analogy is it's a magnet wire compass. Get distracted by all manner of things rather than what am I gonna talk about and how am I gonna talk about them?

That's really what it's all about.

Anne Green: I love the idea of starting with the audience. And the other thing I'd add to what you said is, what is that audience disposed to believe or to hear? I think there's very little attention [00:35:00] paid to that often, because, I have a double consciousness as both a practitioner and a CEO now an organizational leader, and my pond is a bit smaller than the large multinationals, but we still have a sizable workforce that's made up of different types of disciplines.

And there's two agencies within our group, and there's different roles and ages, different levels of experience and. I'm always trying to think about what are all these different stakeholders predisposed to hear from me. So it's something I try to speak with my trainees a lot and also my peers.

The other thing I would pick up from what you said is I talk a lot with folks about what success looks like in speaking. And I try to make a distinction between a, they can accurately. Receive and hear what you're saying. And that has a lot to do with speed, articulation, pace, the overall formation of your content.

Does it, I often talk about drop the breadcrumbs or follow the bouncing ball, but the second thing I talk about is do they walk away with your most [00:36:00] important point? If you were going to do the old, if they remember one thing, what would it be? Can you pass that test? And I think it goes to what you're saying, which is that clarity of narrative.

One of the things I find interesting as I work with executives, and they often ask this question, is what makes a truly great speaker or presenter or connector? What are, and that it is subjective, right? But also when you're in the room or you're in their presence, even if it's like.

A one-on-one, you know it When you feel it, as different as those personalities or events might be. What are some of those things for you, Benjamin, that makes someone great versus just good or fine or not fine?

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Two things. One is a bit more empirical, one is a bit more emotional. The first is the empirical one is, I think truly great speakers are those that are able to.

Quickly and effectively adjust between different audiences and scenarios. I think if you get to the point where you [00:37:00] know the message and the focus and what it's you wanna talk about, but can go between an employee and a Bloomberg presenter or an investor and a customer, and. Be able to tailor what it is you have to say in the way you say it to that audience quickly and nimbly.

That is to me empirically a brilliant speaker. And there are certain people that can do that really well. And Kristen Peck, Zoetis, Margaret Edison at Lowe's. Two, just utterly brilliant people that no matter what scenario I, I see you listen to the men, they're hitting the nail on the head with the audience that they're speaking to in a way that is very.

Natural as well. And I think that then comes to the second part, which is more of the emotional, for me, good speakers, good advocacy, good speaking is when you almost get the speaker, but what they're saying just makes good sense. And I think that's sometimes it's quite hard to pin down exactly what that is, but you absolutely know it.

When you feel [00:38:00] it, you, you know it because. You are invested as a listener and get accused as a speaker. To those things as well. This is why I think it's really important that we get our head out of our talking notes, and outta the screen and looking at the audience. We're communicate, look for visual cues, look for nods, look for agreement, look for employees looking energized and.

To your point, business leaders at all levels will have challenging times in their career or in their business's career or their organization's career. And a lot of the time you'll take the stage in a difficult scenario where you are trying to remove fear, uncertainty and doubt. And those are really good things.

Those are good things that we can do. As business leaders to make sure our employer, our customer base are calm or in a crisis scenario. But that, that there also has to be more to, that. You have to remove the fear, uncertainty, doubt. But what is the go get? What is the solution? Have I set it out?

Have I made it easy for you? Here's what [00:39:00] I expect from you. As the business leader, and here's how I'm gonna help you achieve it. If you're able to bring those things in. That's why I talk about making good sense. 'cause you're not only saying, don't feel this way or don't think this thing, but don't worry about this thing.

We got it and I got it with you. Those are for me. Brilliant speakers are able to do that. Regardless of the scenario. And I'm, I'm reminded he, he won't mind me telling this story, but I was lucky to be in chambers with Oliver Blunt QC as he then was KC Emily Blunt's father, he was.

Just an exceptional barrister. He still is an exceptional barrister. He was just a powerful litigator, very strong, very physically strong very determined. The way that he spoke was very powerfully, had a really strong voice, and it was just quite something to watch him in core. And unfortunately I wasn't there, but when Emily Blunt.

Got married to to John Krasinski. He did a speech, which to all intents and purposes, and every version of facts that I hear had, the great and the good of Hollywood, like [00:40:00] Meryl Streeps, laughing, crying, sighing, just, he was able to just completely tailor a very specific advocacy style that he has to a wonderfully.

Dramatic and empathetic father of the bride speech that captured the audience. And if you think about greatness, that it's that's what I'm talking about, the ability to just have those skills but then apply them in a way that just brings it to life to each audience. That's what greatness, I think, can look like.

Anne Green: What a delightful story. I can just imagine it and I'll add one thing that. I think about sometimes, and it's coming out in what you're saying for me at least, which is a really wonderful speaker, I think about the audience's experience. They experience that person. The audience wants to know you have them in your hands, that you've got them.

There's nothing more awful when someone's on stage and it feels like something's going wrong and they're losing it, or they're worried the audience, that sense of anxiety just pours through you and [00:41:00] you're like, oh my God, I hope they're okay. And that can be minor or quite extreme depending on the situation.

But the audience wants to know that you have them with a sense of confidence and command, and yet. The softness and vulnerability that can come with that confidence. And I think it's actually an analogy to the kind of leadership that's very effective today. How do you bring both a confidence and a sense of groundedness?

I do a lot of yoga, so I talk, I get people up standing grounded, rooted in the earth, bring the energy up and out. But that with that, you don't have to hold so tight. You can open your hands and be vulnerable too. So it's an interesting thing you're bringing up for me, but flipping the coin, there's a lot of people that do training out there, and I wanna throw any of them under the bus.

But in media training, and you alluded to this. There's been a style of media training, especially over the decades that I've seen, and these were very great professionals, but a lot of them came outta broadcast news, often men just because of that was the gender that was mostly in that hard or hitting [00:42:00] financial news especially, and they tended to come in training like, I'm going to destroy you.

I'm gonna show you how scary it is. I'm gonna break you down. I'm gonna, and I often say to a lot of my clients, Hey. You have to understand that many of the most elite attorney most elite reporters are trained in the style of attorneys. They know how to do deposition style, which means they hand you a shovel and you start digging and you're at the bottom of the hole before you know it, yet many, there are very few of my clients that will end up on the US show 60 minutes or pick the equivalent on the BBC.

So do you have a sense today of what some of those characteristics of trainers that you feel are well matched to this moment?

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Mean, I absolutely share your internal or maybe external eye rolling. I have been in, I mean my the British experience, the British equivalent for that is you get a journalist who was, I don't know, the ornithology reporter for the West Anglia Daily Times, who is now a media trainer and started to some CEO of how to do, an annual report on a town hall, and you're [00:43:00] thinking what is happening here?

But the real issue with that, it's this sort of. Emphasis on the what not to do so much. What not to do. What not to do. And you think you spent 75% of the time telling me what I shouldn't be doing what should I be doing? I'm hoping that those days are now in the rear view mirror. If not that they are getting to there.

The media trainer of today, coming back to your. Your question a little earlier has to be training in a way that applies core skills that are then applicable in different scenarios. And of course, if you have the privilege of doing a half day media training with an expert, putting them through their paces in different ways.

I loved media training when I was, when an agency and I enjoyed the research that I needed to do. That's to learn this expert set of skills so that I could show up well to do practice runs, but then also giving feedback in a way that is actually useful. And I talk about feedback in the book quite a lot because there's a section specifically for PR pros, and I think this applies to media trainers generally, but pr [00:44:00] people more more on a day to day.

How do you give feedback to someone who's new to this versus give good feedback to somebody who's more experienced? There is. Wide feedback that is transferable. So that can be used in a different way so that there is not the need for ongoing support. You don't need another session because we're now not talking to Bloomberg.

We're doing a fireside or we're doing a panel. You don't need to do another training. Hopefully the skills should be there. But then also developing a and one of the one of the most positive experiences I think I had. In-house and also with long-term agency relationships is when you could have a set of speakers where you could do feedback and it could be a word or a phrase or a key phrase, and that person knew exactly what you meant.

You didn't have to go through all the theory again. You say That was great, but re redo, point, proof, anecdote, structure, or it could be something very simple in terms of the feedback, like pace. You don't have to go through chapter and verse of what you meant. They go, got [00:45:00] it. They would go again with the structure that you've taught them or with the keynote that you've taught them that they're able to apply.

So I think media training has to refocus more on what to do. Positive examples, good examples of what that looks like. Good examples outside of their world to show them new things. I also see that there is a bit too much you, we get this a lot. In professional services, for example, you get a lot of professional services firms that look at their brand and they want to become friendlier or softer or more approachable, for example, or, whatever version of that they have, and which is the right thing to do for many professional services organizations when you think about the reputation of that industry.

But then they will show. A trainer will show examples of other people within the industry rather than say someone in a consumer facing industry that is that bit more personal, is able to develop a business message, but in a way that is a little bit easier to understand or a bit more consumer centric.

Those are the examples we should be showing to say, okay, if you want to get a bit more like that. Here are some good examples of what that looked like and I [00:46:00] particularly did that a lot in financial services where these people were really in the weeds of financial services or FinTech or banking, whatever it is, and go, I dunno, why do we listen to a retail interview?

Why don't we listen to a nonprofit interview? Something that is connecting to a different audience, but showing you those skills of how they can be applied and just softened ever so slightly to still be. Effective in the audits you have, but also impactful to the new audiences that you want to get.

Anne Green: I think that's a wonderful way of looking at it because why should you?

Be stuck just in your sector, in that same box as everyone else. This has been an amazing conversation. We literally could talk about these things forever. I loved meeting you and getting into the book. So my final question often on our podcast is, what has you and its gravity today, something fun.

