Tom Mueller: 0:07

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. This is our first podcast of 2026, and we are very glad you're joining us for this episode. Today, on this podcast, we share stories from the front lines of crisis management and crisis communications, and we like to hear stories from experienced crisis leaders. I'm Tom Mueller. Hi again, everybody, and really, really glad you're here with us. On the show today, we are featuring a returning guest who's a friend of the show, Phil Borman, who is a Portugal-based uh international crisis and risk consultant. And um is going to join us today to talk about uh the latest survey that he's conducted on risk, crisis, and emergency communications. Phil, welcome to the show again. Thanks, Dom. Thanks for having me again. Okay. Well, Phil, I've been through the report and it's uh, you know, it's always very interesting. Um, I guess first let me just say thank you for taking the time and energy to put together a comprehensive document like this based on actual input from more than 100 crisis professionals, crisis communications professionals. So you've tapped a kind of a neat audience there. Uh, and the fact that you can get people to return surveys is sort of miraculous, isn't it?

Philippe Borremans: 1:32

It is, yeah. I didn't, you know, when you start out with a survey, you think, oh, I'll ask around. So I've got my newsletter and I've I've okay, I've got subscribers, and so maybe these people we want to answer. But I was a bit amazed of the um of the return, at least for the valid responses, right? You get you got many, but not complete. But this is based on 102 valid responses, rather international, which I like. One question was about you know how many years' experience. It's um yeah, it's pretty uh senior uh colleagues, professionals who responded to this, and with 102, I think we can at least uh you know discover some trends and some insights.

Tom Mueller: 2:17

Well, you've certainly mined out some interesting um things here. So for the the crisis professionals among us, which is pretty much everyone among us here, what's uh what are the key takeaways for you from this year's survey data?

Philippe Borremans: 2:33

Well, I I of course, you know, when you set up a survey, you you have your questions in mind already, there's a bias in there, but there are a couple of topics I couldn't get around or not not include in the survey. So AI was in there, of course. Um, you know, how is AI used, etc. And then I also wanted to know there's a lot of talk about resilience, whatever that means, right? Um, but I wanted to see okay, people talk about this, we have structures in place, most of us have an experience in crisis communication, but how ready are we? And so maybe I'll start with the AI thing. This is just a confirmation of other reports I've seen in the broader scope of public relations professionals or communicators. We know AI is a hot topic. We know our people are using AI, but then what does that actually mean? And this survey confirmed what I thought and saw in other reports is that yes, AI is on the agenda. Yes, people know that it can help, people know what the dangers are. What was interesting to see is that uh while respondents um confirmed the use of AI, it was a very basic use of AI, meaning content creation and things that the average internet user is doing with AI. Right. Uh not so much on the strategic use of AI, where you can actually use AI to do predictive analytics, where you can use AI and incorporate into your crisis simulation. So that was a clear distinction here. So the response was yes, we know. We know the pros and cons, we use it, but we use it rather basically. And if we need to invest time and energy, then it will be in that more strategic use. So that was already one thing that just confirmed the trend where AI is there, but we've actually not used it in a strategic level in crisis communication.

Tom Mueller: 4:29

Right. Well, that reflects sort of the global um transition that it feels like we're in right now, right? With, you know, there's there's a big bubble out there of cash being invested in AI and data centers and all of that. And maybe it's going to be huge. You know, there's an undercurrent of people out there who say, yeah, this bubble might burst, or the data center requirements might be uh too much energy that could derail things. So there's a lot of uncertainty. But at the same time, if you're in the working world, you're drinking from a fire hose now, trying to understand how this AI works, how can I use it? So it seems like the survey really reflected um sort of people tiptoeing in to the edge of the pond here.

Philippe Borremans: 5:17

Yeah, and then also I asked around, okay, well, what are the barriers? You know, if if if you if you're not on that totally incorporated way of using AI, what are the barriers? And that was really interesting to see. It's around 23% set skills. So we the the tools are there, but we've not been trained in using this. The you know, there's there's also a lack in in specific training for communicators on how to use AI. So 23% set skills is a top barrier. The other one is budget. Well, you know, we're always underfunded, and then of course, one thing that came in 14.7% uh privacy and security reasons, uh, which is logical, right? Why would you use a publicly available system where your data goes into the cloud when you're you know maybe using AI for sensitive stuff like crisis communication? So that was interesting to see what the barriers were as well. Yeah. Right.

Tom Mueller: 6:15

And of course, there's there's sort of answers to those things, right? But today our perception is there might be great risk here to our company data or proprietary data. And so we're gonna take it very slowly. Um, but you can um just address that one for us quickly here, Phil, because you can you know carve out a space within uh LLM or an AI model for that's just proprietary to your company today, right?

