What three years of corporate affairs summits reveal

A warm welcome to the 200 or so subscribers who have signed up since last week. And a fond farewell to the 199 who will unsubscribe immediately after reading this week’s missive. It was nice while it lasted.

Over the past few weeks I have been dabbling with AI. Nothing too controversial, more a second pair of eyes on a written piece, or a sounding board on various plans. (I’m not trying to unleash a cyber attack on a competitor… yet!)

But recently I set AI a task. Over the past four years, I have organised three Corporate Affairs Summits in London, attended by more than 600 senior in-house communications professionals. (This year’s event will take place on 7 October. Reserve a spot here.)

I uploaded all the transcripts from the past summits, and asked my AI assistant to identify the ten key themes to emerge. For the avoidance of doubt, and before I am reported to my boss for slacking, part of the next tranche is AI written – because it is Copilot’s thoughts after all.

1. Corporate affairs is becoming an influence function, not a communications function
   The conversation is shifting from channels and messages to outcomes, decisions and organisational influence.

2. Commercial acumen is now a prerequisite
   The most effective practitioners understand value creation, investors, growth and business strategy, not just reputation.

3. Power matters more than position
   Influence depends less on organisational charts and more on credibility, relationships and political skill.

4. Trust is more complicated than we pretend
   The real question is not whether an organisation is trusted, but trusted by whom, to do what.

5. Legitimacy matters as much as performance
   Success requires stakeholders to believe an organisation deserves to succeed, not simply that it is profitable.

6. The best practitioners combine four forms of intelligence
   Political, commercial, emotional and cultural intelligence are increasingly essential leadership capabilities.

7. AI is a reputational challenge as much as a productivity tool
   Concerns centre on trust, misinformation and resilience, not merely efficiency gains.

8. Behaviour change beats message dissemination
   The ultimate measure of success is what people do, not what they have heard.

9. Complexity is the new normal
   Technology, regulation, geopolitics and societal expectations are colliding, creating problems that communications alone cannot solve.

10. Tomorrow's corporate affairs directors will be business leaders first
    Communications expertise remains essential, but it is no longer sufficient on its own.

I happen to think that this is a pretty good summary of the summits – it is also about the third iteration as I did challenge some initial conclusions. But Copilot went further and provided a ‘provocative observation’ that ‘the profession has largely won the argument that it deserves a seat at the table’.

Now, far be it from me to argue with Intelligence incarnate, but I think this is wrong. Perhaps Copilot is telling me what it thinks I want to hear, but the reality is that corporate affairs hasn’t ‘earned’ its place. Not even close.

What my artificially intelligent friend does not realise is that the speakers at the past (and upcoming) Corporate Affairs Summits are among the top professionals in the industry, and, as such, they may enjoy a rather more elevated status than the norm.

The simple truth, which is articulated in The Contingent Leader, a recent report from search consultancy Hedley May, is that, arguably, the corporate affairs function is the most context-dependent role in the C-suite.

While the CFO’s position is a given, alongside the general counsel and, increasingly, chief people officer, the corporate affairs director ‘has no such anchor’.

Even though the external environment has never been ‘more complex, more scrutinised or more politically volatile’, which should, by rights, make the corporate affairs function more important than ever, the report finds that its position depends on the CEO believing it matters.

It adds that the role is the ‘most context-dependent in the C-suite, defined by the CEO, the moment and the complexity the business faces. The question for CEOs is not whether corporate affairs matters but what kind of corporate affairs leadership their business requires today’.

The answers, alas, are rarely generic, and can be the difference between a function adding strategic value or a function that is merely reactive. Comms is close to power… but its ultimate position is highly contingent on the CEO, business context and external context.

A wise comms professional once told me that the real issue is that many CEOs had not really experienced the true power of comms. They can’t articulate, for example, what the outcome might have been without input from corporate affairs.

But once they experienced a truly effective corporate affairs function perhaps through a crisis, transformation or major strategic challenge, they reasoned, the CEO rarely wanted to operate without one.

