When companies talk about trust, the conversation usually centers on whether employees trust their leaders. But what happens when employees stop trusting each other? Edelman’s latest Trust at Work study found that trust in coworkers is falling faster than trust in managers or CEOs. That decline can undermine collaboration, weaken communication, and leave employees questioning their colleagues’ motives. Bad experiences with organizational change, including the introduction of AI, may be making matters worse.

In this episode of On the Same Page, Shel and Mark explore why internal communicators should pay more attention to peer-to-peer trust. They discuss the everyday behaviors that build or erode trust, how managers shape relationships within their teams, and why candor matters when plans change or answers aren’t available. Along the way, they consider what communicators can measure, the behaviors they can reinforce, and where communication alone cannot solve the problem. Trust may appear in the company’s values, but keeping it alive takes more than putting the word on a wall.

Links from this episode:

• Coworkers say they distrust each other more than ever
• Trust at Work: Transformation Triggering Trust Demise
• New Workday Global Research Finds AI is Easing Burnout but May Be Deepening a Connection Deficit at Work
• Gen Zers are more disconnected and distrustful of coworkers than their older colleagues—and they’re so lonely they’re taking days off work
• Gen Z doesn’t trust anyone—especially their bosses, data shows
• PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey
• Companies overestimate their employees’ trust. That’s bad for business, PwC says.
• Antecedents of coworker trust: Leaders’ blessings
• How Managers Impact Team Productivity

Raw transcript:

Shel Holtz: Mark, trust is key to any organizational communication effort. When I think about trust as an internal communications factor, I think about it in several ways. How much do employees trust leaders? How much do they trust their managers? It works in the opposite direction, too: How much do leaders and managers trust employees? I also think about departments that may not trust one another. I’ve heard some interesting stories about departmental trust.

But one thing I hadn’t considered was the possibility that employees simply don’t trust each other.

Edelman just released its Trust at Work study, surveying more than 10,000 employees across 10 markets. Trust in coworkers fell from 82% in August 2024 to 73% today. Trust in direct managers dropped from 79% to 72%, and trust in CEOs fell from 70% to 66%. Each is a record low in Edelman’s data.

Here’s what bothers me: Two years ago, coworkers were the group employees trusted most, ahead of managers and the CEO. Now, their trust is declining fastest.

Mark Dollins: We often talk about culture and how, when it isn’t consciously attended to, things happen that usually aren’t what you want. I suspect trust, which is often expressed as a cultural value, is eroding partly because organizations and employees expect it to be there without thinking much about it.

Add remote working and team structures in which people aren’t in the same location, and it’s easy to see how trust can erode. In one sense, that decline is shocking. In another, it isn’t surprising that it’s happening. The speed of the decline surprises me most.

Shel Holtz: Me too. AI may have something to do with it. Some data suggests employees are turning to AI instead of reaching out to coworkers. The less interaction you have with colleagues, perhaps the less you trust them.

There would certainly be implications for internal communications if employees trusted each other less. What do you see as some of those impacts?

Mark Dollins: You’re less productive if you don’t trust each other, and you’re less likely to collaborate. Even when you do collaborate, you may not trust what you receive.

People start looking for ulterior motives. It’s no longer just about the work. It becomes, “What is this person trying to accomplish? Am I truly a collaborator, or am I standing in the way of what they want?”

We’ve all heard employees say, “I get the work done, but I don’t trust that person,” whether they’re talking about a manager, a peer, or somebody in another department. You still have to work together, get along, and build trust.

Shel Holtz: It may also affect how employees receive our messages. Someone might say, “I’ll go along with this, but I don’t trust other people to pay attention to it.”

What does that do to the impact we’re trying to achieve—the change in behavior, attitude, opinion, or belief?

Mark Dollins: If we aren’t paying attention, this will continue. Communicators should be actively engaged in the issue.

Trust discussions often focus on external stakeholders and whether they believe the company is doing the right thing. Internally, we’re now recognizing there’s much more to it. If we can’t trust each other to get the job done, we have a problem that starts much closer to home. This is ground zero for internal communicators.

Shel Holtz: Some of Edelman’s findings should particularly interest you, given your focus on change. Three-quarters of respondents had experienced at least one transformation in the past year. The most common, reported by 53%, was AI implementation.

Among employees who had a bad transformation experience, trust in coworkers with different values dropped from 77% to 50%. When change goes badly, it doesn’t just erode trust in leadership. People retreat into their own camps.

Mark Dollins: Sadly, this is only the beginning of change on that scale. AI isn’t going away. I suspect it will become bigger and more complex, especially as regulation adds another dimension to how we use and trust it.

That reinforces what we discussed about change management as an essential part of AI adoption or any significant technological change. We can’t treat this as simply a technology rollout. It’s change with a capital C, and it needs to be managed.

Shel Holtz: I looked for other research exploring declining trust among employees. Workday’s Human Connection Workplace Index found that a third of employees rarely or never have a conversation with a colleague that goes beyond transactional work.

PwC has made the point that people don’t trust what they don’t know. Without regular interaction, you don’t develop trust. Could part of the explanation be that simple?

Mark Dollins: I suspect a good portion of it is.

Think about what builds trust: setting an example, doing what you say you’ll do, following through, and establishing clear expectations. If you’re a leader, you explain the standard and address situations in which people fall short.

Many of the behaviors that build trust between leaders and employees also apply between peers. If I tell you I’ll get something to you today, Shel, and I don’t, your trust in me begins to erode. I deserve that unless I take responsibility and explain: “I know what I promised. I can’t deliver it today, and here’s why. Here’s what I’ll do to make it right.”

Taking ownership builds trust. These are simple things—common decency and human behavior—that sit at the center of peer-to-peer trust.

Shel Holtz: It’s also about bringing people together and spending time together beyond work transactions.

Mark Dollins: It’s easy to distrust people we don’t know. “You’re a stranger. I don’t know you, so I don’t trust you.”

Shel Holtz: We talk about this with safety all the time. You can encourage people to speak up until you’re blue in the face, but it’s different when they know each other well enough to care personally.

“I know about your family and the challenges you’re facing. I see you doing something dangerous, and I’m going to speak up because I don’t want you to get hurt.” That extends well beyond safety.

Mark Dollins: A question for you, Shel: When you work with organizations on their values and how to bring those values to life, trust comes up in almost every set of company values I’ve seen. How do you make it a living, breathing part of the organization?

Shel Holtz: For the past nine years, I’ve worked with one organization. Trust is one of our core values and one of the four planks of our strategic plan. We have committees working on it, we’ve researched it, and we’re taking tangible steps to build trust internally and externally.

If I were advising an organization today, I’d start with measurement. You can say trust between peers has declined, but you can’t explain why without asking. You need to understand what’s underneath it.

Mark Dollins: As you say that, I’m thinking about pulse surveys. They’re a common measurement tool, but I can’t say I’ve seen many that specifically focus on internal trust.

Perhaps some of our viewers can tell us what they’re doing to measure trust in their organizations.

Even when trust isn’t explicitly named as a value, it often appears in how organizations define respect. Respect is another value that comes up frequently, and its definition often includes building trust among stakeholders.

Shel Holtz: We’ve talked about engagement before. I think one reason people have become skeptical of engagement surveys is that they don’t explore these underlying issues.

Our engagement survey has 40 questions. We aren’t tying it to Gallup or another packaged survey. We want to understand the issues underlying engagement, and several questions concern relationships with peers. We do explore that where I work.

I also found an older study, from 2008, showing that employees trust peers more when their formal leader trusts those peers. That effect was stronger when team performance was poor.

Manager behavior helps shape who gets trusted. That connects directly to the manager communication work we do.

Mark Dollins: Often, we don’t do enough of it. We can coach managers to lead in ways that build trust.

Most of us have experienced a micromanager. Managers need to understand what that behavior looks like and how it affects their teams’ willingness to trust them. Whether or not it’s intentional, micromanagement communicates, “I don’t trust you.”

It’s a two-way street. Empower employees to do their jobs and step back. If something goes wrong, address it. But give people the opportunity to demonstrate that they can do the work.

That communicates, “I trust you to do the job I hired you to do, and you can trust me to fulfill my responsibilities to you and the team.”

Shel Holtz: I’ve been thinking about what communicators can do. There are limits; we can’t fix every issue through communication.

First, measure it. PwC found that executives overestimate how much they’re trusted, and most trust measures are subjective. If we don’t ask about peer trust in our surveys, we don’t know where we stand.

Second, get honest about change. Edelman’s prescription is “truth well told”: Explain what’s changing, what isn’t, and how employees have a say. That requires a real conversation, not simply a rollout announcement.

Third, equip managers. Gallup says managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. They help establish the conditions in which peers trust each other, yet many have never been trained to do that.

Mark Dollins: A culture of trust begins at the top. In many organizations I’ve worked with, a lack of transparency and candor has interfered with trust, particularly during significant change.

I’ve always advocated that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know,” or, “I can’t tell you,” provided you explain why.

You might say, “Shel, I know the answer and would like to tell you. Here’s why I can’t, at least not yet.” Or, “About 80% is settled, but the remaining 20% could change what I tell you, and I don’t want to give you information that turns out to be wrong.”

There are many ways to explain what you know, what you don’t know, and why you can’t share everything.

The Dow–DuPont merger is a good example. People wanted specifics about the organizational structure, but we couldn’t provide them because divestitures were still being negotiated in the United States, the EU, and elsewhere. Those decisions would affect the portfolio and, ultimately, the structure.

The discussions were difficult and confidential, including negotiations outside the company. Until those were resolved, we couldn’t fully explain the outcome.

I advocated explaining that uncertainty, even if we had previously said we expected an answer in six months. We could say, “The negotiations are more complex than anticipated. The world around us is responding differently to our plans. We’re working on it, and we’ll update you.”

Give people a revised time frame if you can: “We’re aiming for the next 60 to 90 days.”

I kept pushing leaders not to stop at, “We don’t know,” or, “We can’t answer that.” After hearing that repeatedly for eight or 10 months, people may conclude, “Either you’re lying to us, or you don’t know what you’re doing.” You don’t want either conclusion.

Transparency doesn’t mean revealing trade secrets or Willy Wonka’s chocolate recipe. It means giving people as much explanation and context as you can.

Shel Holtz: I’ve encountered this during periods when communications are restricted around a merger or acquisition. Sometimes even explaining why you can’t say more can disclose something you shouldn’t. But there are usually things you can say instead of saying nothing.

Mark Dollins: Right. You can refer to what you’ve already announced and explain that it’s taking longer than expected. “Hang in there. We’re working on it.”

Shel Holtz: More recently, this has come up with AI. Initially, we told employees, “Use it. Experiment. Try things.”

Now some organizations are saying, “We need to move beyond general experimentation and become more focused on how we apply AI.” They’re also saying, “Please stop burning through so many tokens. It’s costing a fortune. We need you to dial back what we previously encouraged.”

Some leaders seem embarrassed by that rather than explaining what changed. Perhaps the organization moved from a subscription arrangement to token-based pricing. Explain it, and people can understand.

Mark Dollins: Absolutely. This is new territory. We don’t have 10 years of experience with these tools in their current form. Change isn’t a straight line, and we’ll have to adjust as we learn.

You can say, “Thank you for experimenting. You did what we asked. Now we need to adjust, and here’s why.” It’s about candor.

Shel Holtz: AI could also contribute to declining peer trust. Suppose I use it to produce a polished document, save myself time, and send it to you. You start reading and realize it sounds good but has no substance. Now you have to spend two hours making sense of it. Your trust in me is likely to decline.

Mark Dollins: I teach at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and I’ve seen students use AI in ways that make it clear they haven’t done the necessary work. In one case, a student advocated something that didn’t exist.

That doesn’t apply to everyone, but it happens. It makes me examine that person’s work more closely because I can see they’re using AI without checking it. I start wondering whether they’re being careful.

Why wouldn’t the same thing happen at work? If someone produces sloppy or substandard work, I don’t want that to reflect on me, particularly if we’re supposed to be partners on a project.

Shel Holtz: We can address that during AI adoption. You may save time, but if the result is slop, you’re transferring work to colleagues, and their trust in you may suffer.

There’s also a generational dimension. The Workday report found that Gen Z employees were 16 times more likely than Gen X employees to say they don’t trust their coworkers. That makes communication across generations an interesting challenge.

Mark Dollins: It does, and we need to pay attention. A one-size-fits-all approach to trust won’t work. Different generations may have different expectations about what matters and how trust is established.

Something else occurs to me about working in teams. Whether someone has submitted inaccurate AI-generated work or simply made a mistake, trust can be built through how others respond.

If it’s an honest mistake, that’s an opportunity to say, “I understand how that happened. I’ve done something similar. What can I do to help? Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Intentional misconduct is different. But when somebody makes an honest mistake, showing support can go a long way.

That’s especially relevant if you’re aware that others don’t trust you. Supporting Joe or Sarah when they make a mistake can help people see you differently.

Again, these are basic human behaviors. Getting to know people and standing up for them when there’s a problem can build or rebuild trust.

Shel Holtz: This is an area where communicators can play a significant role because it’s a culture issue: “This is how we do things around here.”

We can reinforce those behaviors through communication and encourage leaders to recognize people who demonstrate them. Leaders also need to address behavior that works against trust.

Mark Dollins: Leaders have opportunities to build trust through how they manage conflict. Almost every team has people who don’t get along. Managers can help find common ground between individuals or groups.

Communicators, working with people who have the right expertise, can develop content and experiences that help managers and employees learn to navigate conflict.

Shel Holtz: Having the managerial courage to hold those difficult conversations is a big deal. That might be a topic for a future episode.

Mark Dollins: Exactly. You don’t need a master’s degree in conflict resolution. A few useful tools can help you accomplish a lot.

Shel Holtz: Can you get a master’s in conflict resolution? I didn’t know that. Somewhere you can, no doubt.