Philippe Borremans: 6:42

Yeah, yeah, and and it's when I speak to clients, customers, even colleagues in the field, um I just read a LinkedIn post about someone saying, well, the new version of Deep Seek with Chinese large language model uh will come out and will revolutionize because it's supposedly better than others and what have you. But of course the first reactions are well, it's Chinese, it's dangerous, you know, we shouldn't. Nobody is saying, well, you just download the model, put it on your own machine, cut it off from the internet, and you have a working, you know, strong, powerful machine that can actually do stuff. Nobody is looking at using open source models, testing and trialing it, and then some people in comms specifically say, well, it's complicated. Well, if you look at where technology is going, it's getting less and less complicated. It's download, install, run, and of course it's not as easy as doing that with standardized software. But if you have a little bit of an IT person next to you, it is all possible. But it's not just top of mind of oh yes, we can do it this way as well. So right.

Tom Mueller: 7:51

Well, it seems we're getting further and further away from human interaction with the way technology is pushing us all forward here. And um I don't know that um it's it is probably simple, but I think the concept of you know using these things is this is difficult for most humans um until we get exposed to it and learn it a little bit. But that like it's like any new technology, right?

Philippe Borremans: 8:18

When the it is, it is really like any new technology, and it's understanding the basics and then surrounding yourself with people who are actually a bit more specialized in that. But I think it's much more interesting in looking at what the potential is, and of course, always look at the dangers as well. I mean, it's not like you know, any technology can be misused, and and and that is the case with AI, definitely with AI as well. Uh, which made me think another insight is um I asked a question about uh Gen AI and and uh deep fakes and you know these stories of negative views of AI, and that was also interesting. Um, where yes, the respondents recognized that issue, and and it was also one that was listed uh really on top of their responses. But then when I ask about okay, so you recognize the dangers of deep fakes and all that can go wrong with manipulation of imagery and sound and what have you. So that was very high up as a recognized as a danger. But then when you ask them about well, okay, so you know it's dangerous. Do you have protocols in place? And then, of course, you see that only 3.9% said they had tested AI crisis protocols in place, only 3.9. 27.5 said we have no protocols in place and no plans in place, and then 31% said, Well, we're developing, you know, we're thinking about it. So that is really interesting because the gap is not awareness, right? They they our colleagues know uh there can be a misuse of AI, uh, but it's it's yeah, decision rights and verification steps and things like that are not in place. So that was really an interesting uh takeaway as well.

Tom Mueller: 10:15

Yeah, is that does that fit into the sort of capability chasm piece of it?

Philippe Borremans: 10:21

Yeah. Um yeah, I think I mean you you you you know you see all these cases coming out with deep fakes and what have you, and then of course it's on the agenda and on the radar. Uh, but then translating from that, how do we prepare? How would how do we adapt our protocols? Um, you know, what should we do if one day there is a deep fake coming out of our CEO or whatever? Um, that hasn't been thought out, at least not what I see from from this survey, right?

Tom Mueller: 10:50

Right. But that's uh it's just amazing to me how the the threat matrix is shifting now with the new technologies coming out. And um communications teams really need to be thinking about uh you know what is the new potential here, where you've got a a video of your CEO caught on a KISS cam somewhere, right? Except it wasn't your CEO. Um but those kind of things can go viral quickly, especially you know, if there's nefarious actors out there pushing it.

Philippe Borremans: 11:23

And and it comes down to if I just look at the survey, I mean, AI is being used, uh, it's definitely not integrated. Uh, it's very rare. So one in '87 respondents said, you know, we have integrated AI protocols and we integrate in our work. Uh, but again, coming back to the what is holding them back, it's very mundane. Skills, budget, and privacy security issues. It's it's not like it's uh it's a it's a huge, unsurmountable thing. Right. Of budget is probably the most difficult one there. But skills, you can find them. Privacy security, there's ways around that, and and again, with the help of IT, uh, and it's documented. Um, so my advice there is do even if those are breaks and that you need to start very small. Um, you know, find someone just maybe for a very short period of time to work on a very small project that doesn't take huge budgets. Um, look at with IT, you know, how you can secure that on your own machine or on your own server, and start thinking about how does that impact my crisis preparedness planning.

Tom Mueller: 12:38

You know, for folks who are working full-time now and are fully engaged in their day-to-day roles and accountabilities, you know, this is a whole new bucket of water to carry around with you each day, right? Trying to um, because there's so much to learn, there's so much risk associated with it. Um, so I feel for folks who, you know, are running fast every day and yet still trying to onboard some of this new technology, but yeah, there's really not no way around this learning process other than jumping in and playing with it, right? Yeah.