You know what's what do you have a passion for? What are you excited about right now in your life?

Benjamin Thiele-Long: If I'm allowed to pick two things really briefly, first one, the, something that has me in my gravity right now is just having moved back to the UK recently. Just the story that's happening with the BBC right [00:47:00] now, it's a really interesting.

Story. I think for anybody on this podcast, anybody who works in comms, you should be looking at this and listening to what's happening as the BBC story evolves. What this might mean for reporting, how we think about reporting. When you consider, sorry, sorry to go there. You've got one side of the pond.

You've literally got the president calling a journalist saying, quiet piggy 'cause of a question that's not asked. And we've all now moved on from that, whereas the BBCI have not moved on from that. But please, I feel like the media have moved on and we've just gone to what's the next thing. But we're really looking very forensically at the BB, C story.

And this is an organization that's even looking at itself and the way that it reports. And we've got people, resigning or looking at the, this is a really interesting story for anybody. And I think it's gonna have legs and hopefully it's good for our industry that the media holds itself a little bit more to account or, and readjusts over time.

But ultimately the BBC is such an important part of the British culture and institution that it'll be interesting to see what changes happen and how the [00:48:00] BBC forms as part of that. On a more positive note the other book, the other thing that's holding me, its Gravity is a book, which is there are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shaak, and there are very few novels that I've read.

Twice over. This is one of them. Not only is it just the most incredible novel, the weaving of storytelling from ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Day London, and these people and these characters. If anybody wants to look at a masterclass in narrative and weaving together stories, read this book because it's just beautifully written, beautiful stories and just such a wonderful concept.

But I think it's holding me in its gravity also because ultimately the key theme of the book is about kindness. There is so much and I've been really thinking about kindness a lot recently. Maybe it's part of my age, maybe it's part of my sentimentality. Maybe it's just part of life, thinking about.

Is what we're doing kind. Should we think more about us as [00:49:00] organizations, even very commercial organizations? Are we speaking with kindness? Are we treating employees kindly? Are we treating each other with kindness? Can there be more? It it's no longer a detractor from the business of business.

I think to your point, you talked about, we have tough decisions to make, we have tough feedback to give, but you can still be kind in doing that and it really. Even comes down to communications to get too deep into it. But you think of the Dalai Lama's always said before you speak, ask yourself three questions.

Is it true, is it necessary? And is it kind? Kindness is very much part of how we speak to each other and how we should speak to each other. And it's just something I've been thinking about a lot and the book has been a really good reminder of. Just a little bit more kindness every now and then can have such a positive impact on people's lives and the way that messages are delivered, even if it's bad news.

So it's something we should hold in our hearts, everything that we do in the world of work.

Anne Green: That's a wonderful recommendation and I co-sign on that very much. We are lacking in kindness and compassion [00:50:00] right now, and the more we can reflect on that, the better. Benjamin, thank you for joining us.

We really appreciate you taking the time to be on Building Brand Gravity.

Benjamin Thiele-Long: Thank you so much.

00:00:00.000 ‚  00:00:21.920  Anne Green
There will be things that the machine should do more of and it we then, whether it's senior people or more junior people, become the orchestrators of agents of colleagues that are machines. But I think we're going to have to be really open and nimble. And I love your idea about how do you look at other types of value add that may not be just a monetary outcome too.

00:00:33.120 ‚  00:00:37.640  Anne Green
Hi, and welcome to another episode of Building Brand Gravity. I'm Anne Green.

00:00:37.640 ‚  00:00:41.000  Steve Halsey
And I'm Steve Halsey. It's great to be together again an.

00:00:41.040 ‚  00:01:18.120  Anne Green
It always is. It always is here, both in our New York office today, just at opposite ends of the office, which is fine. Um, later in the episode today, we're going to be digging into data and insights from the 13th annual Public Relations Industry Trends report from Davis+Gilbert, well known to you and I and many of our listeners, I'm sure, Steve, and it's a good read this year.

There's a lot of really important points to discuss, and Michael Lasky is going to be on deck to take us through the findings. But to kick things off today, I thought we'd do a quick round of in the news. What headlines have been catching your eye in the last week or so, Steve?

00:01:18.360 ‚  00:02:32.600  Steve Halsey
You know, one that I saw was really interesting, which is a new report that came out from McKinsey called Nail Your First. And what's interesting about this is the core idea of this was really that the CEO role now starts first with stakeholder credibility, not operational cadence. So what the article was really talking about and the findings were saying, hey, in those first 100 days, the most critical thing for leaders is to really communicate well, because that's how they're going to be evaluated, how they show up, how they listen, and how they build trust so long before their strategy has actually taken place.

And long before you're seeing the operational changes, they're really being judged by that. And what I really find fascinating about that is how much pressure that then places on the corporate comms and corporate affairs ecosystem to really make sure the CEO gets out of the gate really strong, really fast.

And, you know, you've got to be aligned and you've really got to help make sure the CEO really isn't flying without instruments, that they're really putting that vision out there quick and fast.

00:02:32.800 ‚  00:03:16.080  Anne Green
You know, that reminds me, um, I resonate with that being a CEO. And, you know, we're in a smaller pond here, but still leading you and I and our partners in this space. But it reminds me of reading some articles in Harvard Business Review about the skill sets that are needed for CEOs today, and that emotional intelligence and that communication across stakeholders is so critical.

And it makes me think of for years now? I felt that MBAs in particular. You know, these training grounds for corporate leadership were very under indexed from my perspective on the communication side and that skill set that many of us learn either through study or on the job, when we're practitioners like you and I are.

00:03:17.120 ‚  00:03:25.480  Anne Green
It sounds to me like more than ever, you know, CEOs need to be coming in or those that may be on the path for organizational leadership need to really lean into that.

00:03:25.520 ‚  00:04:06.680  Steve Halsey
Well, and, you know, we're communicating everywhere and always in every way, shape or form that that I think you're right, is really having that communications, um, framework to really bring that vision of life. And let me just read here, I wanted to pull this quote because I found it really interesting.

It says new and incoming CEOs are often unprepared for the intensity of internal and external stakeholder engagement. There's no honeymoon period. People in other roles may have six months or even a year to find their footing. But as CEO, you're expected to be ready from day one and communicate from day one.

That's some serious pressure.

00:04:06.920 ‚  00:04:12.520  Anne Green
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think we see that with a lot of our clients and just what we're observing in the landscape.

00:04:12.720 ‚  00:04:37.160  Steve Halsey
So I thought that's interesting. And that really parlays a lot of the things I'm hearing from the chief communications officers I'm talking to. And kind of as we've talked about in previous episodes of Brand Gravity, it's no longer the old question, do you have a seat at the table? It's like, what do you do now?

It's how do you get them out the door as quickly as possible? But but that's something that kind of stuck with me. What have you been reading? What's sticking out for you?

00:04:37.240 ‚  00:07:11.320  Anne Green
So in preparing for this, I definitely had a story that caught my eye. You and I have been talking a lot about structure and the role of integrated communications within corporations, within those functions. So a big story that caught my eye this week is the appointment of an executive Vice president, a new EVP to lead a newly unified corporate affairs structure at Verizon.

So this was in PR week and covered in many other places. Now this group is going to combine corporate communications, public affairs, government relations and what they term at Verizon Responsible Business, which is very interesting to to see how that language evolves. And the new EVP Frans Pash, I believe that's how you pronounce it.

He's a seasoned veteran that's worked at a lot of agencies and a range of corporations. But the thing that of course really caught my eye is Dan Schulman is the newly appointed CEO at Verizon. He was at PayPal before, and he had some very powerful quotes. This was in the actual formal announcement in the press release that was quoted.

I have them here. So some of his quotes on this. We have an opportunity to redefine not just who we are as a company, but to fundamentally change and lead our entire industry. And then he also said, in a world where trust and transparency matter more than ever. How we show up, communicate and deliver. Define who we are as a company by creating a world class corporate affairs function will take bold and responsible actions to drive growth and position Verizon as a leader with all our stakeholders.

Now, I was telling you this, Steve. Offline, I had the honor of working with Dan Shulman years ago in his first CEO role at Virgin Mobile USA, and he, I found, was always very savvy about brand, about reputation, about the breadth of stakeholders and the critical importance of building trust. He brought a lot of values with him from that entity to a stint at Amex and then of course, famously at PayPal, where, um, you know, some people might call him an activist CEO.

I don't think he would typify it. Like that was much more about being very clear on the values of the organization tied to their business and their stakeholders and their customers and living those values. But for me, just this idea about being so clear and deliberate about this move at a time where other entities, as we've discussed on this podcast, are kind of fragmenting that comms structure.

I don't know. I just found that really interesting. What's your take on this?

00:07:11.360 ‚  00:07:59.120  Steve Halsey
Yeah, is is very interesting. And I like some of the words that he use like redefine be bold. You know that that to me really kind of ties those themes together that we're talking about. You know, the McKinsey piece is really arguing about leading with reputation for results. And what I think is interesting that Verizon is doing is they're clearly architecting a system here around Dan that makes this whole thing possible, right?

By unifying corporate comms, public affairs, government relations. It's more than a structural change. It's really, as you said, a deliberate signal of trust, of transparency, of stakeholder leadership. So this one's going to be interesting to see. To see how it works out. But yeah absolutely interesting story in the news.

00:07:59.280 ‚  00:09:05.520  Anne Green
Yeah. And just you know, the day after I saw this story, I noted um, fortune in their CEO daily or it might have been Wall Street Journal in their, in their CEO brief. There's so many good newsletters. But one of them had featured more remarks from Dan Schulman from one of their board level gatherings. And so a lot about needing, um, the kind of mindset that's needed, the kind of boldness and also even large entities needing to think about themselves as a startup and being more nimble and agile.