Mark Dollins: I’m sure you can, Shel. I’ll find it for you and get back to you.

Shel Holtz: Sounds great.

Listeners and viewers, we’d love to hear what’s happening in your organization with peer-to-peer trust. Are you measuring it? Have you noticed a decline?

Email [email protected], leave a comment in the show notes at FIRPodcastNetwork.com, or respond on LinkedIn, Facebook, Bluesky, or Threads, where we announce new episodes.

We’ve received comments and will collect and share them in an upcoming episode. Until then, thank you, everybody, and thank you, Mark. It’s been fun.

Mark Dollins: Thanks for joining us. Good to see you, Shel. Take care.

The post OTSP #10: The Decline in Employees’ Trust in Each Other appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Most communicators long for that coveted seat at the table. What do those who have attained it have to say about it? What does it take to achieve it? And does it deliver the kind of influence top-level communicators want? Neville and Shel explore the data and share their own thoughts in this short midweek episode.

Links from this episode:

• How communicators in the C-suite are staying at the table
• Inside the CCO Mindset

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR is tentatively scheduled to drop on Monday, October 26.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi, everybody, and welcome to episode 532 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson. Today’s topic is one we’ve discussed on FIR many times over the years, and one the communication profession has debated for as long as I can remember: the communicator’s seat at the top table.

For decades, senior communicators have argued that communication deserves a place alongside finance, operations, legal, HR, and the other functions involved in shaping an organization’s direction. We’ve talked about becoming strategic advisors rather than simply the people who communicate decisions made elsewhere.

But here’s something I’ve been thinking about: Maybe the question isn’t whether communicators deserve a seat at the table anymore. Maybe it’s what they contribute once they’re there—and what makes the CEO and other executives want them to stay.

That question came to mind when I read a recent Axios article with the apt title “How Communicators in the C-Suite Are Staying at the Table,” by Simon Hernandez-Arthur. It draws on conversations with senior communication leaders and identifies four principles that seem to distinguish those who have become trusted strategic advisors.

First, operate like a peer, not a provider. Don’t wait for instructions about what needs communicating. Participate in the decisions that determine what needs to be communicated in the first place.

Second, think beyond the traditional boundaries of communication. Understand the business, its risks, the regulatory environment, and stakeholder expectations.

Third, don’t confuse AI’s speed and analytical capabilities with the judgment that comes from experience. AI can help us see what’s happening, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us what to do about it.

Fourth, invest in the next generation of communication leaders. If experience and judgment are becoming more valuable, we need to ensure younger practitioners have opportunities to develop them.

What struck me is how closely these principles connect with a book I reviewed last December, Chief Communication Officers at Work, by my good friend Tabita Andersson. Tabita interviewed 23 CCOs from major organizations across different industries, exploring what their roles involve. What emerged was a picture of communication leadership much broader than managing messages, media relationships, or corporate reputation.

These people help organizations interpret their environment, anticipate problems, challenge decisions, and navigate complex relationships. They bring the outside world into the organization and help leaders understand the consequences of what they do, not just what they say.

In my review, I drew three conclusions: The CCO’s value lies in anticipation rather than amplification; clarity is a leadership behavior; and the role is expanding while becoming—perhaps surprisingly in the age of AI—more human.

That’s the connection with the Axios article. For a long time, we’ve talked about earning a seat at the table. Perhaps the real measure of success is whether the communicator contributes something that would otherwise be missing from executive decision-making.

There’s also the question of how representative these examples are. We’re hearing from highly accomplished leaders in major organizations. Is this how the profession operates more broadly, or are we describing an ideal many practitioners struggle to achieve?

Have we finally moved beyond the old argument about earning a seat at the table, or are we giving the same argument a new name? What do you think, Shel?

Shel Holtz: We’re giving the old argument a new name. No question. This is one of my favorite topics. I love talking about the seat at the table because every communicator wants it, but in any organization, there’s only the potential for one communicator to have it.

Neville Hobson: I would question that. I’m not sure every communicator wants it.

Shel Holtz: You have a valid point. Some communicators want to remain individual contributors and write articles. Some want to manage departments. But we all talk about the seat at the table as the ultimate goal for communications. Go to a conference, and you’ll hear in half the sessions that doing this or that will earn you that coveted seat.

I had some issues with the Axios piece. It was almost entirely anecdotal and cited little, if any, data. Some of its sources have commercial interests: agencies and an AI-monitoring vendor.

If you look at the data, Korn Ferry’s 2025 survey examined 78 Fortune 500 companies. It found that 47% had chief communication officers reporting to the CEO, up from 40% in 2023. Fifty-one percent sat on the executive committee. Among industrial organizations, including companies like mine, that drops to 36%.

This year, Page’s Navigator Benchmark looked at 179 CCOs in 33 countries. It found that 65.9% said their scope had expanded, but 45.9% said resources hadn’t kept pace. Budgets fell for 31.1%, up from 24.8% last year. Page’s Candace Steele Flippin said the data show that access—reporting to the CEO—isn’t enough.

What I mostly want to discuss is what Jim Lukaszewski says about this. Jim has spent years on the speaking circuit, written many books, and counseled CEOs, particularly on crises. He calls the table a myth.

In a podcast from about 10 years ago, he said real decisions often happen after the group meeting, when the boss pulls one or two people aside. Jim’s advice is to “be the table.” Don’t wait to be seated. Build the skills and habits that earn the boss’s attention. Then you can bring that influence into any room, whether or not you’re the CCO sitting at that particular table.

He also says one-on-one beats committee. Meaningful decisions often emerge from an advisor’s work with a leader, and the more people involved in the discussion, the lower the odds of a productive result.

Leaders choose their advisors for expertise, insight, loyalty, and specialized knowledge. Advisors who offer only one functional skill, such as communications, tend to be consulted mainly about that function.

If you want to be a senior advisor who influences decisions, with or without an executive committee seat, you need to expand your knowledge of how your business works and how business works generally.

Finally, you need to start from the boss’s perspective. In his 2008 book, Why Should the Boss Listen to You?, Jim treats most business problems as management problems first. A communicator who thinks only like a department head rather than a business manager won’t be in the room.

Do you need a seat at the table to influence decisions? I don’t know.

I remember reading an article by Dean in Communication World, back when IABC published a printed member magazine. This must have been in the 1980s or ’90s, before I met him. He described the communicator as a hired gun: somebody brought into town after things had gone wrong to clean up the mess.

Instead, you want to be there when the decision is being made, saying, “This is a bad decision. You can’t communicate it well. You should reconsider or revise it.”

I don’t disagree with that. But if you want to be an executive committee member with an officer title and everything that goes with it—which is a whole different rabbit hole—you need broader knowledge and the ability to engage in discussions beyond the communication angle.

Neville Hobson: I see that point in many articles, including Axios, and it comes across strongly in Tabita’s book.

It raises a question for me: Does being at the table mean having influence? No. Those are different things. A fancy title with “officer” in it, an executive reporting line, or regular invitations to leadership meetings don’t necessarily confer influence.

There’s a difference between being present when decisions are announced and being able to shape them before they’re made. How do we distinguish an influential CCO from someone with executive access who is still treated primarily as a service provider?

Shel Holtz: That gets back to Jim’s point about wielding influence in whatever room you’re in, whichever meeting you’re attending, and whichever leader you’re speaking with.

It doesn’t come simply from being in a room with a group of people. As Jim says, the more people in the room, the more your influence can be diluted by all those voices.

If the CEO makes the final decision after the meeting, who gets the call for that last piece of advice or to explore implications the executive committee hasn’t considered?

I want to be that person—the person they pick up the phone and call. That matters more to me than attending a weekly meeting where everyone’s opportunity to influence the discussion is limited.

Neville Hobson: That’s interesting because a friend of mine is CCO at a large British public company. He has told me that meetings with the executive team are among his most significant opportunities to move conversations in the direction he wants them to go. He has influence in that setting. They listen to him.

Being present when decisions are announced and shaping them beforehand are different things. If the executive team still treats you primarily as a service provider, that suggests they don’t see you as someone with influence.

Shel Holtz: I don’t disagree with that at all.

Neville Hobson: If you’re a CCO in that position, you have a problem. You may not be fulfilling the role as you should. You need the things you mentioned: knowledge of the business and the broader perspective described in the book you quoted.

I can’t imagine someone going into those meetings without that background knowledge—being completely up to speed on the organization, its place in the landscape, and what’s happening elsewhere.

Others, particularly the CEO, may have that perspective too. That brings us back to the Axios point: What can you add to the discussion that would be missing if you weren’t there?

You need specific examples to assess that. But I’m not convinced that a private word in the CEO’s ear after a meeting is necessarily more significant than being in the meeting and talking to everyone.

Shel Holtz: My point is that the decision often gets made after the executive committee meeting. The CEO is the person at the top who has to live with it, based on the input received.

If they haven’t made up their mind and call for your perspective afterward, that’s great. But I’m equally happy to be called before the meeting. That has happened: “I’m going into a board meeting tomorrow or next week, and I’d like your perspective.”

It’s about people seeking your counsel. But you’re right that we need a perspective broader than communication.

The Medill CCO Monitor surveyed 125 senior communication leaders in February this year. Respondents ranked business and financial acumen, executive presence, and C-suite counsel ahead of communication craft among the skills they most needed to develop after advancing.

Develop those skills, and you’re less likely to be seen only as a service provider.

One respondent’s advice was to learn to tell senior leaders what they don’t want to hear, calmly and clearly. That means challenging decisions. If you can challenge a decision from a broader business perspective as well as a communication perspective, your counsel will be more valuable, and you’ll be more likely to be invited into those conversations.

Neville Hobson: That makes sense. Some of the interviews in Tabita’s book suggest senior communicators increasingly operate across strategy, culture, governance, reputation, and other areas. That seems like a natural evolution at that level. Communication is your background, but the role embraces other parts of the organization you need to understand and discuss.

One implication is that CCOs may need to challenge decisions that are commercially attractive but potentially harmful to trust.

That’s another reason the group setting matters: You may need to challenge other executives, not only the CEO. But what happens when you do that and your advice is ignored?

Shel Holtz: They end up being reported on this show in stories about how things went awry.

Neville Hobson: We’ll get some names next time we discuss this!

How far does the CCO’s responsibility extend? Should the modern CCO be the organization’s conscience?

Shel Holtz: According to the Global Alliance’s Melbourne Mandate from more than a decade ago, yes. Being the corporate conscience was central to that model.

The CEO–communicator partnership requires the courage to disagree when necessary. Corey duBrowa of Burson makes the point that communication leaders can fall short when they wait to be briefed instead of getting into the room where decisions are made.

We can keep talking about a seat at the table, but that CEO–communicator partnership matters much more to me.

And what does it mean to be a corporate officer? You may report to the CEO, sit on the executive committee, and be identified in the company’s Form 10-K, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Do you need an officer title? We now have chief AI officers, chief storytelling officers, and all sorts of other titles. In many organizations, those aren’t necessarily corporate officer positions. They’re titles bestowed on people. There are so many of them.

Neville Hobson: We talked about that a year or so ago—the proliferation of officer titles.

Shel Holtz: I remember.

Neville Hobson: There’s a counterargument worth considering. Is it realistic to expect a CCO to serve as an independent challenger when they’re employed by, report to, and depend on the CEO? Shouldn’t that responsibility belong to the entire executive team rather than being assigned disproportionately to the CCO?

Shel Holtz: That’s an interesting question. It depends on what people perceive the CEO’s expectations to be, because that’s where their fortunes lie.

It’s interesting that OpenAI hasn’t had a chief communications officer for nine months. Hannah Wong left in January, and the discussion about filling the role has included whether it should report to CEO Sam Altman, president Greg Brockman, or the chief marketing officer.

Chief marketing officers are much more prevalent than chief communication officers. I can see organizations asking whether they need both on the executive committee or whether one should report to the other.

Personally, I think it’s all communication: marketing, public relations, corporate communications, internal communications, investor relations, government relations, and community relations. It all has to align with the strategic narrative, presumably developed by the communication function.

People will probably still be arguing about this long after you and I are gone. But some organizations don’t have CCOs because they say, “We have a CMO. The top communicator can report to them.”

Neville Hobson: This is a big topic, and we won’t go down that rabbit hole today. But we’ve discussed why the CCO, or whoever the senior communicator is, shouldn’t report to marketing: The communicator’s role embraces everything the company does, while marketing has a more specific remit.

Marketing has relatively little to do with investor relations or employee communication. I don’t think that makes the marketer the right person to oversee all communication. If anyone is going to have that responsibility, it seems to me it should be the communicator. Others would disagree.

It’s one of those circular debates that won’t be resolved soon. There’s even talk of senior communicators reporting to HR.

Shel Holtz: No, they should report to legal.

Neville Hobson: I’ve seen people suggest that too.

Returning to what communicators contribute once they’re at the table, one thing they do is make difficult decisions understandable. You don’t have to be a CCO to do that, although it helps to be fairly senior.

We’ve seen how that can fail at prominent companies. Tesla comes to mind, where Elon Musk seems to be the person expected to handle communication.

But could a communicator’s greatest contribution be explaining why a proposed decision is unwise before it becomes an organizational problem? That returns us to whether fellow executives believe the CCO has a perspective worth listening to.

It’s complex—perhaps unnecessarily so—but that’s the reality.

From what I recall, that kind of concern didn’t dominate the 23 interviews in Tabita’s book. The CCOs talked much more strategically about their roles, rather than focusing on who listens to whom. It’s a fascinating book.

This certainly isn’t a concluding discussion.

Shel Holtz: Good heavens, no.

Neville Hobson: It’s another chapter, and we’ll no doubt return to it.

Shel Holtz: I’d like to, as more data emerges and we hear more about it.

I’ll conclude by saying that it depends on the culture of your organization and its leadership. As the saying goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This is another situation where that holds true.