Philippe Borremans: 13:12

But there's there's other things that are on the people, I mean, colleagues are aware of them. For one question, which was a very, I thought, let me ask a very general question and see how that goes. You know, one of the questions was is uh trust harder to to get and to maintain uh compared to five years ago? And and 65, almost 66 percent said it's much more challenging than five years ago. Okay, good. I understand that. Everybody understands that. But then when you ask about, well, which kind of measurement do you have in place? How do you measure the effectiveness of your crisis preparedness? How do you measure your trust levels? Do you have a benchmark about trust levels? No, no, people don't have it. So again, it's being aware of an issue, but do you actually have the basic systems in place and not only systems, but just methodology? I mean, measurement, evaluation, and learning, I mean, um, and it's it's not in place. So if that doesn't change, it will continue to be an issue. Same with AI, same with trust, same with other things.

Tom Mueller: 14:26

Right. Well, if you don't have that baseline data, as you point out in the report, then how do you know where your trust meter is if you have a problem? The challenge, though, is it can cost some serious money to run regular, you know, routine surveys to establish baseline. You know, you want to find those particular stakeholders that you want to interview and get their thoughts on the company, uh, and then circle back with those. Um, but it comes back to your earlier point. You know, budget is a big one for that, uh, and uh, but skills and capabilities is is probably not because there's so many firms that can can do that for you.

Philippe Borremans: 15:06

Yeah. And I also sometimes think having worked in big multinationals where you have to fight for your little piece of budget, etc., what I often did was also, and this was private sector, right? So I I looked at other departments because if you think, okay, I'm in in comms and I'm a crisis communicator, and and your point to your point of it it costs money and and energy and resources to do regular service and things like that. Yeah, but why why not tap into customer support data? Marketing colleagues have that information, you know, and it's a commercial trust, sure, we have to translate that into reputational trust, sure. But you do normally, you would be doing stakeholder outreach. Why not insert a question or two in there about, you know, so look broader than the department, because if it's all for your department, sure, you're not going to get the budget to do that in a professional way on a regular basis, definitely not. But look at what you can translate, look at what other data points are within the business, within the organization, and probably you can have a good sense. This is not about you know, scientific measurement and academic studies. It's it's about getting a benchmark where you say, okay, we understand that this is the kind of trust level we have, these are the gaps, let's work with that. Because at the end of the day, you have to work with what you have. The thing that the survey says is that most of them have nothing in place. And so, okay, well, from nothing to something, that's already a step forward, I think.

Tom Mueller: 16:37

All right, so one of the key takeaways there then is get some baseline data, understand where your company or your agency reputation sits today. Um, but you know, the the trust deficit thing sort of fascinates me, uh, and it reflects the the deep polarization we're seeing in our societies these days. Certainly, boy, we feel it here in America, but I know across the EU, many countries are, you know, you're feeling this sort of red versus blue polarity thing. But that plays into the trust factor as well. And um how do we um, you know, anything in the data to talk to us about how we as a, you know, if I'm a company and I have an incident that comes up, you know, possibly half the people aren't going to trust me out of the box on this. Or I don't know. What do you I mean, I feel very pessimistic when I think about that, right? It's such an uphill climb for any communicator who's trying to uh uh you know communicate actively and accurately uh around an incident. And yet you it it may be for naught, it feels like. So make me feel better about that, will you, Phil?

Philippe Borremans: 17:53

Well, I think first of all, I put the trust question in there because uh a month ago I wrote an article which was more like I was a little bit fed up in seeing this, what I called in my article, rather critical article, uh, what I call the trust mantra. Every single conference you go, every single report you read from the communications profession, at least there is one slide or one paragraph that says we have to build trust. What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything at all. Trust is not a universal concept. It depends on where you are on the globe, what your background is, what your view on society is, how you've been educated. We think this is like we use this word, you know, trust like the silver bullet that solves everything, but it is just one of twelve, I think, very important human biases and feelings that play on the overall reputation to an organization or a person or something else. So let's let's take a step back. That would be my advice. Don't talk about trust, and again, this is just to be a little bit, you know, pushy, but don't talk about trust. Look at if your organization is facing an issue, what are you actually doing? Let's look more at what we actually do as an organization to solve the problem, let's make it real because from there trust could be built in a certain environment. Trust is not an objective, it's it's something that follows how you react to a crisis, an emergency, or an issue. It is not the main thing, it is actually a result of the steps that you take. And so that focus, and as I said, you know, seeing all every single speaker at a conference that's what I was thinking about when I wrote. That rather critical article. Let's build trust. Yeah, well, you know, let's kumbaya, let's all sit around the campfire and be nice to each other. Great, you know, nobody can say no to that. Right. But what does it actually mean? So I think it's it's better to step away a little bit from that mantra and go back to okay, what do we what do we actually have in place when things go wrong? How can we demonstrate actually to our different stakeholders and audiences that we are going to do the right thing in in a culturally acceptable way, in in a very transparent way, etc. That will build trust. It's it's it again, it's um it's a reaction to something. It's not the ultimate goal, I think.

