TLDR: Communications [and courage] in 2018

Christ and welcome back to at Landia. We have one of our favorite people in the studio today, Dear Dre Latour, talking all things reputation. Dear Dre is the former chief communications officer at g E and has moved on to consult businesses about reputation in the marketplace. And she has a new podcast called flak You. It's one of the smartest business podcasts out there. It's real conversations with real people who are actually practitioners doing communications and marketing in

the world. So we'll be right back with your Latour and we are back at Landia with one of our favorite people in the business. We both worked with our dear dro Latour, reputation guru and former chief communications officer of GE. Welcome, dear Draft, Hey, dear Draft Atlandia. I'm so excited. We're so excited you're here. That's our newly intro Atlandia. So dear draw. Obviously um post ge, you have been out in the world preaching reputation. What does

that look like? Well, there's an easy starter. It looks messy and complicated. And you know, I've been thinking a lot about something I called the courage Class, and I did a podcast on this, and it's really about out um companies and brands and people as an employee having to stand for something. And you see some great brands like Patagonia with them and Nike that really understand their core audience and who actually buys their stuff and is

acting accordingly with their values. So it looks today like having to stand up for something. And in the old days you could, and I've worked for an advised you know CEOs, and the old days the theory was stick your head in the sand and just hope everything goes away.

And you can't do that anymore. So it's funny when we are off Mike, you're saying, you know, as a communications professionals, we are trained to not voice our own opinion in this new paradigm, is it actually important for communications professionals to voice their own opinion at least internally in a different way? Oh? Internally for sure. I mean internally think you have to be the voice of the

conscious of the organization. And I did that often where you're sitting in a boardroom and you're literally the one that's saying, am I did I drink before this meeting? Or because I don't understand what's happening? Because this is not this is going to go badly right? Um, that's generally not the role that the CFO or the c h R O or the general council plays. A general

council plays, it's someone in a different way. So I definitely think internally communications people need to be louder than ever Externally, you still no matter what represent your company, you know, so you have to even if you you can't have there's no such thing with social of a private and a professional life anymore. So how much of that is is gut versus science? Right? What would your advice or consultative strategy be for clients today who are saying, like,

what does this intersection look like? And how do we sort of gauge where a dial up or dial down personal perspective with sort of corporate message. I think it's gut actually plays a huge role, but it's a gut that you develop over many years of experience, right, So it's like a honed gut. However, data increasingly plays a huge role in it. So the gut factor is something we talk about a lot in the whole because everyone's

rushing towards data. But at the end of the day, I think that it takes a special leader to say it's gut and it's not data. Um, we can get the data, but I know this is the right way. Like, how do you balance that as an advisor to someone

like the CEO of General Electric. Yeah, I mean there's a What it is is courage, right, And that's why I talk about it as the courage class because at some level, and we see in our life today, in our public life, like what an incredible lack of courage there is, you know, because people are following data and people are saying in the political world, well, if I want to win in I have to do a B and C. And does a B and C make you sleep well at night? Can you look yourself in the mirror, right.

So I think when you're advising as CEO, the discussion is, you know, you look at all of your stakeholders, like a three sixty view on your stakeholders, your investors, your employees, your board, you know, the people that buy whatever you make, and you do an analysis that's a lot of it is gut Well, how will they react, how will the investors react? How this and what's the risk reward? And you know a lot of times the risk will be worth it. So you have this new podcast, flack You. Yeah,

I love it. Thank you is a great name, and I love that you start. So the description is, no, we're not swearing at you, flack you. Um, it's about taking the word flak back. Communications and messaging are trending in two opposing directions. What does that mean, Well, it

means that they're exactly you know. It means that there's people believe that it's spin and that you're there, you know, um, completely lying, or there's some fancy lawyer that crafted a message that does not sound like any English or any other language. It's just not the way people speak. Right. And one of the amazing appeals of the President is the direct, human, totally way that he talks without being

overly message So you sort of have the two. It's like pure lying and the impact of what lying from the podium at a press briefing at the White House means. So there's that type of communications and then there's the overly scripted, careful one because people are afraid in this environment. So what's the balance? Right? You use courage as an attribute to get you to sort of that level of

communication that reads authenticity. But as you're going through the courage class and as you're talking with executives about reputation in eighteen and beyond, what are the tools and resources are best practices that keep it real um and put executives in the right sort of context to have that cultural conversation Because to your point, like, consumers are savvy, um, and I think in this world of advertising and marketing, sometimes we don't give them enough credit to understand that

that packaged message shows the strategy more often times than not. And so so what's your advice there? It's really like leadership skills, right, It's listening. It's the ability to show vulnerability and the ability to get out of your own bubble. I mean, you know, I'm obsessed with Anthony Borden, right, like the idea of going out in the world and what a talent to go in any culture, in any place in the world and try to understand people. So