And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #532: Do You Really Want That “Seat at the Table”? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

When misinformation strikes, PR professionals swing into action, directing people to accurate information. But will people follow your links? One study found that people are far more likely to see what you have to say if the invitation sounds much like the language used to invite them to the original misinformation. Neville and Shel discuss the idea in this short midweek FIR episode.

Links from this episode:

• A new study finds that to counter misinformation online, we need to copy its style
• Prebunking misinformation techniques in social media feeds: Results from an Instagram field study
• Video inoculation against election misinformation across 12 EU nations
• Confronting misinformation related to health and the environment: a systematic review

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR is tentatively scheduled to drop on Monday, October 26.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Neville Hobson: Hi, everyone. Welcome to For Immediate Release. This is episode 531. I’m Neville Hobson.

Shel Holtz: And I’m Shel Holtz. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you find a misinformation campaign online targeting your company, your products, your industry, or whatever. You immediately embark on an effort to combat it using all the strategies, tactics, and tools we’ve been trained to use. Is that a good idea?

Researchers in Australia ran a dozen paired tests on Facebook. In each pair, they ran two ads carrying exactly the same accurate, consensus-based information. One was written the way PR people usually write this stuff: neutral, careful, and measured. The other was written in the style of the communities spreading the misinformation. It was warmer, more direct, and more personal.

The styled ads won every time. All 12 pairs favored the styled version, and 11 of the 12 results were statistically significant. On a message about school education, the styled ad had a click-through rate of 6%. The neutral version—the one using traditional PR techniques—had a rate of 1.1%. That’s about five times as many clicks to get people to exactly the same facts.

Now, “style” can sound like a euphemism for spin. Here’s what the researchers actually did: They built personas of people who engage with misinformation and matched their tone, directness, and emotional framing. One example in the article said, “You want to keep your little one safe. Wondering what vaccinations will mean for your baby?” That isn’t a lie or a scare tactic. It’s how a person talks.

Even styles that weren’t a precise match for the audience beat the neutral version in most of the tests. I’m reading between the lines here—this is my interpretation, not a claim by the study’s authors—but it suggests that part of the problem isn’t just that we’re failing to speak the audience’s language. It’s that our language is so bland it barely registers.

You may be thinking this contradicts what we’ve heard about prebunking, and you’d have a point. Other research I read, including work from Harvard’s Kennedy School that I encountered in Communications Psychology and a review of 32 studies in the Journal of Science Communication, mostly points the other way: Don’t imitate the manipulation; teach people to recognize it.

The Harvard study is a good example. A 19-second Instagram Story ad shown to more than 375,000 users in the UK taught people to spot manipulation techniques. Afterward, 59.55% of those who saw the ad correctly identified the technique, compared with 38.21% in the control group.

So, which is it? I’d say both. Here’s the line I would draw: Copy the warmth, familiarity, and directness, but don’t copy the fear, scapegoating, or fake urgency. The paper suggesting that we imitate the style of misinformation purveyors draws the same line in its ethics section: no impersonation, no amplifying fear, and no stigmatizing language.

The review of 32 studies found no gold-standard intervention. Effects were small to medium and depended heavily on the specific myth. Think of these as tools in the same box rather than competing theories.

I have one caveat: The misinformation study measured clicks, not changed minds. A click is a first step, but it isn’t proof of persuasion. That first step matters, though. If nobody clicks, nobody reads. Nobody gets the accurate information, and you have no hope of changing anybody’s mind.

There’s plenty of adjacent work. The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health runs a creator program, and the World Health Organization has a network called FIDES. Both focus on getting trusted voices into the channels where people already are. Public health agencies have been working on this for a while.

But I looked for a business doing what the study describes, and I couldn’t find one: a company countering a rumor, hoax, or false claim about itself or its products by deliberately adopting the style of the people spreading it. I couldn’t find a single example, despite the research showing stronger engagement.

I’d argue that’s an invitation to experiment. Here’s what I would do. First, listen. Pay attention to how people talk about your company or industry when they’re worried, skeptical, wrong, or deliberately spreading misinformation. Don’t focus on your talking points. Focus on their words.

Then test it. Run a simple A/B test with the same evidence in two versions: your standard statement and one written in your audience’s voice. That’s what the researchers did.

Finally, measure beyond the click. Look at comments, shares, sentiment, and whether the rumor’s reach actually shrinks. Start with something low-stakes, such as an FAQ, an employee-facing rumor, or a customer-service reply. Somebody should be trying this. Why not us?

Neville, communicators spend years learning to sound credible and measured. This research suggests that being measured might be part of why our corrections get ignored. How willing do you think companies would be to test a warmer, more direct voice? Would legal and leadership kill the idea before it had a chance?

Neville Hobson: That’s a good question. I think the brave ones would do it. But listening to you, and having read the piece in The Conversation, another question comes to mind: Are we sometimes so concerned with making our information accurate and authoritative that we forget to make it relevant and worth engaging with?

I’m circling around that thought because some of the conclusions drawn from this study seem questionable to me. If someone is going to use techniques associated with misinformation campaigns, something is missing.

To clarify the distinction, misinformation is incorrect information shared without an intention to deceive. Disinformation is a deliberate attempt to mislead people or influence them to do something they otherwise might not do. Either way, techniques are used to attract attention.

Are we seeing people bring in too much of those approaches? Some elements may be useful, but I’m thinking of an article I read—and I believe blogged about—on AI in warfare, particularly the war in Ukraine. I think it was published on Deutsche Welle’s English-language website. It discussed misinformation and then disinformation that others mirrored, perhaps unintentionally.

I wonder whether people may bring in the whole package, knowingly or unknowingly, and conclude that it’s acceptable to exploit vulnerabilities or manufacture emotional responses that people identify with.

Did I answer your question? I probably did, but here’s one for you: If we borrow the persuasive techniques of misinformation, how do we ensure we aren’t also borrowing the manipulative behaviors that make it effective?

I haven’t looked for guidance on this, and agencies may already have it: “This is what misinformation looks like. Don’t do that. Here’s an example of what you should do.” If that doesn’t exist, there’s an opportunity to develop it because the ethical dimension matters.

There’s also a danger that we celebrate winning the battle for attention without knowing whether we’ve made any progress in helping people understand the message or building trust. Those fundamental questions should be at the forefront.

That connects to your question about why organizations should address this properly. If they don’t, they’re missing opportunities and failing to help the broader community understand what’s right and what’s wrong.

Shel Holtz: I come at this from the perspective of wanting to get people to accurate information. Remember, the A/B test concerned what got people to click. Once they clicked, the information was the same in both versions. The warmer, friendlier language attracted more clicks than the typical bland PR language.

The researchers in Australia included that ethics section addressing stigmatizing language and other concerns. But here’s what I kept thinking as I read it: In marketing, and to some extent in public relations and certainly in internal communications, we’ve embraced audience personas for years.

We get to understand different groups within a larger audience based on their characteristics. We often boil those down into a fictional person who embodies them: “Mary is a 33-year-old single mother and administrative assistant.” Here’s what she’s likely to believe, what she pays attention to, where her skepticism lies, and so forth.

That helps us craft messages for different groups within the audience to get the best possible results. Why aren’t we doing that when confronting misinformation?

We wouldn’t need to use every persona. We’d focus on the groups attracted to the misinformation or being targeted by it. Instead, we tend to default to a crisis communication or issues management approach: “Here’s what they’re saying, and here’s the truth.” That isn’t attracting the clicks.

Again, the study didn’t determine whether people changed their minds after clicking through, and I wish it had. I would have loved to know. But when you have about five times as many people clicking through with a more persona-based approach, it seems to me that’s something we would want to try.

Neville Hobson: I agree. But what’s the real lesson? It certainly isn’t that communicators should behave like misinformation purveyors. It’s that factual accuracy alone isn’t a communication strategy.

It often surprises me how we miss the essential element: understanding the people we’re trying to reach, speaking in language that resonates, and getting their attention without compromising our integrity.

We also need to remember that getting someone to click isn’t the same as getting them to understand, believe, or trust. That’s a different part of the process. As you said, the click is a first step.

I’ve seen things on LinkedIn and Facebook that others called out as disinformation rather than misinformation. One example came from a well-known brand. I’d like to think they didn’t realize what they were doing, but they were called out quite strongly on Facebook.

It’s a minefield. It’s no surprise that people make mistakes, but the consequences can be greater than in the early days, when less of this was happening.

We’re in a time when things happen that we couldn’t have imagined even a couple of years ago. Bad actors, including governments and other groups, manipulate brand messaging to confuse people or get them to click something that downloads malicious software. We’re seeing more of that.

To my knowledge, there isn’t a playbook for this. If you want to emulate how the bad actors attract attention, how will you do it without adopting what they do?

Shel Holtz: I think Philippe Borremans, whom we interviewed several months ago, is right: You can’t rely on a crisis manual that gives you a sequence of steps guaranteed to address the crisis. You need the scaffolding to manage a crisis in whatever form it takes.

You need holding statements ready to be adjusted and published quickly because you have to respond quickly. You need prebunking in place, anticipating what bad actors might say about you and making the facts available beforehand. If you can get independent, third-party media sources to establish some of those points so you can refer to them later, even better.

But how do you get people to look at that information once misinformation or disinformation has been published? That’s where this study comes in.

We need to listen to how the people we’re trying to reach talk. They may not respond when we sound like PR people. They’re more likely to respond when we speak in a way that resonates, demonstrate that we care about their concerns, and share something they find relevant.

That’s why listening matters. It isn’t just about identifying misinformation. It’s also about understanding how it’s being presented in a way that gets so many people to click and pay attention.

We need to engage with that rather than simply push back. We have to listen and participate in the conversation using language that fits the people already having it. That isn’t what I see in many organizational or institutional responses to misinformation.

Neville Hobson: Your point about prepared crisis messages is important. You should have those. But these situations are often so fluid that you also need to be capable of responding on the fly. You may have no prepared message for what somebody just did, and you need to address it in an original way.

That requires the communicator to have the knowledge and confidence to do it. I was going to call it training, but perhaps preparation is a better word.

Shel Holtz: I would say training too.

Neville Hobson: Preparation leads to the point I wanted to make: This isn’t necessarily a new technique for countering misinformation. It’s a reminder that good communication has always begun with understanding the audience.

That thought keeps coming back to me. I read an article about a supposedly new approach, and I think, “We’ve always been trying to understand the audience.”

It’s a complex picture. You need to recognize that you may confront this almost daily, especially if you’re a prominent brand, individual, institution, or government. Even if you aren’t, some people will take a dig at you simply because they don’t like you. Some brands are experiencing that.

You have to prepare. That’s where “what if” scenarios come in. Spend time working through them because I think this is only beginning.

Shel Holtz: It’s going to get worse. And you’re right: This is nothing new. The new consideration is to apply what you’ve been doing all along—understanding your audience and speaking to people in ways that resonate—to your responses to misinformation. That’s something we haven’t been doing enough.

Neville Hobson: Absolutely.

Shel Holtz: And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.

 

 

The post FIR #531: Should You Mimic Your Detractors? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

What becomes possible when people feel seen at work? As workplaces feel increasingly transactional, helping people know they matter is both a human and leadership imperative. When people feel seen, they are more likely to engage, contribute, connect, and thrive.

There are many ways we help people feel seen, but one of the simplest and most powerful is appreciation: noticing who people are, what they bring, and the difference they make — and letting them know.

In this conversation, four IABC Fellows will explore the role leaders and communicators play in creating workplaces where people feel seen, and appreciation becomes part of how we lead, communicate, and connect. What changes in people, teams, and organizations when people know they matter, and what gets in the way?

Join us for this lively conversation at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, October 29. You can participate by sharing questions, experiences, and observations in the YouTube Live chat. If you can’t join us for the live stream, the audio podcast and video replay will be available soon afterward.

About the panel:

Although Zora Artis began her career outside the communications field, she has had an outsize impact on the profession since entering it more than 20 years ago to as an account director and then strategic planner with branding and integrated marcomms agencies. Since then, she has led her own brand and communications consultancy and served as CEO of a 20-person creative, digital, and strategic communication firm. In 2019, formed her current management consulting practice, bringing together strategic alignment, brand, and communication expertise. She has received five Gold Quill awards. Her significant contributions to the profession and the body of knowledge include her original research with IABC colleague Wayne Aspland on strategic alignment, the role of communications and leadership – the first substantial research effort for the reconfigured IABC Foundation – and co-authoring a subsequent white paper, “The Road to Alignment,” supported by 27 senior communicators from five continents. Zora has also researched the correlation between strategic alignment and experiences and the impact on stakeholder value and brand. This has led her to develop her own proprietary Alignment Experience Framework. She has also examined gender equity, perceptions, and bias in organizations, and wrote a chapter on this topic for the Quadriga University e-reader, Women in PR. Since joining IABC a decade ago, she has contributed as a volunteer, including serving as chair of the IABC Asia Pacific Region and IEB director; she currently chairs the 2022 World Conference Program Advisory Committee. As a certified company director and chair of the IABC Audit and Risk Committee, she introduced proper risk oversight into the board’s processes. Zora received the 2021 and 2015 IABC Chair’s Award for Leadership and was named IABC’s 2020 Regional Leader of the Year. She is also a Strategic Communication Management Professional, Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute, and Certified Practicing Marketer.

John G. Clemons, SCMP, ABC, APR, IABC Fellow, an independent communications consultant based in North Carolina, has held senior executive and consultant roles over the course of his career in corporate and organizational communications. He specializes in providing strategic counsel and support to top executives and corporate offices at Fortune 500 companies. John has served as chair of IABC and holds accreditations from both IABC and PRSA. John has worked with Walmart, Raytheon, and Marriott (among others). John has been an adjunct instructor for six years at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Loyola University in New Orleans.