I think it’s a powerful argument. In theory. In practice, that same director’s function was dismantled by a new CEO who arguably should have understood the power of corporate affairs having served as the company’s finance director beforehand.

And therein lies another problem. Finance directors! They’re numbers people. They don’t talk in intangibles. While corporate affairs is talking ator beforehand.And therein lies another problem. Finance directors! They’re numbers people. They don’t talk in intangibles. While corporate affairs is talkiabout influence, trust and legitimacy, finance is talking about margins, cash flow and return on capital.

They’re probably dreaming of Fermat’s Last Theorem when comms shares its story about a story that never happened. Little wonder many prefer an exec committee populated by hard-nosed business people. It’s another battle to fight for corporate affairs.

A handy tip? Appeal to their ego

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, she adds quickly to avoid a lawsuit, that when a former female CEO asked a PR agency what they could do for her, as it pitched for the company’s business. The reply: we’ll get you a damehood. Both sides achieved their goals.

Obviously, that’s rather an extreme example, but a recurring theme at the summit in London (and indeed Dublin) was that it is often not enough to explain what corporate affairs can do for the business. A more effective approach may be to explain what those actions mean for the CEO personally.

Stroke their egos. Talk about their legacy. Or simply demonstrate how X may lead to Y… which ultimately feeds straight through to the bottom line and their remuneration. Money. It’s a great motivator.

Could gossip be good for you?

Culture, it is often said, is what happens when management is not in the room.

And according to some intriguing research, that might be just as well.

A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (the places I will go to get a story!) finds that when a boss is abusive, the teams that gossip and generally b*tch about it behind their backs often perform better than those who suffer in silence.

The reasons are surprisingly simple.

Gossiping, it seems, stops the boss being treated as a role model. Colleagues are less likely to imitate their behaviours and treat their peers badly.

And secondly, gossip creates solidarity. Employees realise they are not alone in their views. This strengthens relationships between colleagues even while trust in the leadership slumps.

Now, before you go rushing off to share the latest gossip in the office kitchen, there is an important caveat. The researchers are not claiming that gossip is inherently healthy. It can lead to cliques, unsubstantiated rumours and bullying. It can destroy trust and morale.

Rather, the study suggests that when a boss creates dysfunction, teams develop coping mechanisms. They continue to perform because, collectively, they have absorbed the negativity… which, ironically, might make the leader look more effective than they really are.

Unintended consequences, and all that!

Plan A, B… Z

Spare a thought for Eleanor Orebi Gann, chief communications officer for Hiscox. On the week that the FTSE 100 insurance company was due to release its half-year financial results, the pipes burst at its London headquarters.

It seems that 30,000 litres of water has little respect for EBITDA. Or indeed for one of the most important days in a listed company’s financial calendar.

As Orebi Gann puts: ‘Business continuity plans don’t stop ceilings leaking, not do they prevent a carefully constructed schedule from disappearing underwater. They provide a framework. All the rest depends on culture – and whether you have the teams who lean in when they’re needed.’

It took a combined effort from facilities management, tech and PAs to re-engineer a working environment and keep the show on the road.

Which, if nothing else, is a useful reminder that resilience is often less about plans than people.

Let’s just hope they were insured.

Asking Copilot to review the summit sessions (plus three that took place in Dublin) has reminded me quite how much content I am sitting on but have yet to share. And I’m all about the sharing.

Subsequently, I plan to start populating the Corporate Affairs Unpacked LinkedIn page with some of the wit and wisdom from the London and Dublin summits. I have the videos, the audios and the transcripts. In the language of Gen Z, I have the receipts.

But before you rush to follow, it will take me a few days to get started. Four years of thought-provoking content doesn’t repurpose itself.

CorpComms Awards still open

The CorpComms Awards remain open for entries. If corporate affairs has spent another year quietly saving the organisation from itself, now might be a good moment to create a written record.