I think that's a huge thing. Vulnerability, as I said, it is huge to be able to say I don't know or I do know, but I can't tell you because legally I can't. Right now. As soon as I can, I will. UM. So I think that's a big thing. I talk about financial freedom because it is a girl friend of mine calls it. All of us should have an f you fund, um, and that a flak you fund know, And and what that means is that you have to you know, you you got to say when do I put my badge on the table at a

company and say you know what this is? Um? You know. I hope you guys do well, but it's just not for me. So UM. I think there's all sorts of resources. Of Empathy is a huge, huge thing. You know, how do you really walk in someone else's shoes? Um? And I have an autistic child, so that has taught me a ton about empathy. It's completely changed how my view empathy. So I think all of those things enables you to communicate with people in a way that they say, she's

the real deal and she's not bullshitting us. I love the idea, and it's something that we did. It was something we practiced at d and with Laura um who is leading UM the media agency. I think was getting outside of ourselves constantly, like as a marketing communications team. It was a practice. It was a muscle that we were building. UM. I mean Beth com Stock, I think,

in my opinion, she's the master of that. Yeah. So, like, is there a shift in um, you know, the percentage of listening to your own echo chamber that every communications and marketing professional should be aware of and say you should actually spend eighty percent of your time outside of yourself and twenty of your time internally. Yeah. I think

that's a great idea. It depends on your role. I mean it's probably if you're a chief communications officer, you know, it might be more like fifty percent just because of the nature of the job. What's interesting, it's I think it's actually there's a nuance with marketing because marketing you should probably be you know, with communications because the news

cycles are so fast now and so brutal. There's also something to be said for ignoring everything ng and blocking out the noise and just saying this is my vision, this is what I think we need to do on this team, project, company, whatever it is, and we're going and I know right now it's noisy around the edges. But news I always tell CEO s this is a cycle and in two hours they're going to be on

to something else, you know, depending on what it is. Obviously, So there's a little bit of a nuance when you're running communications. I think, what are your thoughts on sort of where marketing sits then in that news cycle, and and if you're sitting at the communication standpoint, like where your brand is showing up also speaks volumes about the position you maybe I mean where you're placing ads right where you're yeah, I mean it really you can every

brand can stand for something. Even if your Walmart's which needs to be appealing to everyone it's a very broad based company. You still can stand for something. And maybe you're something is quality, maybe you're something is you know, um, so I think you need to find that niche. And then in terms of where you're you're in, what your values are, what your corporate values are, and then where your placing your advertising or doing your UM branded content

or whatever should completely align with those values. So that's if you don't have stated purpose, mission values, brand traits, personality traits which you guys always are so good at sort of building out and then everything should follow that. I think there's this huge thing about UM living those through a buy that is right a media by I'm not sure many marketing teams think about that because they

are siloed to many organizations. The comms team isn't always necessarily integrated with the marketing team level and the team that's actually buying UM and placing the ads. Right, so there may be something happening in the boardroom at an organization that completely impacts UM the context for where your buy is about to show up that evening. We had

that practice a little bit. D I think what's really interesting and it's against all instinct from an advertising perspective to say, I'm not going to do quarterly buys, I'm not gonna buy in the upfronts. And there was a purpose because it was about agility and about being able to turn and change and not be locked in. But I would love your kind of opinion on that. I mean,

it needs to be completely integrated. And but by integrated, I don't know that it necessarily means needs to be one team from a who reports where people report in shouldn't matter. If it does, then you have the wrong team members. And then we that's a whole other separate conversation because people shouldn't care about I don't report to Laura, I report to Alexas and you know. UM, but the alignment with the company's messaging needs to be no light

of day between marketing and communications UM. Of two minds, though, because communications can sometimes get so mired in it depends on what a company is going through. If you're a company that is going through tough chat reputation challenges, UM, you get so focused on that that I think you can lose sight if you let yourself lose sight of pushing the brand and continuing to build the brand and

doing creative new things. So you just want to make sure that there's almost a red team that's like, this is the team that's innovating and experimenting and pushing the brand, as long as it's all lined up to the same ultimate goal, which is really commercial. Yeah, I want to switch gears a little. So I quote you all the time. I don't know if you know this. And the thing that I quote all the time is that you said I have to balance doesn't exist. That is like, that's bullshit,

you can't have balance. I have three kids, I have one autistic son. I work for the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. Um, and you said one of the biggest struggles I've had was I had to see that ambivalence hurt me. And so when I had to decide I'm not going to be at the birthday party or I'm not going to pick them up from school, I'm going to get on the plane to China. I made that decision, I stuck to it, and I moved forward. That's like an incredible life lesson.