Tom Mueller: 20:42

Right. And I think in in your article or other writings of yours, I've seen, you know, you really talk about sort of the uh you know the granularity of your audiences and your stakeholders, right? So, you know, build trust with whom. And and most of us, most companies have identified key stakeholders who are influential to their business, whether it's communities around operating facilities or shareholders, regulators, whoever it is. But yeah, it's identifying those, uh, you know, meeting their needs, answering their questions, and building trust kind of from the grassroots level on up.

Philippe Borremans: 21:19

Yeah.

unknown: 21:19

Yeah.

Philippe Borremans: 21:20

And that that is one of the things I'm I'm very much, as you as you say, I mean, I do make a strong difference between stakeholders and audiences. It's not the same thing. And they tend to be thrown along at the same lot in a crisis communications plan. But no, a stakeholder is different uh than an audience. And how the way that you approach them, that you segment them, that you work with them, that you communicate with them is different. And that should be recognized. It's one of the questions in the survey was as well, do you actually adapt your crisis communication messages depending on your stakeholders and audiences and depending on the situation? Again, the majority said no. Well, how can you not adapt your crisis messages to your different stakeholders and audiences?

Tom Mueller: 22:09

Right.

Philippe Borremans: 22:10

It it it that the the general public doesn't exist. If you communicate in a crisis situation to the general public, you're communicating to no one. And so that was another thing that came out of the survey, where I said, well, you know, really there's work to be done about doing stakeholder identification and management, but also audience segmentation and management, and see how you adapt and can quickly adapt your messages depending on the situation.

Tom Mueller: 22:38

That's fascinating. Uh, because you know, every sort of crisis incident I've worked, we come up with you know, holding statements, press releases, whatever it is, you push it out to the field and then or your government affairs teams, and then they're sort of interpreting that and having conversations with those stakeholder groups uh and you know, sort of localizing what it is you're saying. So that to me is is sort of interesting that you're seeing people who who aren't doing that or maybe just haven't thought through that whole process because it absolutely does need to get customized depending on what the situation is.

Philippe Borremans: 23:17

Yeah.

Tom Mueller: 23:20

Okay. Well, there was uh a couple sort of uh non-surprising things that came out of the survey. One of those was the preparing and practice gaps. Talk to us a little bit about it. Yeah, yeah, that's not um so what what what did you see from the data there?

Philippe Borremans: 23:41

So the data uh on the question of you know how many times you actually test your plan, your beautiful written manual that sits there gathering dust. Uh so only 26.5% test at least annually. 9.8% report they never test. And it was really interesting because I had a good um balance between respondents from the public sector and the private sector. So the public sector um I having worked on for both clients from both sectors, I understand public sector is often multi-agency when you have an emergency and things like that. So that brings complexity, and it's very difficult to get people together and say, let's let's test this on a regular basis. Sure, government organizations do full-scale simulations, I've done, I've run them, um, but it's the big thing. It's like, oh, you know, we we prepare two years to do that. Uh it's not the ongoing ones, and then the private sector, but I think it's also a matter that reputation and operational risks move very fast. So um that's a bit of a contradiction because we know it moves very fast. Um, so annual-on testing that is really you know lagging behind real-time dynamics, it should be more. Uh, and and and we know there's also a misconception um about crisis simulations. I think uh I was at a conference, speaking at a conference, and a lady uh asked a question. She said, Well, I completely understand as a communicator that we need to test our plans, but I have no clue at all on how to request the resources for this to my management. And so I dove into my writings and I said, Oh, I I remembered I wrote something on how you can make a business case out of this. How do you go to your senior management and say, This is the business case to give me a lot of money? Yeah, and and and do regular crisis simulations. Um and and it's tying back to you know risk management, it's tying back to reputational impact, it's tying back to sales figures. Let's not forget, if you have a product recall, you feel it at the end of the year in your financial reporting. Um so it's it's it's trying to speak that language of of senior management and say, look, why are we doing why do you take insurance? You know, it costs a lot of money. Why do you take insurance? So why don't I get a budget to run regular simulations? And then again, regular simulations, what does it mean? It doesn't mean you have to do the full scale. I'm much more about I love doing full scales because it's fun, but I'm much more about doing very regular, mini, even half-hour micro simulations with very specific teams, lunch and learn sessions, and maybe every every three months a tabletop exercise of three, four hours with a good after-action reporting. But do it regularly because that's what builds then you know muscle memory for when the thing actually happens.