Founder and Principal of Fluency Leadership, Catherine Ducharme, IABC Fellow, PCC, CLC, is a career communicator, certified coach, and facilitator with more than 35 years of experience in communication and leadership. She has held senior roles across public relations, corporate, internal, and marketing communication in industries, including high-tech and health sciences, grounding her work in deep, real-world expertise. Building on that foundation, Catherine now focuses on developing communication and marketing professionals to be exceptional leaders. Catherine is also the author of the book SEEN: The Power of Appreciation at Work.

Jennifer Wah, MC, ABC, has helped clients deliver ideas, plans, words, and results since she founded her storytelling and communications firm, Forwords Communication Inc., in 1997. With more than two dozen awards for strategic communications, writing, and consulting, Jennifer is recognized as a storyteller and strategist. She has worked in industries ranging from healthcare and academia to financial services and the resource sector, and she is passionate about using storytelling strategically to support business outcomes. Although she has delivered workshops and training throughout her career, Jennifer formally added teaching to her experience in 2013, first with Royal Roads University and more recently as an adjunct professor of business communications with the UBC Sauder School of Business, where she now works part-time to impart crucial communication skills on the next generation of business leaders. When she is not working, Jennifer spends her time cooking, walking her dog, Orion, or discussing food, hockey, or music with her husband and two young adult children in North Vancouver, Canada.

The post Lead, Communicate, and Connect: Next on Circle of Fellows appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Companies are urging employees to adopt AI—but a software rollout, training session, or announcement doesn’t necessarily prepare people for changes to their work. When expectations keep shifting, and the destination remains uncertain, how can organizations build trust and help employees move forward?

In episode 9 of On the Same Page, Shel and Mark explore AI adoption as a change management challenge and the role internal communicators should play. They discuss listening to employees, challenging leadership assumptions, and building a flexible approach to change—along with the gap between recognizing the need for change management skills and developing them.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hey, Mark, how’s your experience with AI these days?

Mark Dollins: It’s never-ending. I keep getting both excited and frustrated with it, but it’s all about learning, right?

Shel Holtz: It is. It’s about learning for a lot of employees as well. Many companies are still struggling to introduce AI and drive adoption in their organizations.

I was reading about the Financial Times’ AI transformation program in 2024. They started by listening. They surveyed employees and received 725 responses. What they found was that the biggest obstacle was a lack of time, and that helped shape their approach.

A lack of time isn’t resistance. When we’re asking people to adopt AI and integrate it into their workflows, we’re asking them to make a change. We tend to look for resistance, but not every challenge is resistance. How have you been thinking about change management and AI adoption, given your passion for change management and internal communications?

Mark Dollins: Ironically, one thing communicators have increasingly been doing over the last several years is using AI to become more productive. It’s already saving us time.

But I think professionals in this space increasingly understand that AI isn’t simply a technology rollout. It’s one of the biggest waves of change we need to step into, get in front of, and help manage.

Shel Holtz: I guess the question starts with our role in managing this change. Are we taking the lead? Are we trying to get that coveted seat at the table so we can influence it? Are we waiting for the training and IT departments to say, “Here’s the program. Communicate this and drive the change”? What should we be doing?

Mark Dollins: It’s a little of everything. In the research we’ve done—and we’ll talk more about this in another podcast—Jon Stemmle and I conduct an annual survey about communicators’ attitudes toward and uses of AI. We talk to a couple of hundred communicators around the world to understand what’s changing, what we’re working with, and what we’re struggling with.

We’re finding that communicators are getting a bigger seat at the table. We’re having more influence in setting governance and policies, which is good. We’re using AI more, but we aren’t using it for more strategic purposes.

The biggest thing we haven’t fully signed up for is treating AI as a change management initiative that we should help lead. We tend to view it as a technology rollout or a policy rollout connected to AI. But artificial intelligence is itself a massive change. We’re talking about seismic adjustments in how organizations work. That’s a space employee communicators should be stepping into, and some are beginning to do that.

Shel Holtz: I absolutely agree. The question is whether we’re being asked to help design the change or simply sell decisions that have already been made.

We should use the expertise we bring that others in the organization may not have to the same degree: identifying impacts on employees, testing leaders’ assumptions before a rollout, and listening.

But responsibility requires authority. We can’t resolve workload, staffing, or incentive problems through messaging. What decisions must we be able to influence if we’re going to be held accountable, to any degree, for AI adoption?

Mark Dollins: Even better, let’s not wait to be asked. Let’s step up and say, “We believe we can help this organization better manage this wave of change. Let’s figure out how.”

Some numbers provide context for what I call moving upstream. In 2024, about 45% of communicators reported being involved in shaping AI usage in their organizations. That rose to 70% last year and 76% this year. That’s a good sign. We’re saying we’re shaping it, although I’m not exactly sure how that’s happening in every organization.

Communicators aren’t just using new tools. We’re helping organizations explain, govern, and normalize new ways of working. That’s where change management comes in.

We asked communicators whether they view change management as a competency they should have. That figure rose from 73% in 2024 to 81% last year and is at 79% this year. That tells us this isn’t being treated as a fad. It’s more of a structural expectation.

We’re also seeing growing interest in training or certification to become more proficient at managing change through communications. Around 72–73% of this year’s respondents said AI requires significant change management communications. About 80% believe change management—which is different from change communications—is a competency they should acquire. And about 76% believe communicators should be involved in influencing AI use in their organizations.

There’s clear evidence that, as a global community of employee communicators, we know what we should be doing. The real question is whether we’re doing what needs to be done.

Shel Holtz: At some level, everything we communicate is change communication. We’re putting something out because we want something from people. We want them to do something new or different, stop doing something, do more of something, or think or believe something. All of that is change.

But when it’s a software rollout, the scope may be more contained. We’re adopting Workday as our HR and payroll software, and everyone needs to start using it. I don’t know how much of that requires the full Prosci process or whatever change management protocols you follow.

AI is different. What does the change look like at the end? One thing I learned when I began studying change communication—and I had a great mentor in Tudor Williams—was that you should be able to close your eyes and envision the outcome. I don’t think anybody can do that with AI yet. That presents an interesting challenge for a change program.

Mark Dollins: AI can be a tool for some change management and communication tactics, but we still need to understand the disciplines themselves.

The question we should ask is whether we really understand change management and how change communications works with it. Over the years, I’ve asked communicators that question, and I often hear, “Yes, I understand change communications. I put out organizational structure announcements, leadership changes, and executive updates.”

Then I ask, “What else went with that?” Often, there’s silence.

That doesn’t happen every time. Our community is getting better at this. But my experience is that many communicators don’t get into the specifics of the change management discipline.

What do I mean by that? Understanding organizational readiness for change, for example. Is the organization ready to make this change? Who are the executive sponsors? Who are the champions who will help lead it? Do we understand the detractors and barriers? Do we have governance and processes for addressing barriers when the people involved can’t reach a resolution?

Those are parts of change management that organizational communicators often aren’t taught when they learn how to communicate change.

Whether the topic is digital transformation, cultural transformation, or AI adoption, it’s deeper than simply a technology change. These aren’t one-and-done activities. They require sustained, focused, strategic communications and an understanding of stakeholders’ individual needs. Not everybody experiences change in the same way, and that understanding should inform our communication.

There’s far more to change management communications when it’s structured and aligned with the discipline of change management. Without that alignment, you can find yourself in a situation I’ve experienced: “Hey, Mark, we have a big change we want you to communicate.” I ask, “What’s the change management plan?” and get blank stares. Then someone says, “Why don’t you develop that?”

That’s why, more than 10 or 15 years ago, I took the time to become certified as a change management professional. I chose Prosci, one of several options. It changed how I viewed the relationship between change communications and change management. The training took about four days and was tremendously helpful.

I’m agnostic about which certification people choose. What matters is understanding the concepts we’ve discussed. That understanding helps us drive successful change through communications.

How’s that for getting on my soapbox?

Shel Holtz: That’s fine. I loved it. What we’ve seen in many organizations is almost the opposite of what you’re describing.

Initially, companies asked communicators to tell employees to experiment with AI, without much clarity about the purpose. Then we told people to use AI a lot. We got into this whole “token maxing” thing, where people were using so much that they blew through a company’s annual budget in a month, and organizations had to dial it back.

It’s hard to get people to buy into a change when you’re continually clawing back the messages you sent earlier. What are we asking employees to trust? What happens to the time they save? Will there be new expectations? Will roles change or disappear? Who gets development opportunities?

We shouldn’t simply accept the message we’re asked to deliver. Part of change communication is pressing leaders to explain what’s been decided, what’s still uncertain, and how employees will be involved.

Blanket assurances that AI won’t cost any jobs, or that it will completely transform the way we work, can make the job harder if we don’t have a plan, a vision, or an understanding of the outcomes.

Mark Dollins: Completely agreed. There’s a difference between being a tactical communicator who says, “We’re rolling out AI. Use it in these three ways,” and asking, before the message goes out, “And then what? Where is this going? What’s the longer-term vision for AI in this organization?”

I’ve had conversations with CEOs who have told me, “In less than a year, every role in our organization will have an AI component.” That’s fascinating, but how are you communicating it, and in what context? If every role has an AI component, what happens next? Will roles be redefined? Should employees expect that?

A responsible communicator, working with the CEO, CHRO, and other leaders, should say, “We can’t communicate only one phase of this. We need to think more broadly.”

It’s okay if some questions haven’t been answered. But let’s not promise that no jobs will ever go away because of AI. We can acknowledge that it’s possible while also explaining the opportunity for employees to learn technologies that expand their capabilities, wherever they are and wherever they go.

Ideally, employees can help us redefine their roles within the organization. That doesn’t always happen, but it’s an outcome worth working toward.

We need to be open about what we know and what we don’t: “We don’t know exactly where this technology will take us. Here’s where we are now, and here’s what we want you to explore so we can learn, improve, and help define the next chapter.”

Shel Holtz: I read about a company that brought together 100 employees, I think in Nashville. They identified challenges they faced in their jobs, grouped people with similar challenges, and had them vibe-code AI solutions. Rather than look for existing tools to buy—or rent, as is often the case—they built solutions to their own problems.

It was apparently successful. But I wondered whether it was a separate, one-off activity or part of a comprehensive strategy. Did employees know it was coming? Had they helped identify it as an approach they wanted to take?

I think it’s great that the company did it. I don’t know whether it was part of a broader change strategy. But I worry about one-off activities that aren’t integrated into a process where employees can see progress toward an articulated goal.

Mark Dollins: You’re describing exactly why change management creates value. It prompts those questions and discussions before communications go out.

Ideally, in that situation, people would have discussed the direction and addressed the questions: “This is one step in a multistep process of defining our future through AI.”

That’s where understanding change management comes into play. I’ll be candid: I don’t use every element of my training every time I help communicate a change. I put it in context. We may not need to go deeply into stakeholder assessment because much of that work has already been done. Or I may recognize that we don’t have executive sponsorship and that we need to address that weakness before moving forward.

It’s about understanding all the components of successful change management.

People sometimes hate hearing this, but communication should follow the change management plan. It shouldn’t have to define the whole plan. We should be able to say, “Here’s our plan for managing change. Now let’s determine how communications can best support it.”

We can become better change management practitioners. With the right credentials and experience, we may even lead the change effort. But especially when we’re getting started, we’ll probably need a partner who knows more about the discipline and who sees us as a partner as well.

Communication is the thread running across every element of change management. Without it, we’re done.

Shel Holtz: Try making a change without communication and see how that goes.

Mark Dollins: Without thoughtful communication. People communicate all the time, but without a strategic approach, their efforts can fail miserably.

Shel Holtz: It’s important to get involved early enough. We’ve said that not every employee difficulty with AI is resistance, but there may well be resistance. You won’t discover what it is unless you ask.

You can make assumptions, but I worry about relying on them. Our employee populations reflect the public to a large degree, and we know the range of public concerns about AI: the environmental impact of data centers, privacy and data security, even fears that it’s going to kill us all.

You can’t address resistance without understanding it. If a sizable group of employees is likely to resist the way management plans to introduce AI, you need to be able to say, “We should rethink this approach.” That won’t happen if we’re brought in too late.

Mark Dollins: Our survey also measured communicators’ skepticism about AI. Skepticism rose in 2026 after falling in 2025. Something happened between last year and this year that made us less trusting.

About 45% of respondents said they remained worried about accuracy and privacy. If communicators have those concerns, we can be certain that many of our colleagues do as well.

Resistance can have many sources, but as you said, you have to ask.

Shel Holtz: You have to ask, and you may need to acknowledge that these issues exist across society, not just within our company. Explain how we’re addressing them, how we plan to use AI, and what we consider ethical adoption.

I also think the plan needs to be a living, breathing thing. In many change programs, you know the outcome. With the Dow–DuPont merger, for example, you knew the endgame. We don’t know the endgame with AI.

We don’t know exactly how workflows will change. Many companies haven’t even gotten that far. Many haven’t prepared their data so AI can retrieve information appropriately as part of a knowledge management system.

This is a different animal. We need a sustainable, ongoing, flexible plan that can pivot as we get new information or frontier model companies release new capabilities. Many factors may require us to change direction. We need to do that strategically and consistently while maintaining employees’ trust that we know what we’re doing.

Mark Dollins: Not to mention emerging regulation. The EU is ahead of the United States in this area. Accountability and regulatory frameworks will be another influence on how we use AI.

When we talk about both struggling with AI and seeing its possibilities, we also have to recognize all the other influences taking shape.

There’s one other research finding I wanted to mention. We looked at whether employee communicators—people with employee or internal communications in their titles or roles—were becoming certified in change management.

We reviewed more than 500 public LinkedIn profiles and found a substantial disparity. Remember, 79% of our survey respondents said change management was a competency they needed. But in the LinkedIn profile sample, about 8% indicated that they were certified in change management.

