Communication News
Expert commentary on the communication events shaping business, politics, culture, and technology.
What New Leaders Must Say on Day One
Ena Meyers walked into Lake Worth ISD as the state-appointed superintendent and held a press conference within hours of taking the job. The district has struggled academically, and Meyers signaled that curriculum and instruction changes are coming. She chose to speak publicly before she had even unpacked her office.
What the Sultan Story Teaches About Persuasion
The Sultan of Sokoto publicly called on Nigerian politicians to stop funding religious pilgrimages with stolen or public money. Reverend John Joseph Hayab, chairman of the Northern Christians Association, stepped forward to support that position. A Muslim leader and a Christian leader, standing on the same ground, agreed that corruption and genuine faith cannot coexist.
Morgan Stanley Email Leak: Crisis Communication Lessons
A Morgan Stanley banker accidentally sent a comprehensive list of over 100 live deals to clients who were never supposed to see it. The list included IPO candidates across Asian markets. The bank moved quickly to contain the damage, but the information was already out. In finance, leaked deal lists are not embarrassing footnotes. They are market-moving, relationship-ending, legally complicated disasters.
What Remote Managers Get Wrong About Communication
Harvard Business School Online published a guide outlining twelve strategies for managing remote teams effectively. The piece covers practical ground: building trust across distances, running productive virtual meetings, and keeping distributed workers engaged and accountable. It reflects a broader industry reckoning with the fact that most managers were handed remote teams without being handed the tools to lead them.
When Audiences Ask the Questions, Who Controls the Message?
Researchers studying science communication discovered something counterintuitive: when audiences drive the questions instead of scientists controlling the message, the resulting communication is more trusted but harder to keep accurate. The study examined audience-initiated science journalism, where readers and viewers set the agenda. What they found challenges everything traditional science communicators think they know about clarity and control.
Why Celebrity Apologies Fail: The Real Communication Fix
Celebrities who fall from grace have always needed a path back to public favor, and the playbook for that journey has become its own industry. Reputation managers, publicists, and crisis consultants now shape how famous people respond to scandal. The approach a celebrity takes in the first 72 hours after a crisis breaks determines whether they recover or disappear. Most of them get it wrong.
Remote Team Communication: What Most Managers Get Wrong
Harvard Business School Online recently published a guide offering twelve tips for leaders managing remote teams. The piece covers practical territory: building trust across distance, maintaining accountability, and keeping communication consistent without a shared physical space. It is aimed at managers who are either new to remote leadership or struggling to make it work. The stakes are real. Remote work is not going away, and most managers were never trained for it.
Is British Insurance Too Polite to Communicate Honestly?
British insurance professionals have a reputation problem, and it is one they are far too polite to fix. Industry observers are raising questions about whether culturally ingrained conflict avoidance is hurting UK firms from the inside out. The concern is not about customer service. It is about internal communication: whether underwriters, brokers, and managers can actually tell each other the truth when it counts.
Reputation Is Your Most Valuable Asset in the AI Era
The AI era is forcing a fundamental shift in how professionals and organizations think about trust. As artificial intelligence handles more tasks once done by humans, the one thing machines cannot manufacture is a genuine reputation. People and companies are waking up to the fact that credibility, built through consistent communication and honest behavior over time, is now the scarcest resource in business.
When Calling Speech 'Hate' Backfires on You
Rapper Macklemore released a song responding to the death of five-year-old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child killed during the conflict in Gaza. The song took a clear political stance in her defense. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and a prominent pro-Israel donor, publicly called the song hate speech. Journalist John S. Hancock pushed back, arguing that Kraft misused the term to silence legitimate political criticism.
How Hospital Communication Failures Cost Lives
In busy hospital environments, care teams made up of doctors, nurses, and specialists constantly pass critical information to one another. When those handoffs break down, patients pay the price. Research consistently shows that communication failures between care providers are among the leading contributors to preventable medical errors and poor patient outcomes.
How to Control Your Performance Review Conversation
Performance reviews make most professionals either freeze up or ramble. A recent piece in Small Business Trends tackled this head-on, laying out seven tips for walking into your annual evaluation prepared and coming out ahead. The advice covers everything from preparation to follow-up. It is well-intentioned guidance. But it misses the most important piece: what you actually say, and how you say it.