So definitely a space to watch. And I guess, you know, we've been talking a lot so far on this episode about the corporate side of the fence. Now I think it's time to turn our attention back to the agency landscape, and that's our chance to ask Michael Lasky, who's been a long time partner at Davis+Gilbert, well known in the industry.

You know, you and I, Steve, have known him for decades. Um, to everything we want to know about the new Trends report. Having done it for 13 years is a long scope of time, and there is so much change right now. And I think the conversation I had with Michael yesterday will bring that level of change into focus.

So for now, please stay tuned for my conversation with Michael.

00:09:07.480 ‚  00:09:14.120  Anne Green
I am so excited to welcome an old friend and colleague for many years now, Michael Lasky. Welcome, Michael.

00:09:14.160 ‚  00:09:15.640  Michael Lasky
Thank you and a real pleasure.

00:09:15.640 ‚  00:09:46.000  Anne Green
And Michael is the chair of the public relations practice at Davis+Gilbert, as well as co-chair of litigation and dispute resolution practice. But, Michael, you are well, well known in our industry, and I've known you for many years, as I've said, and you've been a great mentor and a support and counselor to me over those years.

But I don't know that a lot of people know your own story in terms of how did you end up in this specific practice area because you're so deep in it? Tell us a little bit about that. I think it's a great way to start.

00:09:46.040 ‚  00:12:15.480  Michael Lasky
Sure. Well thank you. Well, you know, I'd like to say it's a it was a combination of strategy and serendipity. Um, the strategy was when I joined Davis+Gilbert, the firm had a, you know, really proud history of, um, being preeminent in the advertising law area. And back then, in 1983, advertising was still king, and everything else was a below the line business.

But the firm had been around since the early part of the 20th century, and we literally put the first radio spots. Yes, I said radio on the air for P&G. Um, and we've been synonymous with the monetization of what we now referred to as commercial speech since the early days of radio. And to be frank, our practice followed the technology of the day radio, television point to purchase then internet, social, digital and the like.

So when I joined the firm, I actually came at a time when I thought we were really well positioned to essentially work with firms whose key assets were people and ideas, creative businesses. You know, the term marketing communications had not yet been invented yet. And I looked at what we were good at and thought of what were logical line extensions and public relations.

You know, cried out as something that I thought we really could add a lot of value to. I think that was in part so that was the strategy. And I think the strategy was in part informed by my own background. I did a lot of writing as, um, uh, a student and, uh, I ran a 1200 page publication when I was in law school, and I actually was a, um, I wrote for my student newspaper.

I was a Broadway theater critic, Um, uh, for a bit. Um, when I was in college. So the craft of storytelling and authentic communications always resonated with me. And I thought reaching, you know, audiences with the information that would influence outcomes was also something that I think really resonated a lot with me.

So, you know, strategy and serendipity came together and I, um, you know, consistency and persistence also probably played an important role.

00:12:15.840 ‚  00:12:55.320  Anne Green
I think that is how my life often goes. What's interesting to reflect back on the trajectory of many of the agencies in this space is where we came from and what we are today, like you said. You know, I would describe our firm today at G&S Integrated Marketing Communications. I still really love and feel passionate about the term of public relations, too.

But we also, like many firms, do much more than that. And, you know, I can think about the trends I've seen over time. You've got some years on me to to think about that too. When you think about the evolution of the whole space, especially the agency side, what are some of the things that you've noticed, some of those bigger trends?

00:12:55.560 ‚  00:12:57.280  Michael Lasky
Well, I mean, certainly

00:12:58.320 ‚  00:14:00.840  Michael Lasky
it's changed dramatically. And, um, you know, largely influenced by, um, you know, both scope of services, the complexity of the services and the technology that's enabled the, um, very substantial expansion of the swim lanes. So, you know, I, I was actually thinking this morning and I've thought about this a lot as it relates to the skyrocketing use of AI in the industry and, frankly, in all industries.

But, um, it really reminds me to a time in the in 1994 War ish when we started with the year, with virtually no firms having websites to by the end of the year, you know, WW w became synonymous with, you know, an extraordinary explosion. But frankly, it was a time when people were still trying to grapple with.

00:14:02.880 ‚  00:14:36.800  Michael Lasky
Was this world regulated? And, you know, I kidded at the time that, you know, WW w stood for Wild Wild West. People thought it was, you know, completely unpolished, when in fact it was policed the very same way. Um, it was old wine and new bottle. So the technology created new issues, but a lot of the same kinds of framework applied.

And I think, you know, um, I, I certainly the kind of trends that I'm seeing are also greatly influenced by the expansion of services and the technology.

00:14:36.840 ‚  00:15:47.880  Anne Green
It's funny to hear you speak about those early days. I very much remember when my firm, Cooper Cat's, back in the early 90s, sent out a postcard that said we are on the internet superhighway, and that just dates us all. But I embrace it. I, you know, you got to get in the Wayback Machine and enjoy those old memories.

Um, one of the reasons I wanted to connect with you, Michael, is talking about today and the trends that are really shaping our industry, and you folks have had for many years now your annual public relations trends report. Very helpful. I always look forward to it. I have participated, you know, in events when we're speaking about the trends.

I've, you know, done mainstage work with you guys on the AI side and some other pieces, M&A. So, um, just came out and the overall theme and I've got it here. That report really emphasized the gap between strategy and reality, those disconnects between agencies aspirations and the actual execution. So I want to go piece by piece through some of the findings.

And I know you've been on a bit of a road show for this, so you're ready to go, but what what are some of the top lines that you would identify before we drill down a bit?

00:15:48.320 ‚  00:17:40.520  Michael Lasky
Well, I think I'd focus on three. Um, and certainly, you know, the whole purpose of the report is to look at the white space. Where can we influence outcomes? What is separating the the, um, advancement of the kind of firm that every firm hopes to be, you know, growing profitable. Well, you know, positioned.

And, um, as we looked at the data, um, there were three areas. One is I really saw some misalignment between the the virtual unanimity of firms using AI for a virtual explosion in types of services and for types of purposes, from content creation to media monitoring to data analytics, to proof of concept to crisis communications.

Let's just went on and on. But when you look to see, though it was popular, many firms did not have comprehensive policies in place. And that exposes them to liability for how employees were to be using it. What kind of client involvement and consent they had, and virtually no firms had, you know, appropriate AI policies for the vendors they used.

So, frankly, getting an alignment on the usage and policy to reduce risk was one area that we certainly I certainly felt would improve agency performance and check a lot of important boxes for alignment.

00:17:41.720 ‚  00:17:55.120  Michael Lasky
Second area that came out very clearly from this year's data was while there was a very sharp increase in training at firms around AI platforms.

00:17:57.840 ‚  00:18:05.440  Michael Lasky
Ways to, um, you know, you know, best prompts, um, best outcomes.

00:18:07.240 ‚  00:18:52.440  Michael Lasky
Every other area of training was dramatically down. And, you know, the shoemaker's kids were going barefoot. So at a time when many agencies were struggling mightily to grow top line, maintain or grow profits, business development and client growth strategies, and operating holistically to cross collaborate.

Elaborate. Notice I didn't say cross sell, but cross collaborate. Among types of service offerings and between and among areas of specialization that was dramatically down over prior years. You know, similarly, um,

00:18:53.720 ‚  00:18:55.199  Michael Lasky
we saw a lot of

00:18:56.960 ‚  00:19:15.960  Michael Lasky
agencies still having the bulk of their revenue driven by retainer work, yet there was very little training being done around financial management, client contracts, how to appropriately stay within the scope of work,

00:19:17.560 ‚  00:19:40.400  Michael Lasky
making sure the account people know you know, how to proactively communicate with clients on those issues. So that was another area of probably, if not leaving money on the table, losing money in part because that training piece was misaligned with, you know, the growth opportunities.

00:19:41.600 ‚  00:20:03.280  Michael Lasky
You know, the third area that, um, came out in this year's data in terms of, um, what I would call closing the gap, was, you know, I'm a strong believer in economics, driving behavior. And while there is, again, um, the agencies were struggling to grow revenue and profitability,

00:20:04.920 ‚  00:21:21.880  Michael Lasky
many of them still were operating in a annual discretionary bonus arrangement and did not properly and appropriately incentivize um, uh, uh, key employees over a multi-year period, typically referred to as long term incentive plans of one kind or another. And you have to sort of reverse engineer, um, what outcomes you want for your mid-level and senior people.

And if you needed a roadmap about what works, well, the data. Um, you know, uh, the the endpoint is not the data, it's the starting point. But the data shows that the top performing firms, firms that grew revenue or profits or both, by more than 10% this year had, on average, a very higher percentage of these, uh, long term incentive programs for mid-level and key employees, both as a retention tool and as an incentive arrangement, then agencies at large.

So those are the three areas that really struck me, as, you know, um,

00:21:23.040 ‚  00:21:32.200  Michael Lasky
what I would recommend is sort of advisory services to help, um, enhance performance in the year ahead.

00:21:32.360 ‚  00:22:52.840  Anne Green
That's really helpful overview and a lot to dig in there. I want to take the second one first on training. Um, I think that's very critical. And as I was listening to you, you know, I always have a double consciousness in these things, which is I'm thinking about the industry at large, but I'm also trying to also interrogate myself and say, what are we doing?

Where are we at? You know, that's the helpful thing. I always joke that there's a pendulum that swings between, we're doing great or we have to fix everything, you know? And I think that's a healthy, dynamic tension. But your point about the focus on training in AI, which I think is obviously critical, this is a massive upskilling moment, but missing some of these other pieces.