Tom Mueller: 27:04

Yeah, if you have a monthly team meeting, you know, put a 30-minute item on the agenda. Hey, let's talk through a crisis scenario here and let's surface any issues. Of course, then you've got the follow-up with that, right? And of course, yeah. Somebody's got to invest time and energy to make that all happen.

Philippe Borremans: 27:21

Um but it can be very small and micro. I mean, when I I run uh workshops at at conference, so you don't have a lot of time, and you have a very diverse audience, so you can't really do a simulation specifically. But I did create a small AI model uh that I instructed, and so it's actually my virtual simulation player, and it's role-playing, and I can do that with a very diverse team in a room, half an hour, they go through this the role-playing thing, and at the end, everybody always tells me, Wow, this is great, it doesn't take a lot of time, it was very pertinent because you decide which kind of crisis scenario you want to play. Now it also gives you feedback.

Tom Mueller: 28:02

Yeah, so is that uh the tool where individually you go in and kind of plug in your experience level, pick a scenario that you want to deal with?

Philippe Borremans: 28:11

Yeah, yeah. You can actually play that with a team. It you know, you could do it individually, but you put it on a big screen and you can all brainstorm on the answer to be given in the role-playing thing. Um, so it's but it's micro simulations like that. And I think doing that on a regular basis is is really important again for you know that that muscle memory that you need.

Tom Mueller: 28:33

All right, good. Boy, lots of great advice here today, again, Phil. Thank you uh for that. Any any other anything? Oh, you know, one of the things I wanted to just highlight about this particular report and just the time and effort that you put into creating this, which is a very useful tool. But you have uh in each section, you have a section or a page called uh implications for professionals, and where you draw out sort of conclusions and forward thinking about what the results of this say uh for us as crisis communications professionals. So um, first of all, I just want to say thanks for doing that. But have you what's behind uh that approach for you in creating, you know, adding that piece to it?

Philippe Borremans: 29:23

Well, the the thing is when you work as a solo consultant, um you're engaging, you work, and you do your thing, and and then I I write a lot of things. And sometimes I wake up and I say, like just before getting on the call, I put the final touches to a white paper kind of guide I wrote about how do you handle when you know you you have a drone sighting or a drone you know running around your plant or your whatever. That's simply because I'm I find drones fascinating and because it was in the news and we think they're everywhere, which is not, but anyway, and so I then sit down and and do some research and write up. So it's very spontaneous. And this survey is something I've done another survey a year ago. Um, and it's it's for me also to get input from from my tribe, as I call them, my colleagues, because these are all I consider all of them colleagues, we do the same profession. So um, and it's also a finger on the pulse. I think it's important to to to get that feeling of what is actually moving, because uh if you just read, then you would think that the whole world is running around on AI, which is not. You would think that everybody's prepared for the next crisis because polycrisis, what have you. It is not. So it's just like you know, what is the reality? What are people actually uh facing in their day-to-day job? Uh as you said, I mean, the realities of working for either public sector or private sector in a larger organization, they're different because we consultants, we you know, we think, oh, we've got the answer, but then you you're faced with the reality of people working in larger organizations and facing politics and all these things. So no, it's it's uh it's a reality check and also um getting that input and then trying to, as you said, I mean, trying to answer as well, potential or provide potential solutions to the issues that I see coming out of the survey. Yeah.

Tom Mueller: 31:26

So if folks want to get a copy of your report or your newsletter, Wag the Dog, where should they go to find that?

Philippe Borremans: 31:36

So the newsletter is on uh www.wagthedog.io and the um the survey um is on a landing page, but has a very long URL. But through Wag the Dog, you'll be able to find that as well.

Tom Mueller: 31:54

Okay. And it's available on LinkedIn as well. You've uh had some posts around it there. Okay. All right, awesome. Phil, for this, uh we'll we'll pause here. I want to say thanks again for joining me on uh on this episode and look forward to having you back again soon. Thank you. Thank you. And that's gonna do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. We're really happy you're here with us. We'll see you again soon on another episode. Take care.