Communications Consigliere

Chief Storytelling Officer - 365/365

Who was the leader in your industry 25 years ago? In 1997, Nokia was the market leader when Apple nearly went bankrupt. Then Blackberry. Volatility is your normal: the FTSE 100 Index dropped by 19.7% in 2022; Norwegian Air lost 99% value in 2021. Both years were unusual but the business leaders at the helm at that time had to deal with it.

A film was made about Deepwater Horizon. We have all seen the headlines of prominent CEOs suddenly losing their jobs. Some challenges are external, some are internal, and some are self-inflicted. Some are preventable.  

Change is everywhere - and change is getting faster: AI, robotics, supply chains, wars. COVID. Leaders live in a world of high risk and high consequences - this applies to all the decisions they make, their words, and how they say them.

Jamie Dimon says a crisis is just something that happens. The Chinese say a crisis is where danger meets opportunity. Some leaders and businesses crash and burn, while others survive, grow, pivot, reinvent, and focus. 

Successful leaders deliberately and consciously fill the story void with their screenplay. Then, they deliver on their stories. Whether your business rides the storms or sinks is down to the leader, to you: the stories you tell, your delivery, and the stories others tell about you. 

Whatever your title - you are the Chief Storytelling Officer. Every day. So, what’s your screenplay? And are you telling it well?

Distilling, Crafting & Telling Your Story

As a leader, you face an ever-increasing number of variables including:

• Increasing risks
• Relentless and increasingly fast-paced change
• A fiercely competitive business environment
• Geopolitical issues
• The rapid growth and deployment of AI, robotics and technology
• Increasing regulatory scrutiny
• Intense, and often sudden, social media scrutiny
• Complex operational and supply chain pressures 

But you must also persuade, attract, inspire, engage and retain talented people. 

Leaders earn followers. Leaders tell stories every day - this isn't a one-off event or a task to delegate. Even if you sometimes want to. 

You must explain and sell the past, navigate the present and prepare and inspire for the future. You have to unite the organisation and focus it on a shared vision. Persuading people is everything. Storytelling is critical to persuasion. You must do this daily in every internal and external conversation, meeting, and speech. 

Imagine having someone in your corner to help you do this. Who knows you and your environment?

What is a Consigliere?

After decades of working in business and politics, I can tell you that you’ll find more politics in the Boardroom than in the Palace of Westminster. An effective advisor must understand your world’s people, personalities and politics. You can get untailored, generic copy-and-paste wisdom and advice from Instagram.

Understanding your world takes time. Valuable, bespoke advice that you can use comes from an ongoing strategic and collaborative relationship with a discreet and trusted adviser experienced in helping those in your position, who brings cross-industry experience in communications and people and understands you and your world. 

Different industries and businesses have different approaches, business models and styles, but people and storytelling drive them all. Sometimes, the cross-industry pollination of ideas triggers novel solutions. 

Independent external advice: Everyone in a business has a career, but their agendas and ambitions may differ from yours. An outside adviser speaks fearlessly, but their agenda is your agenda. They are discreet, align totally with your aspirations, and act in the business’s best interests - but are independent. They are for you but have no ambition to take over from you. 

Most clients don’t initially retain me for “business-as-usual” advice - they usually have a one-off need, such as a big speech or an event that warrants professional preparation, or when challenged by an unexpected barrier, a complex negotiation or a big pitch, a presentation for a new C-suite member to the SLT or analysts or other crises.

A newly promoted CEO of a globally operating business hired me for a month to prepare for a big speech - content and delivery. This speech mattered. This project turned into an ongoing retained relationship of over 60 months of advisory work, working with the CEO, existing and budding Board members and training sessions for up-and-coming leaders.  

He told me that our work for each of his big speeches trickled into his everyday conversations with the media, the Board, the SLT, the government and clients. He revelled in the feedback and loved the fact I used the word we. 

During that time, turnover and headcount doubled, but more importantly, serious line items dramatically improved. We reduced unwanted churn, radically enhanced margins, acquired amazing clients, and became a Tier 1 industry player.