A lot of the trainings you mentioned, Michael, are known to us as leaders. Agency leaders. We should know that these are critical, the constant refreshing of financial management skills, how an agency works, how it makes money. But even recently, our Chief Growth officer, when my partner Steve Halsey, did a series of events around, some of our officers had called Coachella.

And it was a fun, tongue in cheek way of saying for both junior people, but also more senior people, how does our business work? How is our new business process work? What are the pricing models, etc.? Why do you think that these sort of perennial best practices are falling by the wayside?

00:22:53.280 ‚  00:23:08.480  Michael Lasky
You know, I think it's harder to, um, stay current and, um, you know, maybe, uh, there's a strong focus on the new hula hoop. If I can date myself with that analogy.

00:23:08.800 ‚  00:23:11.880  Anne Green
Go for it. The pet rock of today.

00:23:12.360 ‚  00:23:43.560  Michael Lasky
There you go. And and, uh, you know, I think a lot of firms are really, um, working really hard to stay current and to move quickly. And, you know, there's an obvious expression. The harder we go, the behavior we get and sometimes, you know, things that are really back to the basics get left behind. And I think that some of what came out in this year's data that that it was easy to focus on, I mean, there was so much energy.

00:23:44.600 ‚  00:24:27.630  Michael Lasky
I mean, 37% of the firms said they're building, you know, an AI, um, model, and 62% said they're investing in an AI powered program. I mean, that's a Herculean undertaking. So, you know, not looking to be critical, but just to provide, you know, comment. And that's sometimes the perspective that an outside advisor can, whether it's a public relations professional or a lawyer who does a lot of work in the industry can provide is, you know, um, you know, objectively, I get it.

But there's also this other thing here which you can't leave behind. It's it's it's basic.

00:24:27.750 ‚  00:26:01.110  Anne Green
Yeah. And you're making me think of two. I was looking this morning. Um, I was scanning fortune CEO daily, and they were quoting. That was Wall Street Journal CEO brief, one of those types of newsletters, and they were quoting a Deloitte leader. I think it was the Deloitte CEO talking about, um, recent research they did with CEOs in general.

And they and he was just talking about two of the most important things of this pivot is, is really human mindset. It's a growth mindset. Um, and it's kind of leaning into the ability to change and emotional intelligence. So that growth mindset and emotional intelligence, interestingly, both randomly and I guess happily, both things we've been focused on here this year very intentionally, but this is very much a human challenge.

So you've got the core skill sets of the business. You've got the training on the business of the business, and then you have that training on being a manager and a business leader and how you bring your best self to it. So I find that really interesting. Switching over to, some of the other trends. Revenue and profitability.

It was really interesting to me. And there's a million different details in here. But there's this there was this donut effect that you guys found that smaller firms and larger firms, and there was numbers associated with them tend to be outperforming whatever we see as midsize. And I think larger firms were typified as over 100.

Was that right in terms of staff? But how would you. And I feel like you've seen that effect before in earlier studies in different years. But tell us a little bit more about that donut effect and what you noticed about it.

00:26:01.310 ‚  00:26:26.590  Michael Lasky
Yeah, I think there are a few things that account for that. I mean, certainly, and the devil's in the details. Look, there are a lot of very large firms that have had massive layoffs this year and are continuing to have them. So it's not like, um, you know, larger firms have all the answers and are immune from all the kinds of trends, the uncertainty, the,

00:26:27.910 ‚  00:26:50.710  Michael Lasky
you know, you know, clients asking more for less than anybody else. But they do have, you know, a larger, um, revenue base to, um, put against their expenses. So I think that has helped them in some way. Um, you know, uh.

00:26:53.430 ‚  00:26:58.589  Michael Lasky
Again, as a monolith, you know, do a little bit better than the midsize

00:26:59.910 ‚  00:27:29.150  Michael Lasky
at the, you know, 30 and under which we called, you know, smaller, not small, small, but mighty, you know, remember, the tugboat can also pull the ocean liner. So it's not it's not big as not always best. But, you know, I think the reason for the stronger profitability at the smaller firms is they tend to be laser focused.

They tend to be, um, very much, um,

00:27:30.670 ‚  00:27:49.109  Michael Lasky
focused on an industry. And, you know, this is a hard time to be all things to all people. So I think the specialization has become more important than ever. And whether you're a firm over 100 or a firm that is smaller but nimble, I think

00:27:50.470 ‚  00:28:53.390  Michael Lasky
knowing and understanding your competitive advantage, where are you going to make your investments? Being close to, you know, a particular or or more than one industry, but having some laser focus in those industries and envelop all the service offerings that are relevant for that industry, you know, can really be very helpful to drive both revenue and profits and actually also grow, you know, your clients internally so that there's a stronger connection with them.

You're not only, you know, doing their media relations, you're doing their content creation. You're doing their events, you're doing their thought leadership. You know, you're doing their data analytics. And, you know, sometimes firms have had to acquire different talent or even do smaller acquisitions to be able to bring in a capacity to get more heavily involved with an industry or a client so that they're not they're using their relationship to build the strongest connection to that client.

00:28:53.630 ‚  00:30:07.510  Anne Green
Yeah, it's a very it was helpful and heartening to read some of this data and also hear right now what you're saying, um, we've been having a lot of conversations about where, especially in the world of AI, right? Where is the human and where is the machine, and there needs to be a symbiotic relationship there.

The PR Council recently put out a framework that I really liked, and it was more about the writing side, but it was looking at how do you understand a framework so you're very intentional about this is all human. This is all machine. But this is where on the spectrum they merge. Mostly human, mostly machine.

ET cetera, etc. and being intentional about that. But the reason I bring that up is that where is the human essential as counselor. So sector expertise, deep knowledge of an area or an industry. Um, really going deeper into areas or service sets that are fueled by technology, underpinned by AI as a tool, but then overlaid with human analysis?

I mean, I think this really puts a sharp point when you look at it from like the revenue and profitability side, it puts a sharper point to, you know, as you dig into the details on how we need to be thinking about what why someone needs a counselor at this point. Why do they need someone outside their walls?

00:30:07.630 ‚  00:31:01.550  Michael Lasky
Well, you know, I the the analogy to law, you know, rings true to me because there was a time in the practice of law where a lot of attorneys, business cards, said attorneys and counselors at law. And that, you know, um, really was a reference to the English legal system where there were two distinct roles that lawyers provided.

One was transactional, and that was, you know, the, the, the, the solicitor. But there also was the barrister, the counselor, the, the, the, you know, advice and counsel role. And I think actually that has become, you know, more important than ever in a lot of professional services, certainly in strategic communications and public relations.

And I'd argue perhaps even in law.

00:31:01.870 ‚  00:32:14.310  Anne Green
That is an excellent metaphor. Are we in what we're seeking to do? When are we the solicitor and when are we the counselor or the barrister? I think that's an excellent, excellent analogy. So in your trends and when you're talking about training, you mentioned something I wanted to get into, which is the persistence of the retainer and retainer billing.

Obviously, we're both in professional service. It's it's it's a common construct, as you well know, in our industry. There's been talk for so, so long about this, um, buzzword of value based pricing. And my observation, and I'm not the only one has been easy to talk about. Difficult to do, I think by other names it might be consulting or it might be project, or there might be other words for it, but it's been a buzzword and a bit of a cudgel at times, where it's kind of beating agency leaders over the head like, hey dummies, why haven't you done moved to value based pricing yet, when oftentimes the corporate side really needs that retainer model, or would prefer a model that's sort of legible and understandable?

What's your take on the persistence of the retainer model, and what are the the things you're seeing now that are interesting relative to how pricing may shift over time, if you have a POV on that?

00:32:14.350 ‚  00:32:17.229  Michael Lasky
Well, yes, my my point of view is

00:32:18.270 ‚  00:32:25.790  Michael Lasky
it's the wrong discussion to think about it as an either or. Um, I'd like to have, you know, clients

00:32:27.030 ‚  00:34:30.709  Michael Lasky
either early in the process of onboarding a new client or sometimes even in the, you know, end of the pitch process. Um, or maybe when it's time to renew the contract, say, okay, what is your home run look like? We're going to do all these things and that's going to give you, you know, great results, great outcomes.

You know, to use maybe a sports analogy, just for a moment. There'll be some great, you know, singles and some great doubles. Um, might even be an occasional triple. But what is your home run look like? And, you know, if I think there's a no lose scenario to that discussion, even it may well be okay. Uh, home runs are rare, but if I can deliver a against that, would you be open to at least having a placeholder in the contract?

So at year end we have a discussion as to whether or not that success fee is warranted for for the home run. It might even be given that we now have, you know, a lot of data tools on our hands, setting an objective measure for how to how to measure not solid work, but spectacular, you know, outcomes. And, you know, I would like to think that either for new relationships or one where there's a history of trust that, you know, those conversations can be had more frequently.

Look, there are there are a number of ways to also do this. Maybe it's okay. Um, I understand that, you know, corporate won't allow, you know, this kind of success fee. But how about this? The next time one of your brands, you know, wants to do a RFP for new work, can we basically have a most favored nation status and not have to go through the RFP process, which costs us

00:34:32.110 ‚  00:34:51.310  Michael Lasky
thousands of dollars? You know, I think it just elevates the debate about, um, we want to hit the home run for you. And if you know, to use the analogy again, if economics drive behavior, we want to align our incentive with your preferred, you know, home run.

00:34:51.750 ‚  00:36:29.590  Anne Green
Yeah. And I think you're really talking about a both and in a way which I think we need to embrace, which is not all pricing models. It doesn't need to go away. Something doesn't need to go away in favor of only one model. One thing we've been talking a lot about on our leadership team is kind of having freedom to operate across different models within the same entity, and that even within the same client, especially with um AI, there may be aspects of the program that really need one kind of contract structure and another aspect of the program that needs a different one.