There was also a difference by seniority. We saw figures around 10–15% for VPs or heads of internal communications, compared with 2–4% for individual contributors with employee or internal communications in their titles.

That suggests more senior communicators are recognizing the value of change management certification, while fewer people further down the talent pipeline are pursuing it. That concerns me.

I’ll go back to your earlier question, Shel: What do we do that isn’t related to change? That’s particularly true of internal communications, but I’d make the argument for external communications too. A new product, service, or person involves change.

Understanding what enables acceptance and the associated behavior feels like a natural part of our work. Why wouldn’t we want to understand that discipline if we’re going to be held accountable for communicating change and, in theory, the resulting behavior?

It was an interesting finding from those LinkedIn profiles.

Shel Holtz: It’s fascinating. You know I’m vice chair of the Global Communication Certification Council, and I’m trying to encourage communicators to become certified in communications. But, good heavens, you can have more than one set of letters after your name. They all provide value.

I appreciate the time, Mark.

Mark Dollins: Always fun, Shel.

Shel Holtz: Listeners, we’d love to hear about your AI adoption, change communication, and change management journeys. Let us know.

There were comments on our last episode, but I haven’t had a chance to pull them together. The next time we meet, we’ll discuss comments from that episode and this one before moving into our next topic.

Mark Dollins: Great. We’d love that.

Shel Holtz: See you then.

Mark Dollins: All right. Take care.

The post OTSP #9: The Uneven Introduction of AI to Employees appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

The volume of AI slop appearing as thought leadership on LinkedIn has, according to the Financial Times, led to a surge in interest in human ghostwriters. In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel discuss whether this makes sense or if it’s just another case of people using AI poorly.

Links from this episode:

• AI is creating ghostwriting jobs on LinkedIn
• Using AI to Write at Work Is Basically Fine — Unless You’re a Writer
• So AI helped write it. Who cares?
• FIR #526: Forget Anthropic’s AI Watermark. Can You Defend Every Sentence?

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR is tentatively scheduled to drop on Monday, October 26.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi, everybody, and welcome to episode 530 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson. AI was supposed to put ghostwriters out of business. Instead, according to the Financial Times, something rather different is happening. LinkedIn is awash with generic AI-generated posts, and the flood of polished but forgettable content is creating new demand for human ghostwriters who can help executives sound human again. There’s a nice irony in that, but it also raises a question I keep coming back to: If I use AI to help write a blog post, a LinkedIn update, or an article published under my name, is AI effectively my ghostwriter?

Shel, you and I have touched on this territory before, most recently in FIR 526 in August, when we discussed Anthropic’s text watermarking. We argued that detecting whether AI was involved in writing something tells you remarkably little about who actually did the thinking. A more useful test is whether the author understands the argument, stands behind it, and can defend every sentence.

I developed that argument afterward in a blog post titled “So AI Helped Write It. Who Cares?” My point wasn’t that authorship doesn’t matter. It does. But there’s an important distinction between asking AI to do your thinking for you and using it to help express thinking that is yours.

Now, a Bloomberg Businessweek article adds another twist. It argues that, for many people at work, using AI to write is simply becoming normal. Writing isn’t necessarily their craft. It’s a means of communicating an idea, answering a customer, updating colleagues, or getting something done.

The article introduces another tension. Some businesses actively expect employees to use AI for writing because it saves time. But it also describes the opposite problem at one company, where AI-generated documents became polished, lengthy, and difficult to read. The CEO concluded that AI was making writing quicker for the sender but slower for the recipient—a point we touched on in our last discussion—and asked employees for rougher versions containing their actual thinking instead. There’s a novel idea.

That brings us back to ghostwriting. We accepted long ago that a CEO might put their name to words written by a communication professional, provided those words express what the CEO thinks. So, is AI-assisted writing fundamentally different?

For me, this raises several questions. If the ideas, argument, and judgment are yours, does it matter whether you, a ghostwriter, or an AI produced the sentences? Where is the boundary between assistance and substitution—editing your thoughts versus generating thoughts for you? In an environment where producing polished prose is becoming almost effortless, will distinctive thinking become more valuable than distinctive writing?

And would you feel differently upon discovering that someone’s LinkedIn post was written by a human ghostwriter rather than ChatGPT? If so, why? And perhaps more importantly, does it matter?

Shel Holtz: Yes, it does matter. You have to consider the audience’s expectations. Those matter as much as the intentions of the person who drafted the speech, article, or whatever it might be.

Think about the difference between an operational update, a CEO’s personal account of a career failure, and a condolence message to an employee. Those messages could be accurate, carefully reviewed, and approved. On the other hand, readers could reasonably expect a particular level of personal involvement from the person whose name appears on them. I think that makes a difference.

But I’d like to step back for a minute and explore ghostwriting itself. I’ve known a couple of people who made their livings, or part of their livings, as ghostwriters. You knew the late Shel Israel, a very good friend of mine.

Neville Hobson: Sure.

Shel Holtz: He was a ghostwriter. He wrote books for people who didn’t know how to write, but he didn’t spend most of his time writing. His clients hired him because they liked his writing and his approach to getting to know them and their styles, so what he wrote sounded like them.

How did he do that? Through a lot of interviews—hours and hours, dozens of hours, on the phone and in person. He challenged the generalities he heard from clients and drew out experiences they might not have thought mattered. As an experienced ghostwriter, he understood which experiences would lend color to the manuscript and what readers would care about.

The Financial Times story opens up a more interesting possibility than simply saying humans write better. Perhaps the valuable service of ghostwriting was never just sitting there typing sentences. One person featured in the article said in a public response that AI remains integral to his business, but people still handle the conversations and relationships.

Another person I know ghostwrites for an online service. Someone signs up and says, “I want to write a memoir. It’s only going to go to 10 people in my family, but I want somebody to write it.” The service matches that person with a writer. There’s a prescribed number of meetings, but they talk for hours. The writer takes notes and produces a first draft.

If I take all those notes and everything I’ve learned about the subject, understand their writing or speaking style, and incorporate that into what I ask AI to produce or help me produce, am I still doing the lion’s share of the work as a ghostwriter? I think I am, especially if the person tasked with doing this isn’t a writer in the first place.

We’ve talked before about people in organizations who might be assigned this work but can’t write their way out of a paper bag. Writing wasn’t what they studied, and it isn’t their area of expertise. If AI can help them use the material they’ve gathered by doing the work of a ghostwriter, I have less of a problem with it.

Neville Hobson: I have a similar view. The FT article includes a good quote from Bernie Hogan, an associate professor at the Oxford Internet Institute. The journalist asked whether LinkedIn ghostwriters could help cut through AI slop.

The part that caught my attention was his point that the message behind a post can still be sincere, even if you didn’t write it. He compares it to buying a greeting card: Someone else wrote the words, but the sentiment can still reflect what you mean. I agree with that.

His further point is where the rubber meets the road. Because we can’t tell when a LinkedIn post is ghostwritten, is it authentic in readers’ eyes, even if it broadly reflects what the person posting it believes?

That sums up the situation we’re in. I don’t think there will ever be agreement on the broad question of whether it’s wrong for someone else—or an AI—to write something you publish under your name. We’ve discussed the details many times: Is it your thinking? Did you contribute to it? Or did you give AI some material, ask it to write something, and post the result without further involvement?

It isn’t a simple question. I keep coming back to this: Would you feel differently if you discovered that someone’s LinkedIn post was written by a human ghostwriter rather than ChatGPT? If so, why? I’d particularly like critics of AI-assisted writing to answer that.

Shel Holtz: It would be interesting. I like the greeting-card analogy. The greeting was written by a copywriter at Hallmark, American Greetings, or somewhere else, but you don’t just grab the first card off the rack. People spend 15 or 20 minutes looking.

Neville Hobson: You might.

Shel Holtz: You might, but I’ve never seen anybody in the greeting-card aisle just grab a card and go. They pull one off the shelf, open it, read it, put it back, and try another. They’re looking for the one that expresses the sentiment they have. Then, when they get home, they write a little more. I would consider that the human in the loop.

Human ghostwriting deserves the same scrutiny as AI ghostwriting. Someone assigned to write a LinkedIn post can manufacture the persona of the person they’re writing for. They can avoid the hard work, fabricate a profound message, or give someone credit for expertise they don’t have.

An AI-assisted post grounded in a leader’s actual experience, with that experience shared as part of the process, could represent the person more faithfully than a human ghostwriter does. So, are we defending authentic communication, or are we defending an outsourcing arrangement we’re already familiar with?

Neville Hobson: I think we’re defending authentic communication, but the definition of “authentic” seems to be a movable feast.

I don’t believe we’ll resolve this argument in the near future. Where I land—and I think we discussed this in episode 526—is that you, as the human, need to be confident in your thinking and in how the text expresses it. If you are, you can comfortably continue what you’re doing.

Apply that to a human ghostwriting a LinkedIn post for a CEO, senior manager, or someone else. The post will appear on that person’s profile under their name. That’s common practice; I know many people who do it.

The question isn’t simply whether the manager or CEO is happy with it and praises you. Are you satisfied with it? Does it meet your standard for authenticity?

You might outline your ideas, share them with your AI assistant, explain the assignment, and ask it to suggest the best way to tell the story. You might then ask for a proposed draft. It comes back, and you think, “This is a reasonable start. I can work with this.”

You might edit it extensively and create something fresh, then pass it back to your AI assistant. It might suggest three changes. You could decide the second suggestion is useful and incorporate that. That process resembles what you might do with a human ghostwriter.

So, my question is: What’s the difference? Does it matter? I’ve been accused of being terribly naïve for asking that, but I don’t believe it matters if you’ve satisfied those questions about authenticity, honesty, and confidence in what you’ve created with AI’s help.

Others will disagree strongly. I still see absolutist comments on LinkedIn from people saying you can always tell when something was written by AI. I used to ask how they could tell, but I’ve stopped because the responses often suggest they don’t really know. I don’t believe you can reliably tell.

I particularly enjoy examples where somebody submits a passage by Charles Dickens to an AI detector and it comes back as 98% AI-written. Or somebody tests an article they wrote for a magazine in 1995, and the detector says the same thing. What can you do with that?

Let me ask you, Shel: Would you feel differently if you discovered someone’s LinkedIn post was written by a human rather than an AI?

Shel Holtz: Generally, no, assuming they used the AI well.

I’ll disagree with you on one thing, but only to an extent. You can sometimes recognize AI writing when it was given a weak prompt and defaults to a familiar approach. But that’s different from giving it detailed information about the person whose byline will appear, helping it understand their writing style and thinking, sharing other things they’ve written, and providing guidance on what the piece should say. You might even interview the person and share the transcript.

We’ve had this conversation since the early days of blogs, when people debated whether communicators could acceptably ghostwrite for CEOs. I remember where we came down on it. If the CEO calls and says, “Write a thought-leadership post for me on this topic,” then hangs up and leaves you to invent it from scratch, that isn’t acceptable.

If you go into the CEO’s office, interview them, and turn your notes into a post, that’s different. Bill Marriott used to record his thoughts and give the recording to his communicators. They didn’t transcribe it word for word because spoken remarks needed editing to work in writing. But the substance was his.

Did he sit there and type it? Was every word one he had chosen? No, but it was his post. In that case, ghostwriting is perfectly acceptable.

Today, AI can assist with that process. If we maintain the practices that make ghostwriting effective, authentic, and ethical, I have no problem with it. It doesn’t matter to me whether a human or AI helped produce the wording, as long as it reads well and reflects what the person would have said. That person also needs to approve it. We haven’t mentioned that yet.

Neville Hobson: I agree. The process you described, using Shel Israel as an example—interviewing the subject, spending hours preparing, and understanding their thinking—would still apply.

I particularly like the idea of using voice-recording tools that connect to Claude, ChatGPT, or another AI assistant. You could ask the CEO to do a brain dump on the topic, as unstructured as they feel comfortable making it. The recording uploads, you get a transcript, and AI can help interpret or organize it and suggest where you might take the story.

That can save a tremendous amount of time compared with doing everything the traditional way. There’s a benefit to AI assistance, and I hope professional communicators make the most of those tools.

Of course, some people will skim the output or post it as it is. We’re talking about people who bring their professional skills and judgment to the work. Based on the criteria you outlined, I wouldn’t feel differently about a post written with AI assistance. If those steps had been followed, I’d be comfortable with it.

Yet I can think of half a dozen people who would strongly disagree. This seems to be a never-ending discussion.

Shel Holtz: It is. One other thing we haven’t discussed is disclosure.

I don’t think most ghostwriting requires disclosure. I don’t think Shel Israel’s name appeared on the books he ghostwrote. My friend Bill, who writes memoirs through the online service, doesn’t have his name on them either. Those memoirs have a small distribution: “This is my memoir for my children and grandchildren.”

But you may remember an instance when a company wanted a PR agency to tweet on the CEO’s behalf while he was at a conference. The agency initially refused, saying, “We’re not you. We’re not going to pretend to be you.” They eventually agreed that roughly every fifth tweet would remind readers that the agency was tweeting on the CEO’s behalf.

You have to think about where people might feel deceived and where the writing arrangement simply doesn’t matter.

Neville Hobson: I agree. That’s our latest 50 cents’ worth of opinion on this topic. We’d like to hear your thoughts. If you’re a ghostwriter listening to this, we’d especially love to hear what you think. It’s an ongoing conversation.

Shel Holtz: And that’ll be a 30 for this episode of For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #530: Has AI Created a Demand for Human Ghostwriters? appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

AI has evolved enough now that one-shotting entire deliverables is tempting, and many people online claim to be doing just that. In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss why that’s a bad idea, and how you can train your AI tool to give you less slop-like content.

Chip is fed up with receiving one too many pieces of material with no human thought applied to them, not in preparation, not in editing, not even in the decision to hit send. His take on the broader one-shotting trend is that when the result is actually good, it’s rarely a true one-shot. The person usually spent months feeding their AI tool context first, the same way a good off-the-cuff article draws on years of accumulated expertise.

