The through line of trust in communications

State of play: Politics changes like the wind and brands must be very thoughtful before weighing in, said former Walt Disney CCO and Bob Iger confidante Zenia Mucha.

• “First and foremost, you have to take a look at what's right and what's wrong. And then secondly, how it matters and what the implications are to your business, to your brand, to your employees, to your consumer base, and make that judgment at that time."

Zoom in: Mucha left Disney shortly before the so-called “Don't Say Gay” legislation debacle, but she thinks it could've been avoided if trust was established.

• “If a leader has the trust of the employee base and has the trust of the various constituencies that they represent, they'll be given time and patience to make those decisions.”

Yes, but: Mucha doesn’t believe companies need to take a stand on every issue and should prioritize the ones that matter most to employees.

• “If it's something that matters to them, then what can you as a company do to [show] support without wading into the political debate? You can do both without getting your head chopped off if you are viewed as a trusted leader by your employee base.”

What they're saying: Establishing trust among employees is top of mind for Spotify's leadership.

• "At Spotify, internal comms is the most important thing. Our CEO has an ongoing dialogue with employees," said Spotify global head of public affairs Dustee Jenkins.
• "If you only talk to them when there's a problem, they're not going to trust you," she said. "And so by communicating constantly in the best of times and in the worst of times, all of a sudden it really is a relationship.”

Case in point: Jenkins and her team spend a lot of time thinking about how to message internally and externally about content moderation and controversial artists' presence on the audio platform.

• Amid the Joe Rogan controversy, "We had to do what any good communicator does when they're faced with an existential crisis and ask, 'What are we for?'"

• "In our case, we decided that we wanted to be a platform that allowed for more speech … but we are going to draw really clear lines in the sand around hate content. You have to decide what you're for, and then you have to communicate that over and over and over again,” Jenkins said.

Zoom out: The CEOs who took our stage made a point that consistent and authentic messaging goes hand in hand with trust.

• "Every single story is about people, no matter how you boil it down. And so how do you connect on a human level with your audience? That's the fundamental essence of successful storytelling," Janice Min, CEO of The Ankler, told Axios.
• "When I look at communications, it's not only the outside world, but I pay a lot of attention to what's being said inside our company ... and if you're communicating well, you will have a strong culture," said Volkswagen America CEO Pablo Di Si.

The bottom line: Communicators are often tasked with navigating messaging land mines — from corporate "wokeness" to content moderation to rebuilding corporate culture.

• Establishing a trusting, authentic relationship with your audiences is step one.

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