And it's not like this is unheard of in our field. I just I just think that there's been a lot of angst about trying to get away from the hourly bill, which I agree, you know, billing by hours, especially as now there will be things that will be more commoditized, there will be things that the machine should do more of.

And it we then whether it's senior people or more junior people, become the orchestrators of agents of colleagues that are machines. But I think we're going to have to be really open and nimble. And I love your idea about how do you look at other types of value add that may not be just a monetary outcome too.

Yeah. Let's let's talk about the AI of it all. That's what I like to the AI of it all. Um, I was very Be interested in what you're saying about these gaps between. It's almost like a governance and behavior gap. How does it relate to the client? What are those governance structures? What are the ethical structures, the legal structures?

What's the risk matrix? As you've talked to various firms, I know you were just at the

00:36:30.710 ‚  00:36:39.830  Anne Green
summit speaking there, but what have people's reactions been to the gaps you've identified in around this sort of AI practices?

00:36:39.950 ‚  00:37:15.430  Michael Lasky
I think, um, people have really responded like a bit of a oh yeah. Aha. And I think people have it has resonated with them. Um, and I'm, I'm a little humbled by that. But, um, um, you know, one of the things that really struck me also when I looked at what I call closing the gap and the difference between strategy and, and and and actually how it's being executed is when we asked the question about are you using with clients?

Have you modified your contracts? Um,

00:37:16.790 ‚  00:37:33.550  Michael Lasky
most responded that they had not had the conversation with clients, but those that did responded in a very high percentage, that the clients were receptive and were open to the conversation when proactively,

00:37:34.910 ‚  00:37:50.430  Michael Lasky
you know, um, brought up by the agency. And that actually told me a lot, which, you know, um, one of my favorite quotes from, uh, Louis Pasteur is chance favors the prepared mind. And, you know, you know,

00:37:51.470 ‚  00:37:55.949  Michael Lasky
being passive about something, uh, is, is probably

00:37:57.630 ‚  00:38:59.990  Michael Lasky
a worse set of state of mind when things are moving as quickly as they are in this industry than, frankly, ever before. But, you know, having to use your word, intentional conversations with clients about. Let's talk about why I think we can get better outcomes with you, for you, for your brand, for your objectives.

If we use AI in this way, these platforms for these tasks, and this is the ROI we expect from it, and that ROI is not just measured by, okay, we're going to save you a few nickels here and there. It can be about we're going to have a much better crisis plan in place, because we're going to be using this to help, really, you know, look at experience for similar kinds of situations to help use data to guide

00:39:01.030 ‚  00:39:32.470  Michael Lasky
your next strategic moves. And that's, you know, a conversation. Mission? Yes. Advisory in nature. And yes. Strategic. You know, you're using the AI, um, to maybe, you know, um, empower you, if I may, to have the conversation. But it's only the starting point. And I think clients are looking for their communications firm to be, you know, good stewards of their trust.

And frankly, you know,

00:39:33.510 ‚  00:39:57.389  Michael Lasky
this is their area of expertise. And the client, frankly, I think will respect and value. There's that word, the kind of advice and counsel that is not just relegating the function to execution. And I think that's a big mistake that the business some

00:39:59.150 ‚  00:40:05.870  Michael Lasky
firms make more than others. And if we were to look at, frankly, the firms that are

00:40:06.990 ‚  00:40:11.190  Michael Lasky
defying gravity, to use the analogy from the Wicked song.

00:40:13.350 ‚  00:40:53.310  Michael Lasky
Very timely. Yes, we're all waiting for, uh, you know, the release on, I guess, the Thanksgiving weekend of wicked for good. Um, and, you know, I think it's, um, firms that are really, you know, playing at a higher level. They, they're leveraging off, um, you know, their, their value and, um, playing not just the execution, you know, aspects, but also the strategic advisory as the threshold that then guides the execution.

00:40:53.390 ‚  00:43:34.350  Anne Green
I couldn't agree with this conversation more. I have a few observations. It was interesting in the research to see. I have it here that 63% of respondents to the trends report said clients are cautious but open to integration. I would say that it really depends on which clients you're talking to. And I would say some of the corporates are really starting to get ahead.

And it's radically different than a few months ago. And so one of the things I enjoy about being out and about in our industry, and it's not just the agency side, it's not just PR, it's that broader integrated marketing communications. It's both corporates, agency side nonprofit academia, venues like page PR counsel.

What's really helpful about a venue like page is that it's very self-selected about who has decided to be in that room. Not only are they senior communications professionals and leaders and counselors, they've also said that their commitment to the industry and professional development is such that they want to make that time.

And I feel like and I'm sure, Michael, you agree, when you're in those kinds of rooms, you hear how quickly a sect of the organizations out there, sectors of them and categories of them are leaning in and starting to find acceleration And looking at what does this mean for our FT's in-house, our partners out of house, you know.

Um, and so to build on what you're saying, my feeling is that I say to my people when it comes to AI and our clients show the work we need to go intentionally and be the ones to bring up this conversation and say, we want to, first of all, show you our AI policies. This is how they're in our contracts. This is how we're thinking about it.

These are how all the levels at which this is how we're doing peer to peer discussions and counsel are tech stack, because there's so much focus on generative AI through the large platforms and the language models that there's a transformation of our entire tech stack, a lot of which are technologies that we carry and use on behalf of many of our clients to lower their cost basis.

But if we don't know how AI is tracking, but then from there, how do we have those discussions to say, these are the this is the ethical framework we're using. This is how it's making us smarter. This is how we're getting to value. Because as I as I've said many times to my peers, if we don't lead that conversation, eventually the call comes from procurement and the procurement professionals are going to be under huge pressure here.

And I see them already trying to interpret what this change means and how they pull value back to the organization. Um, sometimes that can be a blunt instrument. I think there are some very nuanced conversations going on, but I love that you're bringing this up, because if we don't come forward ourselves right then we are being.

I think you use the word passive, right? That's that's not a good place to be, right?

00:43:34.550 ‚  00:45:41.470  Michael Lasky
No. And I even take it one step further. Not only can't you be passive, you can't stand still. The the the the rate of the change has been so dramatic, you know, that, um, you know, I think more now, more than ever, staying still is really falling behind. And that's definitely not a good place to be. So, you know, anticipating the conversations, thinking through the ROI that you can explain to the client, making sure that you're not you're approaching the AI conversations with the right client, contract addenda with the right internal policies, that you're not setting yourself up for a breach of contract because, um, you're using it in an unauthorized ways or disclosing confidential information of the client in a, in a non in an open platform or, or worse, infringing on, uh, intellectual property of a third party.

So there are lots of let alone, you know, um, having, um, uh, you know, issues that could lead to, you know, bias in the results or, you know, using it in a way that's going to, um, lead to a deceptive practice. So there are. So it's a combination of the, you know, frankly, the artificial intelligence and the human intelligence.

You know, one of our colleagues used the expression that, um, you know, the the public relations professional of tomorrow is going to be a data engineer. Um, I like to think of the analogy of the tool kit. You know, what what tool from the toolkit you're going to pull out to advance the client's, um, uh, objectives.

And, um, that's not an automated function that's based upon your skill and experience and your knowledge of the client and your knowledge of the industry and everything else that you do.

00:45:42.030 ‚  00:46:13.190  Anne Green
Yeah. When you talked about not standing still, it reminded me of another Broadway reference, which is a song Move On from Sunday in the Park with George. You've got to move on, you know. You've got to find that next thing. So as we wrap up today, you know, we talked early on. You talked about those three takeaways we dug into many of them.

If you had one piece of advice not just for agency leaders, but other senior communicators that are working to transform or work with counselors, you know what would be maybe 1 or 2 things you really want folks to think about going forward?

00:46:13.390 ‚  00:47:23.230  Michael Lasky
You know, I'd say, you know, maybe reverse engineer, you know, um, you know, if you had a magic wand, what would you like to achieve for your agency and its clients? And then if you know that you know that goal, it's easier to achieve it. And then, frankly, try to think about what are the barriers right now within your organization to getting there.

Um, and, you know, it's almost like in the M&A context, we typically will tell independent firms to flip your hat around. And if you were buying your firm, what would you want to find? And, you know, build towards that outcome. Flip the hat around and what would you want the outcomes to be? And if that's on the people side, you know, build your compensation system that reflects what you want to achieve.

Um, for that practice group, for that office, for that whole firm. Um, and if it's on the training and development side, we'll think about what's missing in that equation and why you're not, you know, getting where you want to be and what you need to do to get there.

00:47:23.590 ‚  00:47:40.950  Anne Green
That's great advice. I love that. Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining us today on Building Brant Gravity. And people can easily Google the report. Go to Davis+Gilbert, look for the Public Relations 13th Annual Trends report. We'll put a link in our show notes and thank you. It's always good to see you.

00:47:41.110 ‚  00:47:43.310  Michael Lasky
My pleasure. Anna, it's great being with you.