Gini suggests treating AI like a capable intern. You wouldn’t send an intern’s first draft straight to a client, so don’t do that with AI either. She describes going back and forth with her tools so much that Claude once asked her to batch her edits instead of making them one at a time. Chip pushes back on the intern comparison, arguing that with enough context and consistent feedback, AI has moved closer to a capable mid-level colleague. That feedback loop is also the focus of Gini’s internal training program, Slack sessions where the team is currently learning to push back, reject, and refine AI output instead of just accepting it.

However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that because it needs your guidance, AI isn’t worth using. Being the human in the loop doesn’t make you the savior of your business. Owners who rely solely on humans without using AI are making as grave of a mistake as people who think they can replace themselves entirely with AI. [read the transcript]

The post ALP 316: Agency owners need to manage AI like employees appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

A Press-Gazette investigation found that dozens of experts quoted in the mainstream media don’t actually exist, and PR agencies are unwittingly sharing them with the press. This poses a credibility issue for the agencies and the media. It requires a layer of verification unlike anything we’ve faced before.

Also in this episode, crisis communication has long been housed in the PR or communications department. Should it be a governance responsibility of the C-suite? That’s the case made in a new report from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and the Institute of Directors.

In his Tech Report, Dan York covers an initiative to close the AI language gap, including video moves by YouTube and Bluesky, smart glasses, and enhancements to Threads’ podcast toolkit.

Links from this episode:

• Chartered Institute of Public Relations and Institute of Directors publish Crisis Communication Handbook for Boards
• Executive Reputation: Priced, Prized and Easily Lost
• Kate Winick: This Is a Bad Brand Clapback
• Converse Ad Sparks Controversy Over Racist Imagery
• Virtual Reality: The Widely Quoted Media Experts Who Are Not What They Seem
• Qwoted Bans AI-Generated Expert Profiles as PR Spam Floods Reporters’ Inboxes
• Prominent Art Therapist Quoted by Vice, Forbes and Others Is AI-Generated
• The Rise of Fake AI Experts: A Wake-Up Call for the Community
• The Rise of the Fake Expert: How to Remain Authentic in an Inbox of Fakes

Links from Dan York’s Tech Report:

• Closing AI’s Language Gap: Why the Internet Society Is Joining a Global Commitment
• Bluesky Now Lets You Upload 10-Minute-Long Videos
• What’s New at Made on YouTube 2026?
• New YouTube Live Tools for Fan Funding, Dubbing and More
• Everything Announced at Meta Connect 2026
• Snap Launches $2,195 Specs Smart Glasses
• Threads Expands Podcast Toolkit for Creators and Listeners

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR is tentatively scheduled to drop on Monday, October 26.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz: Hi, everybody, and welcome to episode 529 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz in Concord, California.

Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville Hobson in Somerset in the UK.

Shel Holtz: Neville, it is wonderful to be back together with you again.

Neville Hobson: It’s been a bit of a strange few weeks because of some health issues I’m working through. They’ve affected my availability to record our midweek shows. I was particularly keen to make sure we could record the topics we’re discussing today. Hopefully, by the time our next monthly episode comes around, I’ll be close to normal again.

Shel Holtz: My fingers are certainly crossed. To accommodate all of this, we’re recording a shortened version of our monthly episode: two topics plus Dan York’s report. We’ll also have a quick recap of the two episodes since our last monthly show.

Neville Hobson: Episode 527 was a particularly interesting long-form show with six topics. Our lead story was about a senior manager who discovered that AI was rejecting job applications within seconds of their arrival. One reason was that applicants had graduated from college before 2010, even though the instruction was to surface candidates who displayed “youthful energy.” What’s worse, the talent acquisition manager saw no liability issue because AI had made the decision. If I recall correctly, she said, “We’re okay. We have no liability because the AI made the decision.” If it weren’t so serious, it would be hilarious.

We also discussed an expert witness who used ChatGPT to prepare a report for a legal case. The prompts he used—not just the AI’s output—were uncovered during discovery and entered into evidence. You have to check these things.

Then, in episode 528, we talked about fandom. We explored the differences among fans, audiences, and communities. A fan’s identity can become tied to a team, artist, product, or other object of passion. It’s no surprise that marketers want their brands to inspire that kind of excitement, but not everything has the potential to develop a fan base. We received a couple of comments about that episode.

Shel Holtz: Brian Kilgore in Toronto wrote, “Good show. In my life, I’ve worn Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Hopalong Cassidy clothes, an MG T-shirt, and a sweatshirt I designed using ASCII code as the hook for CNCP telecommunications. One cap that I’ve lost says ‘Nikon Most Excellent.’” Brian has been a fan of quite a few things.

We also received an audio comment from our tech reporter, Dan York.

Dan York: Hey, Shel and Neville. I had a comment on episode 528. I found myself cringing when I heard marketers talking about how to grow a fandom. You have fans, and marketers should find where those fans are and engage with them. They shouldn’t be trying to build a fandom.

You were right that fandom can be part of someone’s identity. My neighbors across the street are big Mazda Miata owners. They each have one, and they go on rallies and tours with other owners. It’s a community and a group, but being Miata owners is also part of who they are. To its credit, the local Mazda dealership supports that community.

There’s a lot of fandom on Reddit, too. I own a Hyundai Santa Cruz, a little vehicle that’s rather like an SUV with a truck bed on the back. Its subreddit has people sharing photos, asking questions, and talking about what they’re doing with their vehicles. Some are passionate about these little trucks. I’ve seen that with other vehicles as well.

Marketers and communicators, please don’t talk about trying to create a fandom. Find the fans where they are.

Shel Holtz: Thanks, Dan. I couldn’t agree more. If there’s a fan base around something you make or represent, by all means, see how you can support it and become more visible to it. Trying to build a fan base around something that doesn’t naturally inspire one can feel artificial.

I hadn’t thought to look for those communities on Reddit. I have a Ford Mustang Mach-E, and as soon as we’re done recording, I’m going to look for a Mach-E subreddit. I have to believe there is one. I appreciate the comment.

I also want to mention Circle of Fellows. Episode 133, part two of our conversation on AI and the leadership moment for the communication profession, should be available by the time you hear this. Adrian Cropley returned, and we were joined by Mary Hills, Cyrus Mavalwala, and Robin McCasland.

Our next episode is Thursday, October 29, at 6 p.m. Eastern. That hour accommodates Zora Artis, who will be joining us for a discussion of connection and leadership. Three other Fellows will join us as well. You’ll find details on the FIR Podcast Network website.

Neville Hobson: Let’s talk about crisis communication—or, more precisely, governance. When we talk about crisis communication, many of us picture what happens once a crisis is underway: the holding statement, the spokesperson, media response, frantic internal calls, whether the CEO should go public, and how quickly the organization says something. But a new handbook from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ Crisis Communications Network, published with the UK’s Institute of Directors, argues that this way of thinking starts far too late.

The handbook, Crisis Communication for Boards: A Handbook for Good Governance, argues that crisis communication belongs within governance, risk management, and organizational resilience. By the time a crisis breaks, many factors that determine how well an organization responds have already been decided.

Has the board understood the risks? Has it treated reputation as a strategic risk? Are escalation routes in place? Can uncomfortable information move quickly from the front line to senior management and the board? Have stakeholder relationships been built before they’re urgently needed? Has anyone rehearsed making decisions quickly under scrutiny with incomplete or conflicting information?

The handbook’s point is that crisis management begins long before a crisis hits, and boards should own it as part of their responsibility for organizational resilience. Communication runs through crisis management because it shapes how events are understood, how decisions are interpreted, and whether trust is maintained or lost.

One line early in the handbook captures the argument: “You cannot communicate your way out of a crisis that you behaved your way into.” That shifts the communicator’s role. If communications is brought in only after management has made its decisions, when the organization is already under pressure, the communicator starts at a disadvantage. Senior communicators should be involved earlier to help boards understand how decisions may be perceived, where stakeholder concerns are emerging, which assumptions may be wrong, and where the organization’s behavior may be creating reputational risk.

That means treating communications as an intelligence function as well as a messaging function. The handbook emphasizes horizon scanning, stakeholder relationships, and the flow of information throughout the organization. Emerging risks increasingly cross legal, regulatory, HR, operations, technology, and communications boundaries. Communicators can help boards understand what’s happening and what it may mean for trust, legitimacy, and reputation.

The handbook is blunt about the consequences of getting this wrong. Poor or delayed communication can itself become a reputational risk. Minor incidents can escalate, information can become trapped in silos, and boards can lose touch with what employees, customers, and other stakeholders are saying. Once trust is damaged, recovery can take years.

It also addresses AI, cyber risk, misinformation, and the speed at which reputational issues spread. With AI, it asks familiar governance questions: Who decided? Who verified? What accountability was in place? Technology can change the nature and speed of a crisis, but it doesn’t remove the board’s responsibility for decisions.

The handbook goes further, arguing that strategic communication belongs inside the governance structure, with access to the board and potentially representation at board level. A board that waits until a crisis to engage communications has already lost some of the ground on which trust is built.

So, Shel, have we been using the term “crisis communication” too narrowly? Is it about what you say once a crisis happens, or about how the organization is governed before it happens?

Shel Holtz: I think the answer is yes. Communication has to happen during a crisis, but it can’t be the work of a department brought in to clean up afterward. It has to be woven into the organization’s approach to crisis governance. That isn’t solely a communications function.

The question of having a “seat at the table”—a term you know I hate—matters if an organization doesn’t take crisis preparedness seriously. Some leaders think, “We’re fine. We don’t have crises. If one happens, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” If you can’t get access to leadership to make the case for crisis governance, then that lack of access is a problem.

This is timely for me because I’m helping develop a crisis management plan. We’re calling it that rather than a crisis communication plan. I’m not suggesting you can necessarily manage every aspect of a crisis, but the plan needs a name. We’re developing it by committee, and in this case, that’s a strength. Crisis governance requires active participation from several parts of the organization. Communications can’t wave a document when a crisis hits and announce, “Here’s the plan, everybody.” People need to have helped develop it, understood it, and practiced it.

Our committee includes a senior operations leader, our general counsel, our vice president of best practices, and the head of safety. They all have a say in how we approach crisis governance. Horizon scanning falls largely to me in communications, although leadership listens when something comes to us through our monitoring service or another channel.

The plan also identifies who should convene on the crisis team based on the nature of the event. You need different expertise for an operational crisis than for a digital security crisis. Those teams need practice to develop the muscle memory to respond well.

As our friend Philippe Borremans would say, we’re in an era of polycrisis. You may face several dimensions of one crisis at once, or two unrelated crises that begin to intersect. Adversaries can see what’s happening and take advantage of it. I found an example in our industry that started as a safety issue, became a legal issue, then a financial one, and ultimately put the company out of business. The ability to pivot quickly has to be built into both governance and training.

That’s why tabletop exercises matter. Give the team a realistic scenario, put people through their paces, and introduce complications that force them to adapt. Ideally, you would do that four times a year. I don’t know how you build muscle memory if it’s merely an annual exercise people feel obliged to complete.

None of this sits solely within a communications department’s purview. Communications informs the communication dimensions, but leadership and the other functions have to prepare together. It cannot begin with a call to communications saying, “We’ve got a crisis. Help.”

Neville Hobson: Another point that stood out to me is that communicators should challenge decisions, not merely explain them. The handbook presents senior communicators as sources of stakeholder intelligence and constructive challenge. They can help boards anticipate how decisions will be interpreted, spot emerging reputational risks, and counter groupthink. That goes well beyond creating messages.

If the communicator enters the room only after a decision has been made, have we misunderstood the role? Sometimes the most valuable contribution is to say, “You may not want to do this in the first place.”

Shel Holtz: That connects to identifying issues before they become crises. I can’t remember the exact wording, but I recall a thought from the IABC Excellence Study: A crisis is what an organization faces when it fails at issues identification and management. If you see an issue coming and act, you may keep it from becoming a full-blown crisis.

One definition I use for a crisis is that it can become existential. If it spins out of control, it can affect your ability to do business. The organizations that say, “We’ve never had one; things are going great,” may be particularly unprepared when a crisis arrives.

Our plan includes holding statements—not just one, but several for different circumstances—that can be revised and issued quickly. Delay can look evasive. Victims, adversaries, and others may speak first, and that first account can become the version people remember. Then you have to overcome an impression that has already taken hold.

Even if all you can say is, “We’ve just learned of this and are looking into it,” you can tell people when to expect an update. If you don’t have more information at that point, say you’re continuing to investigate and give them another update time. Give people a reason to turn to you for reliable information.

Neville Hobson: The handbook is worth reading rather than skimming. We’ll link to the PDF on the CIPR website in the show notes. It includes case studies and a toolkit that may be useful in your planning. And I’ll repeat that line: “You cannot communicate your way out of a crisis that you behaved your way into.”

Shel Holtz: Self-inflicted crises are among the hardest to handle. In some crises, the organization is a victim too, even if others are harmed along the way.

One last thought: Many crisis plans fail to include employees among the stakeholders they need to communicate with. Employees can be your strongest advocates and supporters during a crisis. If you equip them with accurate information, they may be able to answer questions from clients, vendors, partners, consultants, and others they work with.

Dan York: Greetings, Shel and Neville, and FIR listeners around the world. It’s Dan York on a glorious autumn day in northwest Vermont. I’m drinking warm apple cider and will soon head to an orchard for apple cider doughnuts.

I want to talk about three things happening online. First is an effort announced this past week to close the language gap in AI systems. On September 21, the Gates Foundation announced a five-year commitment with about 60 organizations to make AI services available in more languages.

More than 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide, but most online content is in perhaps seven to 10 languages. AI training data and interfaces are concentrated in even fewer. As part of its Goalkeepers report, the Gates Foundation looked at what’s needed for more people to benefit from AI, and language is a major piece of that.