But it's also something that I remind myself when I have to make a decision at work. What would you what's your advice for young communications professionals like moving up in the world. What's the kind of the point that matters, you know, in making decisions and moving their career along. Yeah, I mean the ambivalence point is that all stress is

created from that. Right. It's because if you are you know, I should be your half at the soccer game, and you're half at the meeting, then you're not anywhere, right. And so it's also the idea of presence, right and living in the moment, and how do you live more in the moment, which also gets to listening and being with people. I'm not worried about your next thing. I mean,

I think the biggest UM. I mean, you just have to trust yourself and listen to yourself and understand that you have your own voice, um, and make decisions sometimes that are scary decisions, but when you instinctively know their right decisions, UM, and have a support network that is going to enable you to do that. And then there's also the fund that I talked about earlier, which is really like get your finances in order, um. And just

so you feel like it's you can be empowered. UM. You know email it used to always say to me, you can always get another job. The point of that is, you know, if you feel that way, you are so much more empowered, whether you're twenty two or one of the things you just said. The word presence, I think in a world where at least I can personally say I have become addicted to my device, and so much of the communications that we have in our professional lives

is done through a device. The idea of presence feels like it's becoming increasingly more important now than ever. And Alex and I have met a number of executives where you feel that they're just talking to you. The authenticity and what they say is so much more impactful. I think the device is a massive negative, especially the more senior that you get in your career, the more people.

If you go into a meeting with people and you're on your phone and checking your email, the message you're giving that person is you are not important to me. That what is coming into my emails far more important. It's also very um, it's showing people that you are important. You know, I've got a lot of stuff coming in.

You know, stuff's blowing up. You know, it's like really like come on, you know, so I think that you've got to put the phone down and you've got to focus on people, and um, you know, it's a huge deal. Emails awful emails. The worst way. Do not manage people on email. Do not tell people hard things on email. You should be using email for things like please meet me at four at this place. Yea non emotional so

I don't ever do that. I always pick up the phone or call someone in my office and and give authentic, real feedback. It's digitally as horrible. Who are the leaders that you think are doing it best? Like when you think of communicators out in the marketplace today, either from advertising, marketing or just general business leaders, um, who you think like they get it? I you know, I am obsessed

with Tim Cook. I mean, I think Tim Cook is, um just a phenomenal communicator and seemingly I don't know him, but seemingly a phenomenal human being, and the way he runs Apple is really inspiring. What about brands? Who do you think outside of Patagonia to me is like the brand in the parentheses, like everyone agrees, So outside of a Patagoniac, to me, they're like, yep, they're killing it. Who else do you think is doing a great job?

We were just talking about Goldman Sex. I've been blown away by Goldman saxsing Goldman Saxes and you know, for for transparency, my husband works and content at Goldman Sax Original Tour, So you know, so I but Ridge, but they're doing Jake c What runs the team there and he's fantastic and he has opened up that bank, right that's a bank that was a black box before he started running communications. Um Amanda Rubin does a phenomenal job there.

So they're creating content that is in line with their brand, which is very high level thought leadership on market issues and technology. They actually have a talk show, UM Goldman Sachs talk show that they do Talxic Goldman Sacs as well. So it's just it's very creative, but within their their brand and it makes sense for their clients and for them,

and it's really been a turnaround story. I mean, they've truly opened up Goldman Sacks to being a human brand to anyone, which is hard to do, hard to do. It's very hard to do. So we're gonna cut to our favorite game. Okay, dear de Latour, what would you kill? What would you buy? What would you do yourself? I would kill all the isms racism, sexism, things like that. What would I What would you buy? What would you acquire?

What would I buy? I would buy a local newspaper, probably the Boston Globe and dump a bunch of money and hire a bunch of journalists and run it the way Bezos is running the Washington Post. And what would you do yourself? What would I do myself? I would UM figure out the do the research work to figure out the cause of autism so that that we could do something different going forward. If people want to get in touch with you to UM consult on their reputation, how

do they get in touch with you? UM? LinkedIn and Twitter and everyone listen to flak you. It is so smart and I love that you're getting kind of non obvious people too, UM on the show. Great guests, great real conversation. So where can you listen to flac you? Anywhere you find podcasts UM, Spotify, Apple, Google, SoundCloud, SoundCloud. This morning, Deirdre, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you thanks for having me at Landia. Big thanks

to deer Dre. It's always awesome to see her. She's one of the leaders that I have admired the most or my career ge and and Post. I love that Deerdre always had a way to just cut through, get to the point, clear and concise communication for one of the largest corporations in the world. When I obviously had first met her, but now taking that skill set and being able to apply at a time when reputation is everything.

I mean, when you think about what brands have to stand for, what executives have to be ready for, the ability to get out and clearly articulate brand value brand purpose is more important than ever, So reach out to Dear Dre if this is something your organization or your executives need support. With big thanks to our producer Dane, all of our friends and family have panoply. We'll see you in two weeks at Land Yeah M. Full disclosure, Our opinions are our own. H