Steve Halsey: [00:00:00] Gone are the days that corporate communications is, we're gonna push out a press release. We're gonna manage a couple key stakeholder. It's really embedded in everything we do.
Anne Green: You can see how in larger entities, communications manifest in different ways in different parts of the business, and yet it's so critical across so many levels.
I think it's a good conversation to have. The pendulum tends to swing back and forth relative to centralized. Decentralized. But if we can embrace that both and two things being true at once, I think we're gonna be in a much of a stronger place.
Steve Halsey: Welcome to Building Brand Gravity. I'm Steve Halsey.
Anne Green: And I'm Anne Green.
Steve Halsey: And we are your host of Building Brand Gravity. Well, today's gonna be fun. Today's episode's also gonna be a little bit different. We're diving into a mailbag of the big questions that have surfaced across our conversations so far this year.
[00:01:00] And Anne, we've spoken to some incredible, incredible guests from comms leaders, AI experts, researchers. How really. Ga, how we think about trust, and what really struck us is how often the themes seem to overlap. They're all very individual episodes, but a lot of them reflect what many of you are grappling with inside your own organizations.
Anne Green: Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. And instead of revisiting each episode one by one, we're just gonna weave together questions by theme. We're looking at the kinds of discussion points we're hearing most from communicators and marketers and leaders, so we can consider this a lightning round of the issues that just keep coming up in boardrooms in our conversations with ourselves and other agencies, and also in the media.
So Steve, I'm gonna let you jump right in.
Steve Halsey: Well, why don't we start with the topic that always comes up when you start the conversation about communications, the stature of communications, and where we fit in. In your, [00:02:00] uh, interview with Chrissy Jones in the future of the comms function, you and Chrissy discuss that off sided point that.
Quote unquote, comm needs to earn a seat at the table. Right. We've been, we've been hearing that for a long time and it kind of feels outdated. And that's the point you were saying. Yet it continues to come up over and over again. Why is that and how is the statue of comms in the C-suite still unsettled at this point?
Anne Green: Yeah, it's really interesting. We did talk about that. That was a very recent episode, so I encourage people to check it out. Um. I, I think about this a lot, why comms has to earn a seat at the table. And many organizations it has. Like, that's not even a question anymore yet. I think the continued challenge of how value is measured is probably at the heart of it, the revenue issues, stock price, those hard metrics, the dollars capital tends to still be the way, especially larger organizations measure value.
Um, the value of things like reputation. [00:03:00] As a business asset. Of course and have always been harder to measure. They're qualitative as well as quantitative, and there's been many efforts to put the quantitative number to it, the dollar figure. But those always, um, feel a little bit hollow or they fall short relative to a literal thing like bottom line revenue or stock price.
And so I think. That that is gonna continue to be a challenge. Yet you and I have been doing some reputation work recently, and in speaking with a whole C-suite of a very, very large organization, it's incredibly clear to those folks that reputation is a business asset and that these pieces are critical.
And so I think that we have to find a way to keep articulating that in and insisting on both qualitative and quantitative. And the other thing we need to do is remind folks that in a volatile landscape. Communications folks and communications functions are more central and necessary than ever.
Steve Halsey: Well, in, in a lot of ways, you know, there are people that try and make [00:04:00] it be a, almost like a binary question of, Hey, should comms really be sitting in the C-suite right there in the center of power?
Or should they be out where the customers are in the field with the businesses? How do they balance both in a lot of ways? I feel like sometimes that's a binary, um. Point that's, that's, that's being put out there, but you like to say it's yes and right.
Anne Green: Mm-hmm. Yeah. A lot of things can be true at once.
Steve Halsey: So, so that, that continues to be part of the challenge.
But, but you know, it, it really, uh, like you said, it's no longer about having the seat of the table. It's really about what are we going to do there? How do we demonstrate the value? And it's interesting that the role of senior comms has kind of shifted from that. Hey, we're kind of the, um. Kinda like that little voice, uh, of the organization kind of steering it on the path to really, like what you were saying, of really thinking about reputation as a value driver, particularly in as volatile, uh, [00:05:00] environment like we're in today.
Anne Green: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I, I just don't know that that question's ever gonna go away. Our role is gonna be different than a CFO's role or a senior counsel, um, legal counsel. And, and I think we just have to embrace the differences there and keep articulating it
Steve Halsey: well, and and part of that challenge too.
And, and you and Ethan McCarty covered this in that episode of Living with Values. When culture and Brand Collides, you guys really talked about the challenges of. What happens when organizational and individual employee values are not aligned sometimes in clear conflict, but isn't it impossible to ever fully achieve alignment between the corporation and the individual?
And what kind of expectation should leaders have for employees to truly buy in?
Anne Green: Yeah, when we had the Ethan episode, there was definitely some good feedback there and some discussions even among our own team about that question. There's like the organizational value, the the individual's value. 'cause [00:06:00] employees are not a monolith, right?
How do they overlap? How close are they? They one, are they the same? Right. So, you know, and I had actually reached out to Ethan when they had put out at um, integral some good research they do every year about. Employee values, um, employee experience, et cetera. 'cause that's their expertise. I think where we were netting out here is that there's no way that the circles completely overlap.
That would be something that you wouldn't expect to happen, you shouldn't expect to happen. Nor is that probably good. I think there's a dynamic tension between how. The organization and its leaders as a collective, and then the individuals in the entity pull and push at each other to find your center of gravity within those values.
Now, one thing Ethan said I think is very clear, and I think this is the the flag for organizational leaders, but also communications folks that are dealing with internal and external [00:07:00] communications. When the circles are too far apart, some very not good things can happen. Um, you wanna try to bring them more into alignment, so.
Trying to hope that you can have more of the overlap, but part of that is going through that consistent process frequently and refreshing it, of discussing what values really mean at a collective level and at an individual level, and creating an environment where people can speak about where they feel tensions with their own individual values.
You don't have to buy into everything, and sometimes it's better if people exit because they don't feel that alignment, but I, I think that. Leaders have to be more intentional and mindful about how they speak about this in their own ecosystem. I don't know. Does that resonate with you?
Steve Halsey: I think, I think it does.
And, and you know, when I had the, uh, the, the discussion with Elliot Rahi when he was with, uh, the Page Society and Rob Koeck of the Harris Poll, they did some research at the turn of the year, which was really focused on that idea of [00:08:00] values and to the point that you were talking about. How a corporation really needs to stay true and demonstrate and live out those values.
And then, like you said, at some point, if they don't align, sometimes it's, it's best to go different directions. But it's also bringing that why, why are these values important to us and why do we live every day? I think are, are beco are key and and they're becoming more and more, I was gonna say more and more transparent, but communication is so all encompassing.
They're just more evident.
Anne Green: It's true. And. I think sometimes where there's a disconnect and, and this, this is a big issue, but just to lightly touch on it, is when something's happening in the ecosystem, but it's not being named and openly discussed, that's when that sense of trust or transparency erodes.
So again, if there's something the organization has to do that's hard. There's a lot of those hard choices in an environment like ours that companies have to make. Speaking about it, [00:09:00] talking about how hard decisions can be commensurate with your values too, and allowing space for an employee body and individuals to kind of say, this doesn't feel good and I wanna talk about it.
But finding a way back to the why, as you said that, that to me really is so much of, that's why I really enjoyed having discussions like that. Someone like Ethan.
Steve Halsey: Well, and, and even thinking about communicating with them where they are is a, is a much more challenging question now than it was five years ago.
You have some organizations, um, that everybody is together. They're in one place, they're driving it. Others, you know, a lot of, uh, companies that have industrial manufacturing component. You have this. Divergent workforce, that you've got hourly workers that are coming in every single day to work the machines to create the thing well.
Other people may be coming into corporate or you have other groups that are, are really hybrid. And I guess going back to your conversation that you had with Chrissy [00:10:00] Jones, you know, we got some interesting feedback and some follow up that with questions about this idea of our hybrid structures for the communications function.
Not talking the corporation, but our hybrid structures for communications function is the best approach today to try and achieve both alignment.
Anne Green: Yeah. And you know that alignment and agility, if people go back and listen to that episode, and I'm glad you circled back to it 'cause you brought it up before and it's really germane you had.
Brought that up. That question of how do you have both alignment and agility? If the hypothesis is that having communications folks embedded in business units gives them greater alignment and intense intentionality, or does it give them more agility to move faster 'cause they're closer to the customer?
Or do you have better alignment if you have the centralized structure that's closer to the C-suite? And less agility? Or does that make you more agile? 'cause you're closer to the center of power. And I've been thinking more about this, as you can tell, 'cause there's a [00:11:00] both. And here I do feel in discussing it with Chrisian, with others, that that hybrid structure is probably powerful and it's gonna be different flavors and shades of gray for different companies.
What does it look like as you said. A manufacturer versus a knowledge worker type of organization. It's, it's, it's differently structured, but the idea that you need to think about. You know, again, honoring your construct, Steve, alignment and agility. And it has to be both and in both settings. Alignment with the business unit and the customer's agility to move faster from the field.
Alignment with the C-suite and with the ultimate leaders and agility to get to regulatory legal counsel, make decisions, move fast, especially in a volatile reputation environment. I think, um, that kind of comm structure. With a respected senior leader, close to, close to, if not in the C-suite, is to me [00:12:00] the sweet spot.
Steve Halsey: Yeah. And I, and I think the, uh, conversation you and I are having, uh, with CCOs both here in the states and globally is just really reinforcing that. And, and when I think about and reflect on that concept of the hybrid structure. To me, it just really reinforces how important communications is to the very foundation of just how businesses operate Today.
Gone are the days that corporate communications is we're gonna push out a press release, we're gonna manage a couple key stakeholder. It's really embedded in everything we do.
Anne Green: It is, and you can see how. In larger entities. You know, we work in healthcare, manufacturing so many different fields.