My employer, the Internet Society, signed on, as did the Coalition on Digital Impact, or CODI, whose board I sit on. CODI is a nonprofit focused on helping people navigate the internet in their own languages. There’s nothing concrete to report yet, but I think this is an exciting development. I’ll share more in the months ahead, including ways people might get involved. Everyone who chooses to use AI should be able to do so in their own language.

My second topic is video. Bluesky now allows uploads of videos up to 10 minutes long. We’ll see whether that encourages more people to make videos there.

YouTube also held its Made on YouTube event on September 23 and announced a range of updates. They include ways to customize the feed on your home page, an Ask YouTube tool for recommendations, more editing tools for Shorts, and features for creating vertical microdramas. YouTube is also adding live-streaming capabilities that appear aimed at competing with Twitch, including new ways for hosts to interact. It says live automatic dubbing into multiple languages is coming by 2027. There’s a lot for creators and communicators who work with video to explore.

I’ve also been following smart glasses. I’m intrigued by their possibilities but concerned about privacy. Cameras built into glasses can be used to record people inappropriately, including women who have not consented. At the same time, I’ve seen how helpful the technology could be for people with disabilities. Someone who is blind, for example, might use smart glasses to navigate a store and learn what’s on the shelves.

That promise comes with difficult questions. You may not know whether the person wearing Ray-Ban smart glasses nearby is livestreaming. Meta has announced more glasses, including a future VR model that sounds closer to goggles than ordinary eyewear. Snap has also announced new augmented-reality Spectacles, with a price around $2,200. Meta has introduced an audio-only option, which may address some concerns about cameras. I’m interested in what these devices can do, but I remain concerned about the privacy implications.

Finally, Threads has announced podcast tools intended to help creators share shows, bring listeners back, and start conversations. They include profile banners, episode link cards, transcript and guest cards, new-episode reminders, and podcast insights. I have a Threads account but don’t use it much anymore. Still, if you’re a podcaster who uses Threads, these tools may be worth a look.

I’ll send it back to you. I need to buy some apple cider doughnuts. Bye for now.

Shel Holtz: Thanks, Dan. I’ve also been following the smart-glasses announcements. Meta’s glasses were around for a while before they developed a stigma, but that stigma has become real. You may remember Google Glass and people being called “Glassholes” for wearing it in public. Something similar seems to be happening with camera-equipped Meta glasses.

A version without cameras strikes me as a smart move. I can see the value of glasses that display turn-by-turn directions or information about what I’m looking at. When I travel internationally and encounter a sign in another language, I pull out my phone and use Google Lens to translate it. Having that translation appear in my glasses would be wonderful. There are many useful things AI glasses could do without intruding on other people.

As for recording, people already use devices such as Plaud and Fieldy. If you ask permission or let people know you’re recording, I don’t see a major issue. I hope AI glasses develop further, though I’m not inclined to buy a pair from Meta.

I’ve also been reading about Meta’s new VR glasses. Initially, I was enthusiastic. I use a Meta Quest 3 mainly to work out with an app called Supernatural. There’s a wonderful story behind Supernatural that we should discuss on the podcast one day. I wanted to know whether my Quest library would work with the new glasses, and apparently it will. I also wondered whether glasses would stay on while I’m jumping around during a workout, and the answer seems to be yes. But then I saw the $1,200 price. People complained that the Quest 3 was expensive at $500. I won’t be rushing out to buy the new device. I’ll see what people say after it’s been out for a while; my Quest 3 works just fine.

Great report, Dan. Thank you.

Dr. Eleni Nicola is described as an art therapist from Cyprus. She has been quoted more than 30 times in recent months: in Forbes on resetting your home office, Vice on what color to paint your walls to calm an anxious dog, Glamour on crying therapy, and Parade on the right way to retire. Different outlets have called her a clinical psychologist, an art therapist, or a creative wellness expert.

The problem is that she doesn’t appear to exist. Press Gazette reported that an image detector rated her profile photo 10 out of 10 for being artificial and her quotes as 100% AI-generated. Her LinkedIn profile was created late last year despite claims of a long career. She isn’t listed by the Art Therapy Credentials Board, which lists thousands of art therapists.

Every one of her online profiles links to the same paint-by-numbers kit retailer, DeVincify, where she is presented as an “expert in residence.” This has become a business model. A quote in Forbes brings a link from a high-authority news site. That can improve search rankings, and rankings can drive sales. SEO operators are building fake personas as part of link-building campaigns. When Press Gazette asked DeVincify to verify her, the company’s statement about taking the matter seriously was itself identified as AI-generated. At the time of publication, her profile was still active.

This is far bigger than one case. Press Gazette has identified more than a thousand articles across outlets including Mail Online, Metro, The Sun, The Mirror, HuffPost UK, Yahoo, and The Independent that relied partly or entirely on fake experts. More than 600 were traced to a single company. One fictitious psychologist was quoted hundreds of times before anyone established that she wasn’t real.

The fakes aren’t limited to sources. Tech sites have pulled articles attributed to finance writers whom Press Gazette couldn’t verify. One claimed a Deloitte career that Deloitte has no record of; another used a headshot that appears to belong to a computer repair technician in the United States.

Dan Simon, who runs the journalist-sourcing platform Qwoted, says the platform handles more than 15 violations a day and blocks about 50 prospective clients from registering each day. As he put it, “AI has just poured petrol on the disinformation fire.” The combinations include real agencies with fake experts, real experts with fake expertise, and fake agencies with fake experts.

David Higgerson at Reach, publisher of The Mirror, said agencies Reach regularly works with had supplied fake experts without realizing it. They had sourced the quotes in good faith. That makes PR both a victim and a vector. If an agency fails to verify the experts it puts forward, it can launder fakes into the news.

These are things we need to catch before publication. A LinkedIn profile is no longer enough to establish that someone is real. Reach has whitelisted hundreds of PR firms, built an AI tool called The Detective to assess whether spokespeople are genuine, and added another layer of verification for people quoted on health or money. Qwoted is introducing video verification. One platform requires responses to be recorded live on camera. Another stopped offering open access because verifying everyone would otherwise have threatened its business.

Simple checks still help. Ask for a five-minute call. Ask the person to respond to a specific photo request. If they claim a professional credential, check the relevant registry. One supposed expert stopped responding when asked for a photo. Another was exposed when an agency checked a WhatsApp profile picture and found that it belonged to a man doing SEO for a recipe blog.

Neville, what else can an honest communicator do to avoid perpetuating quotes from fake experts?

Neville Hobson: I was surprised by how readily fake experts were accepted by major media outlets. I remember a case involving The Telegraph a few months ago. I can’t recall the details, but it published something false, then removed it and apologized. Why wasn’t it checked first?

We make the same argument about people using AI-generated content without checking it, but source verification is even more fundamental. I don’t know precisely how every newsroom chooses and verifies the people it quotes. Clearly, though, something is seriously amiss if this is happening on an industrial scale.

We may need stronger ways to prove digital identity, comparable in some respects to the checks involved in applying for a passport or, in my case as a school governor, undergoing a criminal-records check. Informal methods aren’t working, and manual checks are difficult to scale. The people creating fakes can scale their efforts. We may have to give up some of the casualness with which we’ve approached verification.

Shel Holtz: One detail that struck me was that this involved a paint-by-numbers company. If a company selling paint kits is doing this, who else is? We tend to picture shady crypto operators or other familiar bad actors. But anyone trying to sell something and gain an SEO advantage might be tempted.

A journalist’s credibility is at risk when a quoted expert turns out not to exist. News organizations need a process for vetting sources, and they should tell readers what that process is. PR people need one too. If you use a fake expert’s quote to support a press release or offer that person to a reporter, why would that reporter trust you again after discovering the deception?

This reminds me of a story we discussed years ago about a purported bank robbery in Texas. A local publication reported it, a larger outlet picked it up, wire services followed, and it spread through news sites, television, and radio. The original story was fake. Each outlet assumed the previous one had checked it.

Now the assumption is, “This person has ‘Dr.’ before their name and a LinkedIn profile, so they must be legitimate.” That is woefully inadequate. We need processes to catch these fabrications before we send them into the world.

Neville Hobson: That’s the issue. It doesn’t make much sense for every media outlet to build a different verification process. That won’t scale. There may be a role for independent services whose job is to verify that people are who they claim to be.

Imagine a PR firm with a strong reputation for providing knowledgeable spokespeople. If just one turns out to be fake, doubts could arise about everyone the firm has supplied. Firms need a way to bolster their own credibility and give journalists and clients confidence in the people they put forward. AI will only make this problem worse. It’s unfortunate, but we’ve reached a point where verification is essential.

Shel Holtz: I like the idea of vendors offering verification as a service. It’s also an example of new work arising as AI changes existing jobs. In the meantime, a five-minute video call or a specific photo request can help establish that an individual is real. Those checks may not scale across thousands of sources, but they are steps people can take while better systems are developed.

Ultimately, we need scalable solutions. This affects reputation and trust, particularly if people act on advice that was fabricated simply to sell a paint-by-numbers kit.

Neville Hobson: Amazing.

Shel Holtz: That’s our report for today. We would love to hear your comments. Audio comments are especially welcome—you heard one today. Send us an MP3 of up to three minutes, or record a message directly on the FIR website by clicking the “Send Voicemail” tab on the right side of the page.

You can also comment where we post episode announcements, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon, or leave a comment in the show notes at FIRPodcastNetwork.com. We’ll find it, and you can be part of the conversation.

Ratings and reviews mean a great deal to us, too. Wherever you get your podcasts, we’d be grateful if you would rate and review the show.

We plan to record our next monthly episode on Saturday, October 24.

Neville Hobson: That’s right, and we’ll publish it on Monday.

Shel Holtz: Monday, October 26. As for shorter midweek episodes, we’ll see how Neville is feeling. If you subscribe to the show, new episodes will appear in your feed as soon as they’re available, without your having to wait for an announcement. And that’s a wrap for this episode of For Immediate Release.

The post FIR #529: Fake Quotes from Fake Experts Find Their Way Into Top-Tier Media appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Last month, a panel of IABC Fellows shared their observations on the results of a recent AI-focused survey conducted by the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management (Global Alliance). This month, a fresh panel (with Adrian Cropley returning) will pick up the conversation where the August panel left off, exploring various aspects of the role communication professionals will play as AI continues to evolve, along with the challenges and opportunities it presents to organizations of all kinds.

Joining Adrian and moderator Shel Holtz are Mary Hills, Robin McCasland, and Cyrus Mavalwala.

Catch Part 1 of the discussion.

About the Panel

Adrian Cropley is the founder and director of the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence, a global training and development organization. For over thirty years, Adrian has worked with clients worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies, on major change communication initiatives, internal communication reviews and strategies, professional development programs, and executive leadership and coaching. He is a non-executive director on several boards and advises some of the top CEOs and executives globally.

Adrian is a past global chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), where he implemented the IABC Career Road Map, kick-started a global ISO certification for the profession, and developed the IABC Academy. Adrian pioneered the Melcrum Internal Communication Black Belt program in Asia Pacific and is a sought-after facilitator, speaker, and thought leader. He has been a keynote speaker and workshop leader on strategic and change communication at international conferences in Canada, the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, China, India, Hong Kong, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. He has received numerous awards, including IABC Gold Quill Awards for communication excellence, and his Agency received Boutique Agency of the Year 6 years running.

Adrian is the Chair of the Industry Advisory Committee for the RMIT School of Media and Communication and a Fellow of the IABC and RSA. In 2017, he was awarded the Medal of Order of Australia for his contribution to the field of communication.

Mary Hills, ABC, IABC Fellow, Six Sigma, FCSCE serves as MBA Faculty in Benedictine University’s Goodwin College of Business, teaching brand and marketing management. Her work in marketing, finance and organizational structure and management naturally brings an interdisciplinary perspective to her students.

Mary’s professional career includes work at large, publicly traded corporations in the financial sector and at closely held, middle-market companies.  Her work includes time at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Whiteco Advertising, NiSource, Northern Trust, Unilever, and Zebra Technologies. As a member of strategic management teams, her work includes research, risk analysis, and strategic planning for product launches, market expansion, and change and crisis management

Mary’s AI work began in 2012 supporting a start-up’s AI product development at Purdue Technology Center and Research Park of NWI. Most recently, she completed AI Usage and Guidelines in Marketing Research for MBA students in her brand and marketing class.

Robin McCasland, IABC Fellow, SCMP, is Senior Director of Corporate Communications for Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). She leads her department’s CommTech initiative, using AI and emerging technologies to deliver productivity gains and build differentiated communication capabilities that shape business decisions and outcomes. Robin also leads the internal communications team and the employee listening program, demonstrating to senior leaders how employee and executive communication add value to the business’s bottom line. Previously, Robin excelled in leadership roles in communication for Texas Instruments, Dell, Tenet Healthcare, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

Robin is a past IABC chairman and has served in numerous association leadership roles for more than 30 years. She was honored in 2023 and 2021 by Ragan Communications/PR Daily as one of the Top Women Leaders in Communication. She’s also received IABC Southern Region and IABC Dallas Communicator of the Year honors. Robin is a frequent presenter at communication and HR conferences. She is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and a Leadership Texas alumnus. Robin resides in Dallas.

Cyrus Mavalwala, ABC, MC, IABC Fellow, is a sought-after communication strategist who leads a team of trusted advisors that executives rely on to capture, own, and sustain mindshare with the people that matter most.

After senior roles at global PR agencies, Cyrus founded Advantis Communications in 2002. Advantis’ proprietary frameworks operationalize AI, elevate social media, and integrate video to advance thought leadership and earn relevance, influence, and trust. These frameworks have been cited in news media, industry, and academia. Cyrus helps communication teams apply AI responsibly to improve workflows, increase effectiveness, and amplify impact.