Communications manifests in different ways in different parts of the business, and yet it's so critical across so many levels. So, yeah, I, I think it's a good conversation to have. The pendulum tends to swing back and forth relative to decentralized, decentralized, but if we can embrace that both, and two things being true at once, I think we're gonna [00:13:00] be in a much stronger place.
Steve Halsey: All right, now it's time to have a little fun. Let's go on our way back machine. You remember at the turn of the year we did an episode we called Navigating 2025 essential trends, insights, and checklists. Not much has happened in the world since, uh, January when we threw out our, our prognostication as to what was come.
Uh, but the trends we had identified, they cut across ai societal. Uh, expectation, economic pressure. Never could we have imagined, uh, the daily disruption of the news cycles that we've been dealing, but that's the reality of where we're at. So let's step back and, and reflect and think how are our predictions panning out?
Now we're just coming into, uh, Q4. Are our predictions accurate or not? And how should communicators prioritize? Anything when everything feels so essential at the moment.
Anne Green: All right, I'll, I'll bite first [00:14:00] and I'll hand it back to you. It does feel the way back. Machine. January does feel way, way, way back.
I've been talking to so many people about what does time mean anymore? Just so much happens every day. So. When I reflected back on our predictions, I mean, one thing I think that was very on spot was that this truly was the year that AI within organizations went from more exploration to enablement. Now, there's a lot of debate right now about how that enablement is going at the corporate level, at different sizes, et cetera, but I can see across our agency, across other agencies especially and across many corporates, a huge movement forward and tangible.
Um, leaps, tangible, upskilling, embracing at different levels, not just coming from the top. A lot of peer to peer engagement. A lot of use of tools and we're starting to see more discussion of ROI, which will be defined in many different ways. I see the media even this week. I was reading today in one of the AI [00:15:00] newsletters, like just this hard thing about like, who is defining value in JP Morgan Chase.
Jamie Diamond has come out with some details about that, um, about what they are seeing as ROI already, but I think ROI is gonna look different, but I'm seeing more there. And then the, the other thing I would say is that. Some of what we've been expecting in January when we spoke has been even more intense and acute than we could have anticipated, as you said, and that includes societal and economic pressures.
The landscape. Has put even more of an onus on how we communicate inside and outside our walls. How we're flexible, how we're resilient. So those are the things for me. But now back to you Steve. You set a high bar in January around three branding strategies for 2025. So you could revisit those and share how your predictions are fairing.
Steve Halsey: Yeah, I think like you, I was surprised by how quickly they accelerated. I think as I look back at our predictions, I, I still think we were, uh, we were remarkably on [00:16:00] target for ours, but. I, I've been shocked just by how fast and and conversations that that I've had with our friends at MuckRack and other AI is no longer a future bet.
I mean, the acceleration curve there has been incredible that it's really. Definitely table stakes at, at this point. And we're really seeing a rapid evolution that the leaders are the ones using it to make customer experiences more human, more meaningful, not more, uh, efficient. And if you look at some of the adjacent, uh, spaces to ours, like advertising, things like that, it is incredible the, uh, the amount of personalization that can be done, or even just the ability for large corporations to self create.
Uh, some incredible things, uh, with ai. The, the second one, you know, and I think this one will stay true forever. I kind of joke about, you know, the first cave drawing was the first infographic, right? Water is [00:17:00] good. It will nurture you. Bear is bad. It might eat you, right? Real, real. That was like the original foundation of storytelling.
But we were right that value driven stories matter now and the bar is higher, particularly when you get such chaos, such change. You need to have the receipts. Trust now comes down to really connecting stories directly to Proofpoint and, and progress and it, it is difficult, but you really have to really put everything together from point A to B2C.
And then the last part of the predictions now feels truer than ever that in a year as noisy as this one and as uncertain. Clarity is currency. You know, you, you, the brands that can simplify complexity and make it clear what their path forward is and why. Going to that values thing we just discussed, those are the ones that are gonna emerge.
Um. As well. So I guess taking together, our predictions are still [00:18:00] holding up, but we still have a quarter to go in the year, so, um, we'll see when we get to December, whether we feel like we've got there or not.
Anne Green: I love your point on clarity. Um, I think even within our own group, which encompasses two agencies, we're trying to be.
Very mindful and asking ourselves, what's the most important message we have to share? What's the most important thing we need people to understand or do? How do we strip back some of the stuff they don't have to worry about as much, you know? And so I always feel that our group is a microcosm for experimenting and feeling out how, you know, other things are resonating in organizations far larger than us.
But, um, yeah, I think keeping with the. AI trend though. I wanna turn the tables with you in an episode you did not too long ago, uh, with Lauren King of one of our agencies, Morgan Myers and Matt Zin. They talked to you about what AI is reading now and there's a lot of focus on generative engine [00:19:00] optimization.
Um. One of the questions we got from folks, and I have my notes here, if AI is being trained on digital exhaust, which is citations and links and me mentions, I love that phrase, digital exhaust. Does this create new incentives for content strategies that go beyond traditional earned, owned and paid? So what were some of the things that you think about on that question?
That was a, that was a really thoughtful question.
Steve Halsey: That, that was really good. And I think that the key point from that episode, um, that just hit me, uh, right between the eyes is GEO is no longer optional. I mean, it is the new frontier of earned visibility. And, and that whole episode was based on MuckRack went and they ran a a million inquiries to look at how the different engines chat, Gemini others, how they were processing information.
And what they found was it was incredible and actually incredibly refreshing as a, as a communicator. Based on those million [00:20:00] of inquiries, the data was undeniable. 95%. What the large language models are citing is not paid. That means that journalism, credible research, high authority content, are now the most valuable digital real estate that you can have in your strategy.
So again, going back to that foundation of storytelling. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over time because it is a real shift. You still need advertising. You need paid, but it's that return to the delivery of the story. So every credible mention link citation, really what you're doing is you're teaching the AI brand.
What is a trusted source? What is not? So visibility has literally become, uh. I'll call it algorithmic trust. There's a term for you for today, you know, so welcome to the matrix, right? We're now creating algorithmic trust, and all of this is shifting a little bit how [00:21:00] we need to think about the term of content strategy.
It's no longer just about the audience that we're trying to reach, but it's what are the machines that are reaching them in this zero click environment, right? And zero click environment, as you talked about, is. Hey, I put my query in it. I don't need to go any deeper because you're automatically starting to get those ai uh, summaries coming in there.
So what we need to do is think about how we can create content and stories and facts that are really citation friendly, high authority, timely, really structured. Basically all those things that AI can, uh, can reference and reuse. So I know it's a long answer to a, uh, to, to a quick question, but, but to me this means that our mindset needs to evolve not just coverage for coverage sake, but coverage to earn credibility, which then goes into the data, data sets that shape what people see and believe.
And I thought the other thing that was interesting that Lauren really talked about that. [00:22:00] As you know, we work in industries, I hate to call them niche because they're huge, like advanced manufacturing and healthcare and agribusiness. But since they're not part of a lot of these larger consumer sets, you can really have a much bigger impact on what shows up by being at the right places at the right time with the right credibility.
So there you go. Visibility is, uh, algorithmic trust Now.
Anne Green: I love it. Let's keep coining new language. The language is always evolving and you gotta keep up with it, but I think there's some great points there and it's been exciting to watch our teams digging into GEO or a IO, depending on what you wanna call it, and seeing all of the reverberations of it and everything they can do with it.
Steve Halsey: Well, and you had a, you had a very similar conversation with, uh, with Dan Nessel in your episode where you really talked about, uh, the, I think the term was earned attention, if I remember right. And there's so much talk [00:23:00] about GEO and a IO and whatever acronym you wanna give it in the context of earned media or pr.
But it seems like this has broader implications on all digital marketing on broader. Channel strategy. Why in your discussion did you guys really come to the focus on PR and what's been missing from this conversation?
Anne Green: Yeah, I brought up, Dan and I talked about the earned media implications, and then interestingly, I just did his podcast that hasn't come out yet.
The Trending communicator, and we gotten to this point of the GEO conversation is very focused on what we understand to be public relations and earned media. And it's sort of missing the broader digital marketing and channel strategy. Uh, not entirely, but the bulk of it, I think, has been focused on earned media because of a few things.
One is this feeling of where's the value? Of Vern Media and the broader marketing landscape and the comms landscape. And again, if you go back to what we talked about with comms, [00:24:00] earning a seat at the table for a long time with the advent of digital marketing and also just the preponderance of focus on anthemic campaign based advertising.
Back in the day, all you know, think about Mad Men. You know, there was a real focus on like the big ad campaign. What was the ROI that was gonna drive and then. Digital marketing, it kind of was like, oh look, we, we cracked the code, we've got all this data, we've got click data, and this data and audience data and time on site.
And you know, there was just this cascade of numbers that are very different from the kind of metrics that earned media produce and there's been so much anxiety about that. So I think that with GEO, we always knew with SEO. That there were high authority sites and that media outlets tended to be high authority sites.
So this is not a completely new thing, and SEO has not gone away that way. People are kind of talking about what's the relationship with SEO and GEO, but I think right now there's also when you combine that with the trend of sort of the [00:25:00] pressure on journalism, whether it's, you know, an uneasy relationship, to put it lightly with the current administration, with journalism or just consolidation, loss of jobs.
You know, compressing of outlets, loss of outlets. You know, there's this fear also about where's journalism going because we need it. In a society like ours, a democracy like ours needs are free and unruly and, and loud and boisterous, and diverse press. So you've put these two things together where, wow, journalism is doubling down on its authority relative to what large language models are looking at, and not just.
Media sites, but also, you know, owned and other types of channels. And then you look at the fact of, wow, this is another evidence of how powerful this kind of work is relative to earning attention through earning media. I think there's a big conversation to be had here. So we can't miss though the fact that you're on page strategy, how you develop websites, how you build metadata, [00:26:00] and then the digital marketing, how you're marketing through different channels.