Through Act Like an Agency™, Cyrus leads ALA faculty to elevate communication teams from tacticians to trusted advisors. An operating system for the modern communication function, Act Like an Agency enables in-house teams to operate with the confidence, discipline, and influence of strategic business partners.

A co-creator of the Digital Strategy and Communications Management Certificate at the University of Toronto, Cyrus brings his strategic perspective and practical frameworks to classrooms, boardrooms, and stages across North America.

Cyrus brings deep governance experience through his service with IABC at the local, regional, and international levels. He has judged industry awards and received more than 30 honors for communication excellence across local, national, and international programs.

The post Circle of Fellows #133: AI and the Communication Leadership Moment, Part 2 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Employee engagement is often treated as a goal — or worse, as a standalone annual survey score that needs to be nudged upward to placate the CEO. But engagement is not an end in itself. It is a condition that makes employees more likely to flag problems, share knowledge, question bad instructions, help colleagues, and contribute discretionary effort. Measuring it can be valuable, but only if an organization asks the right questions, receives honest answers, and acts on what it learns.

In this episode of “On The Same Page,” Shel Holtz and Mark Dollins examine what employee engagement really means, the limitations of standardized surveys, and why disengagement is a leading indicator while turnover is a lagging one. They also explore the role communicators can play — without assuming responsibility for factors they cannot control — and why equipping managers to listen, provide feedback, and translate organizational messages for their teams may be one of Communication’s most effective contributions.

Links from this episode:

• The Big Shift — A Pivot from “Engaged” to “Effective”
• Employee Engagement Is Not Dead. It Has A Messaging Problem
• Employee Engagement is Toast. What’s Next?

Raw Transcript:

Mark Dollins:
Hey, Shel, how are you doing?

Shel Holtz:
I am doing great. I’m heading out on vacation tomorrow, and I’m ready for it.

Mark Dollins:
I’m right behind you next week, so it’s good that we were able to connect. Something interesting happened in my family that got me thinking about a topic we could cover today. I have a family member who is seriously thinking about getting engaged, and my wife and I are coming up on 40 years since we got engaged. So, let’s talk about engagement, right?

But you and I have a very different orientation to engagement in the world of employee communication, and I thought we could talk about that. I’m going to start with something fundamental that a lot of people struggle with: defining it. There’s a big-picture version of engagement, but for employee communicators, what we need to consider can be very specific to an organization or even to a person within that organization. What is your 30,000-foot view?

Shel Holtz:
I have heard so many definitions of engagement. I’ve heard that engagement is what enables employees to bring their whole selves to work. I’ve also heard pushback on that: Who would want to bring their whole self to work? There are parts of yourself you don’t necessarily want people to see at work.

I’ve also heard that engagement means bringing discretionary effort to the job—going above and beyond. Of all the definitions I’ve heard, one I like is the analogy to a car. If the transmission is engaged, the car is moving. If the transmission is disengaged, it’s idling. How do you want your organization to be moving? You want it going forward, not standing still.

Before we jump into this discussion in more detail, I want to invite everybody watching or listening to share your comments with us. You can do that in the show notes, where there’s a field for comments, or wherever we post updates announcing a new episode. We would love to discuss your comments in an upcoming episode.

Mark Dollins:
That’s how we learn, too, right, Shel? We enjoy talking, but we also enjoy learning from others, so please share your comments.

Moving on to the broader topic of engagement, I think about some of the studies that have been done. Gallup, obviously, spends a lot of time focusing on the details of employee engagement. This year, it released a report saying that about 20% of the global workforce was engaged at work last year. In 2022, its comparison point, the figure was 23%. So it’s starting to fall again toward almost COVID-level territory. Gallup is quite confident in its reporting and says the margin of error is less than 0.1%.

The report makes some interesting points about the value of paying attention to engagement. It says engaged people are 69% less likely to burn out at work, half as likely to be job hunting and 69% more likely to be “thriving” in life, even beyond work. Gallup takes a very holistic approach.

As you noted earlier, Shel, it measures many factors in determining what it means to be engaged: whether employees know what’s expected of them, whether they have the right materials and equipment, whether they are allowed to do what they do best and whether they receive recognition. The list goes on and on. As you think about this big-picture world of capital-E Engagement, what are you finding with your clients and in your own organization?

Shel Holtz:
We conduct an engagement survey every year. We don’t use one of the canned engagement surveys; we have a bespoke survey. After we get the results, we can easily reconfigure the data, batch questions into categories and see where we stand on broader areas that matter to the organization’s leadership.

More importantly, we can identify opportunities to improve and come back to employees to say, “These are the things we’re going to change as a result.” We can also narrow the results down. There may be a very low score in one part of the organization and a much better score elsewhere. That enables us to take action locally and work with the leaders of those groups to make improvements that will lift the rest of the organization.

Mark Dollins:
You’re raising a critical point about how employee communicators should think about engagement: Understand what’s important to your organization. Just as there are different definitions of engagement, what management and executives value will differ from one organization to another.

In my experience working with many organizations, an organizational-health or pulse survey typically has a finite set of perhaps eight to 10 questions that someone—usually the chief people officer—has decided matter most and represent what the organization cares about for engagement.

Here’s where it gets interesting for employee communicators. We want to help, be accountable and deliver results that help employees feel engaged. But then we sign up for things without understanding what we’re responsible for or whether we can influence them. Many questions, for example, are about what a manager does. I can’t control all time and space for every manager. But if we spend time determining which questions reflect outcomes we can influence, that’s where we should focus.

Sometimes we’re behind the eight ball because we don’t have a say in the questions being asked. Some questions are worded so broadly that you could drive a truck through them. Take a question about understanding the company mission. People may interpret that in different ways. Some will think it means the enterprise mission; some, their functional leader’s mission; and others, their team leader’s vision of where the team is going. You end up with a mixture of feedback you can’t meaningfully act on.

There are three lessons here. First, understand what the questions are. Second, choose what you’re able to influence. Third, make sure the questions are worded in a way that can produce actionable information.

Shel Holtz:
I think that’s important. I’m actively involved in developing the questions for our survey every year. Most of them don’t change because we want to conduct longitudinal measurement and see whether we’ve improved or declined from previous years or whether a trend is emerging. But we introduce new questions, and when we identify an issue with the way a question was worded, we fix it for the next survey. I definitely have influence there.

It’s not just Communication that uses the survey. It’s a significant input for Human Resources and for leadership in how they lead the organization. Part of the process is parceling out the data to the people who can act on it, even if Communication can’t.

Mark Dollins:
I love hearing that you have a seat at the table because, in many organizations where I’ve worked or consulted, those questions are sacrosanct. No one touches them, or changing them requires an act of God. That puts a communicator in a difficult position: How can I be accountable for changing an outcome if I have no say in how the question is worded? What did you do to earn that seat at the table and that influence, Shel?

Shel Holtz:
I’ve been involved with our engagement survey since we first launched it. I had experience with engagement surveys before, and that led to my role.

There is an engagement-survey industry, and I think that industry has diminished the perceived value of engagement for many people. A lot of people “study for the test.” It’s engagement-survey time, leadership wants a high engagement score and the boss tells employees how to answer so they won’t get in trouble for contributing to a lower score. That’s not helpful. We need sincere answers. We need people to tell the truth when they respond.

Look at Gallup’s Q12 survey, for example. One question that drives me crazy is, “Do you have a best friend at work?” It’s not one of my favorite engagement questions. I understand the rationale and why it’s there, but I don’t think that really drives engagement. Some people want to come to work, do their jobs and go home. They don’t want to go out for a beer after work or do the axe-throwing team-building activity. That doesn’t mean they aren’t engaged. Other things drive engagement besides wanting to party with your colleagues.

Mark Dollins:
For communicators who aren’t in your position and are trying to navigate the questions being asked and what they’re responsible for, my advice is to keep asking why: Why are we asking this question, and what do we expect to get from it?

Digging deeper with those “why” questions can help communicators understand the thinking. If the questions come from the CHRO or someone else in HR, ask, “Help me understand why we’re asking this. Why do you think it’s so important?” Push a little. Healthy discernment—and sometimes healthy debate—will give us better information for making informed communication decisions.

Shel Holtz:
Absolutely. Part of the problem is that many organizations think engagement is the goal—the outcome they’re seeking—rather than a condition that needs to exist for the organization to achieve its goals and outcomes.

Think about what disengaged people don’t do. They don’t flag a problem early. They don’t help a colleague, share what they know, question a bad instruction or stay late when it matters. These are effectiveness behaviors that don’t show up on a decision-rights audit.

Some people who are critical of engagement as a metric say what we really need is competence. But a competent, disengaged employee is the one updating a résumé. Mike Klein, who has written about his objections to engagement as a metric, says people vote with their feet. He’s absolutely right—but disengagement is the leading indicator. Turnover is the lagging indicator.

Mark Dollins:
Exactly. By the time you get to attrition, it’s costly. It’s better to intercede where possible than to wait for those outcomes, because that doesn’t help anybody.

Shel Holtz:
Communication plays a significant role in engagement. It starts with explaining why we’re asking employees to complete the survey. Then it involves sharing the results, helping people understand what they mean and communicating what the organization will do about them.

Mark, you’ve written two books about communication and engagement. What do you see as Communication’s leading role in driving, supporting or sustaining engagement?

Mark Dollins:
Manager influence on employee behavior is critical. Employee communicators can serve the interests of engagement by working with managers—especially middle managers and frontline managers. That’s where we see higher turnover rates and where professionals often lack the skills or training they need to support stronger engagement on their teams.

We spend a lot of time on general employee communication, but if we don’t focus on and equip and empower leaders—all the way out to the front line—we’re doing our organizations a disservice. That is where the big levers get pulled: in day-to-day interactions.

You’ve heard the expression that employees don’t leave companies; they leave managers. It comes down to that relationship: whether employees feel informed, equipped and empowered, and whether the mission is clear. All of those things are funneled through leaders to the front line. We have to invest time there. I have a couple of chapters in my books about this because I feel so passionately about it. Organizations that do this well typically have lower attrition and higher engagement.

Shel Holtz:
I’m a big fan of Engage for Success, the UK movement working to elevate engagement in UK organizations. David MacLeod, one of the people behind it, and I were both speakers at a conference in Poland probably 13 or 14 years ago.

Engage for Success has four enablers of engagement, and I like that framework better than any other I’ve seen. One of those enablers is engaging managers. It’s absolutely critical to have managers who engage with their people.

My problem with many managers is that they were promoted into the role based on their performance as individual contributors. They hit the top of their pay range, and the way to promote them and give them a higher paycheck is to make them managers. Then they don’t receive the training, resources or help they need to learn how to manage. They are just suddenly in charge of a team.

Mark Dollins:
There’s a corollary for employee communicators: We often don’t get the resources or bandwidth to support managers in those ways. We tend to focus on content: “Let’s give them the message.” We don’t spend enough time asking, “Do you have the skill to deliver this message meaningfully? Let us help you.”

If we’re thinking ahead about where employee communicators can make an impact on engagement, we should consider how we can help managers not just with content, but also with skills. That’s not limited to delivering a message. How do you learn to listen? How do you learn to provide feedback? Those are critical skills for leaders, as well as individual contributors.

As you said, people are often promoted without those skills, which creates a compound problem: They don’t know how to do these things themselves, and now they’re in charge of other people. Supporting them is a worthwhile place to invest time and energy.

Have you worked in organizations on programs that support managers’ team and small-group interpersonal communication skills?

Shel Holtz:
I have, but nowhere more than where I work now. The organization is fully invested in the role of the manager and in adopting a culture of management.

IBM used to have that culture. Business schools would visit IBM to see how its managers managed. The company has lost some of that over the last couple of decades, but my current organization is very serious about it.

We do several things in Communication to support managers. One is a monthly email newsletter called Manager Talking Points. It always starts with three or four things we believe are important enough for managers to share with their teams. The message should come from the manager because we want managers to add the local angle—to translate or interpret what the information means for their teams and the work they’re doing.

The newsletter also includes a couple of articles. One might cover a recent survey or study about management. We also have a managers’ blog where we invite managers to share something small they did that helped. It isn’t a major business-school lesson, just a practical tip others can try.

One manager, for example, invited someone at each monthly team meeting to cook something from their ethnic background and share it with the group. That led to conversations about those backgrounds, helped people get to know one another, was fun and built the team. I love it when people write about those kinds of ideas.

Mark Dollins:
Creative approaches to engaging managers in different ways—I love that. We’re almost at the end of our time. Do you have any closing thoughts on engagement, Shel?

Shel Holtz:
I like the idea of discretionary effort from employees, and I think engaged employees will provide it. But we have to be thoughtful about the mechanisms we use to measure engagement. It should be less about the survey instrument and the survey results and more about what we do with what we learn—and about learning things that matter and can really move the needle.

Engagement is not the end game. It’s a condition we need to achieve, and we need it in concert with other things, such as capability. The best approach is to view engagement as a strategic component of leading an organization rather than saying, “It’s time for the annual engagement exercise. Let’s see if we can move our score up 0.3%.”

Mark Dollins:
Or see whether we can stack the deck a little bit.

At the end of the day, the holy grail for me in employee communication and engagement is behavior change. If something isn’t working, how do we as communicators help change the behavior? That has always been the holy grail in the work I’ve done.

This has been a really engaging conversation, Shel. Thank you for that.

Shel Holtz:
What do employees think, say or do, and how are we trying to influence that? It’s going to be easier to influence those things with an engaged population than with a disengaged one.

Mark Dollins:
Amen to that. We’d love to hear our listeners’ stories about engagement. What do you think?

Shel Holtz:
I’d love to hear them, too. Thanks, Mark. Talk to you next time.

Mark Dollins:
Thank you, Shel. Bye-bye.

Shel Holtz:
Bye.

The post OTSP #8: Employee Engagement Matters. It Is Not the Goal. appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.