That also has tremendous impact with GEO. So we, we need to bring our arms around all of it. We are integrated marketing communications. That's what most of our clients are doing as well. We have to look at all pieces of the GEO puzzle, and I've been really proud of our teams because they've been looking at it through those three pillars.
Earned media, kind of digital marketing, and then that on page. Development side.
Steve Halsey: Well, and you, you mentioned something I think that's really important. The, uh, making sure we have a free, robust and, and boisterous press, which has become more difficult with news consolidation, the shrinking of the, the newspapers.
One of the downsides about AI is it's writing a lot of local journalism right now, pulling from box sports for kids scores, things like that in, in sports. And there's also the challenge of. Just the heavier topics of trust and societal expectation and some of [00:27:00] those things that you talked about. And in some cases it's a little bit disheartening to hear from some fellow professionals, uh, even some professional groups that are like, Hey, the answer to this challenge is don't use the term.
If you don't use the term. It's not an issue. Don't say ESG. Just say, Hey. We like the earth, like things like that. But earlier this summer, I mean, you and Cheryl battles what an, what an incredible professional, what an amazing career Cheryl's had. But you guys really wade into some very, um, heady and important stuff on your Beyond acronyms, renaming, DEI and the title of the episode really challenged on.
Just that the challenge of anachronism and the over reliance in, in the case of de and I on the literal letters, de and I as the root of the problem, but isn't the real issue, those that are working to deliberately misrepresent the concept both for and against big [00:28:00] issues like this?
Anne Green: Yeah, I mean, I feel that.
And it was, it was funny. One of the little, in terms of this reframing of DEI, we, we use the header, um, from acronyms to acrimony. You know, there's a lot of intensity around this, and I have a lot of feelings about this. I'm very open about what I feel is the tremendous business value of what I call the principles and the practices of diversity, of equity, of inclusion, of belonging, of, of a set of tools.
A set of lenses through which to look at the world. And I, I always say to our people, part of this work is really becoming better managers. What's interfering between a manager and a manager? What are those things that are layered? Where do we misunderstand each other? Where does the idea of cultural competence across generations, across race, across gender, across every geography, all kinds of things, right?
So, you know, Cheryl and I really got into the fact that. That there's real, real [00:29:00] practices here, real business value. But what we discussed, and you kind of hit on it with the ESG thing, humans love acronyms. We love acronyms. We just make them up all the time. It makes life easier. However, that shorthand is a double-edged sword.
When you say ESG, environmental social governance, probably everybody listening here to us in the fields we're in knows. Those three areas encompass a universe of different needs and practices and areas. Now there's reasons why they were combined from a reporting and a stewardship perspective. And it has a lot to do with board governance, right?
DEI. There's reasons why these practices have been grouped and there's reasons why we went from just diversity, higher diverse folks, representation, oh wait, we have to also add equity. Wait. We should also add inclusion and belonging. I know why these acronyms grow, but the heart of that discussion and I really invite people to listen to 'cause I love to hear their feedback.[00:30:00]
Is when you reduce things to acronyms and you're not fully clear with people on the why, going back to what you said, Steve, why are we doing this? And it's not about taking something from one person to give it to another. And it's not about disadvantaging, it's actually about trying to say, I. How do we have people bring all their talent and represent the fullness of our customer base, of our employee base?
How do we get better? How do we build trust? How do we remove friction? How do we fly? How do we create flourishing and abundance rather than lack and taking away? And it's sad to see how negative it's become, but I love again that we have this kind of platform to talk about the fact that. AI is another one.
AI is a billion different things. So if we just say ai, ai, ai, are we really defining the why behind it and the usefulness of it? And I think as communicators we need to guard against acronym laziness, right? I mean, what do you think?
Steve Halsey: Yeah. Uh, a a hundred percent it, it becomes. It [00:31:00] becomes really easy to get, to get caught up in that.
And then it also becomes really easy to say, well just change the acronym, just change the term and, and what I thought was interesting about, and what you're talking about, the Y was when I talked to Rob and Elliot, I referenced that earlier. You know, I. It was really, that episode was about research that they did that showed only one in four still trust business to lead.
And really the core insight that we really talked about is action alone isn't enough. Just taking an action isn't enough. But when companies explain their why confidence in business. More than doubles from 26% to something like 53%. That's a difference between action and and accountability. And so when you think about that, you know, trust used to be earned in moments of crisis.
Everybody talks about, okay, well Tylenol the crisis, they dealt with this. This is great. Well now Tylenol is a whole different crisis that that, that they're dealing with. Uh, that's a subject of a whole separate episode. But [00:32:00] when we think about the topic of trust, now, it's maintained through that pattern of proof.
And ironically, when you, when we talk about GEO and the large language model, you've gotta do that constant pattern. It just can't be, I address it once and then I don't worry about it. And the other thing we, we saw based on that research that we talked about is we really are seeing. The impact of different generational lenses and what those generations are signaling.
And again, one of the bigger ones coming through is younger audiences expect transparency to be table stakes. They'll forgive your mistakes, but not mixed motives. So that really comes to a point that you were talking earlier about what are those corporate values? What are those directions? Let's be, let's be clear about that because I think that's what's going to be key, is really marrying together.
Consistency and courage, and that's not easy.
Anne Green: I love that. I think that's such a great build on what I talked about with Cheryl and I, I think this, that's an interesting [00:33:00] point for giving mistakes, but not motives. Understanding what motivates you, even if it's hard and nuanced. But the fact is, I find younger people, they're up for that discussion.
You know, give them that grace and, and get into the nuances, you know, the shades of gray matter.
Steve Halsey: So I guess going back to, uh, where we started on our predictions for 2025 and where we're at, I mean, 2025 has, uh, has been an exceptional year, I guess I should say. And I guess my question is, has, has 2025 been more about managing risk and uncertainties?
Or is it about seizing opportunities and how should communicators strike a balance on, on those? And where do we go from here? I mean, I wake up every day. It's like those are the, the key questions that, and from my my perspective, it's really been a year of dual reality. I mean, risk management and reinvention, you've gotta do both simultaneously.
Um, which is a, which is a unique challenge, but it's also, in some ways it's very exciting to [00:34:00] think about the need to deal with both, because particularly those of us in the agency world, but anybody in communications, you'd. If you didn't get into this career to show up and do the same thing every day, stamping that envelope.
And you said something really interesting in that January discussion that the most effective leaders are the one you said are optimistic realist or realist, optimistic. It was was one of those, but those that are really clear-eyed about the volatility ahead. They're still moving forward with intentionality.
And so I guess when I bundle this all together, and my advice to all our fellow communicators out there is uncertainty itself isn't the enemy, but ambiguity without direction is, and what we need to do is we need to be forward looking. Pick a path ahead and we've gotta move. We just can't stand still.
Anne Green: Yeah. You're reminding me in in terms of how I build on that just today, I really love Kara Swisher and her podcast on, she also has [00:35:00] Pivot, but on is where she's interviewing, you know, one or a few people and she's just one of the strongest journalists working to, she's very strong in a lot of ways, but she had Brene Brown on the legendary, you know, leadership guru, right?
So they were talking about leadership. I think Brene has a new book coming out that I need to check out, but it's a lot about. What she's learning from high functioning leaders in this moment, which is different than maybe the leadership. When you and I were coming up eighties, nineties, like other times of leadership and who would say, oh, who's like the legendary CEOs?
She said one of the biggest things people have to build as a leadership skill set is embracing paradox. Humans, again, are not really set to embrace nuance. We tend to move toward. Trying to clarify something and, and tends to be more binary thinking or zero sum thinking. Is it this or is it this? We rationally understand that two things can be true at once and often are.
Sometimes and when we kind of know that things may stay ambiguous and we have [00:36:00] to make the best call we can, but this is not a natural state for people, especially at the emotional level. There's a distinctive difference between how we grasp something rationally and how we feel it in our bodies and how we manifest it, right?
So in addition to embracing paradox, which is a leadership skill, you need to practice and it is that like two things are true at once. She discussed the importance of systems thinking. Which I really appreciate, and she's like, I don't know why systems thinking fell outta style. And you can define it different ways, but it's a lot about in the midst of the churn, you have to step back and train yourself to try to look for larger patterns and systems at play, which also relates to DEI.
So these are two pieces of advice, like living in the paradox and letting. Yourself, be comfortable with that and saying, Kara actually said, yeah, she's like, people ask me what's gonna happen. She's, I don't know yet. I guess we'll find out. And then looking at the systems, and those are two pieces of advice.
I'm definitely gonna continue to embrace,
Steve Halsey: uh, systems thinking. You certainly had me there and [00:37:00] anybody who knows me knows I love a good model. So gimme a four square, a Venn diagram, even a napkin to sketch on. And, and I'm, I'm in my happy. Place. And, but what I like about that is, you know, models, models help us make sense of complexity.
You know, they give us a system, a mental framework where we can see connections, where we may otherwise miss and, and kind of make, make decisions from there. And so I guess as we're getting ready to wrap, and I think about, you know, some of the through lines of the seasons, so far every topic we've explored, you know, ai, trust de and I, brand leadership.
It's all part of this larger ecosystem that's just constantly shifting and changing. But the more we understand those connections and the better we can think where the linkages are. I think the more effectively we can move with focus, with proof, with clarity, to really do what we need to do, which is build trust and really have reputation [00:38:00] be a be a business asset for our clients and for ourselves.
Anne Green: Yeah. It kind of reminds me of the name of this podcast, going back to the idea of brand Gravity. What is pulling you in? You know, what is bringing you to an idea? An organization, a leader. And how you create that through credibility and culture and clarity and how that builds resiliency in times of uncertainty.
So I wanna thank our listeners for joining us on this special Mailbag edition. Mailbag. Yeah. Go back and check out the episodes we mentioned, if you miss them, share what's on your mind and keep sending us your questions and ideas. So thank you again. I'm Anne Green for building Brand Gravity.
Steve Halsey: And I'm Steve Halsey.
Have a great day.