Lee Caraher - Lifetime Loyalty in the Age of AI

Lifetime Loyalty in the Age of AI: How Leaders Keep Top Talent During Change

As AI continues to reshape the workplace, leaders face a growing challenge: helping employees navigate uncertainty while maintaining trust, engagement, and long-term loyalty.

In this episode of the People/AI Strategy Forum, Sam Reeve is joined by Lee Caraher, founder of Double Forte and author of The Boomerang Principle, to explore how organizations can build lasting employee relationships during one of the fastest periods of technological change in history.

Lee explains why communication—not certainty—is becoming one of leadership's greatest competitive advantages. Together, Sam and Lee discuss how organizations can build trust through transparency, invest in continuous learning, prepare employees for AI adoption, and create cultures that people are excited to return to—even after they've left.

In this conversation, you'll discover:

•  Why trust is replacing perks as the foundation of employee loyalty 
•  How leaders should communicate during AI-driven change 
•  Why continuous AI training is essential for retention 
•  The business value of "boomerang employees" 
•  Internal communication as a strategic advantage 
•  Crisis communication lessons every leader should know 
•  Practical ways to lead through uncertainty without pretending to have every answer 

If you're an executive, HR leader, founder, or manager navigating AI transformation, this episode offers practical leadership insights you can implement immediately.

Guest: Lee Caraher
CEO & Founder, Double Forte
Author of The Boomerang Principle

Learn more:
 https://leecaraher.com

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the People/AI Strategy Forum on your preferred podcast platform and join the conversation! 

About the People/AI Strategy Forum
The People/AI Strategy Forum explores how leaders navigate the intersection of people strategy, leadership, and artificial intelligence. Hosted by Sam Reeve, Founder & CEO of CompTeam, the Forum features conversations with executives, practitioners, and experts shaping the future of work.

Learn more about CompTeam and the People/AI Strategy Forum at compteam.net.

Transcript

Sam 0:00

So welcome to the People Strategy Forum. I'm Sam Reeve, your host and CEO of CompTeam. This show is for founders, executives, and senior HR leaders who want to find practical ways to attract and retain their top-performing individuals, and motivate great people across their organization. So today's topic is Lifetime Loyalty in the Age of AI: How to Keep Top Talent When Jobs, Skills, and Certainty Shifting. So my guest today is Leigh Carriker. Leigh is the author and she's also the founder of, Double Forte. And in my prep conversations with Leigh, three things came through loud and clear. First, AI is now at the, top of leaders' minds. This should be of no surprise to anybody with, what's been going on in the world. there is a wide gap between the promise of AI and what's, really lived inside of organizations. there's too many leaders, that are still under-training and under-explaining and under-communicating what this is all about and how it impacts their people. So Leigh brings, in a, powerful idea from her book, The Boomerang Principle. We're gonna go through that in detail here today, talk about some of the concepts and how it relates, and how the organizations such as yours can use these principles to really be successful in the years ahead. Leigh, I'm so glad you're here, Welcome.

Lee Caraher 1:36

Thank you so much, Sam. I'm so happy to be with you

Sam 1:39

So Lee, tell us, a little bit about, yourself. I mean, how did you get to where you are today and, and serving leaders?

Lee Caraher 1:47

You know, it was a very deliberate plan. No, it was not. I fell into my career, which is public relations and strat communications, my friend Ramona thought I might like it, and that's literally how I explored what was PR. I was like, "Oh, that sounds good." And I've been in this career since I graduated from college, so a long time, 'cause I'm old. And, through agencies, and I went in-house, and then went back to agencies, and I started this company, Double Forte, 24 years ago I was an, accidental entrepreneur. An entrepreneur by need, not by choice, because, I lived in California, my parents lived in Wisconsin, my mother got sick, and I was gonna be with her. So at that time, that many years ago, you couldn't work remotely in the jobs I would've taken in-house. I was like, "Well, I better start my own company," because I'm the breadwinner in our house, and, we had to make some bread. So then my concept was I'd stay in this company until my mom died. She ended up living three or four more years than she was supposed to, 'cause she's super stubborn, which was a wonderful gift, but by the end of that time, I was, like, unemployable, because I like saying no to people I don't wanna work with, and when you're an employee, it's harder to do. So here I am, 24 years later, with the company, still doing the same function, but doing it very, very differently than when we started before Twitter 24 years ago

Sam 3:07

Hmm. Yes. And then as you've worked with, I mean, there's just been huge change in,

Lee Caraher 3:12

Hmm

Sam 3:13

way companies work and, and employees, how they're working. And so what, what are you helping your, your leaders with

Lee Caraher 3:20

Mm-hmm. I

Sam 3:21

What are the

Lee Caraher 3:21

think a couple... Well, I think a few things. Nothing has changed more... So we talk about AI right now, but let's just talk about the huge tectonic shifts that have happened in the last 20 years around communication. Nothing has changed more in our culture than how people communicate. started the company before Twitter. Now Twitter is, like, regular, right, on the reg, right? there are so many ways to reach people. So AI is sort of like the next... The evolution of change around technology is just speeding up. It's not a new thing, right? It's, like, how you deal with it. we are working with our clients and where my role is mostly with the C-suite with our clients, and they are worrying about a few things, like how do we keep making sure that our people are doing what they're supposed to be doing, that we have a vision for the future, that our people and our stakeholders and our customers and our consumers, or if they're consumers, can believe and buy into, because if they don't, there is no business, number one. And then number two, how do they think about, their role, leader's role in this, job, which is leadership. Leadership. can't lead without communicating. you must address the big elephants in the room to be an effective leader, and there are no bigger elephants in the room right now than AI. So that's what we're dealing with with our clients.

Sam 4:38

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. so much to dig in there, when we're talking about communicating and, and helping people be successful with AI when it's just changing on a, on a, a faster and faster

Lee Caraher 4:50

Oh my gosh

Sam 4:51

used to be monthly, now it's, now it seems to be weekly, and

Lee Caraher 4:54

Yeah

Sam 4:55

it's gonna come daily here soon. And so I think the most important skill that, that, our leaders and employees need to have is just be able to, to deal with the, the pace of

Lee Caraher 5:04

Mm-hmm. In fact, today, we're recording this on June 5th. Today, Anthropic put out an announcement that they want everyone to stop, developing AI so that the world can catch up to where it's, it's gotten to. That's not gonna happen. But, the pace of change, like I said on, on communication, nothing's... You know, when I started my career, you would send a memo, FedEx was just starting. You might send something overnight or two-day, and that was fast.

Sam 5:30

Yeah

Lee Caraher 5:31

if you sent a fax, it cost more, but, you know, you had a- you got a fax, and then people were expecting an answer the next day. And then we had email, and people were expecting an answer the same day. So that, I mean, the pace of understanding and the pace of response has only dramatically shortened in the last 20 years, right? Um, and then the, uh, the second piece of that, not only has time sped up, I guess, uh, the avalanche of information, um, that we deal with every single day. Like in marketing, we used to use the number seven, seven times the right person had to see the right message in the right place to understand it. Today, we use the number 39. 39 times the right person has to see the right message in the right place to understand it. That's daunting, right? And all that means is that we're being bombarded. So, um, in terms of leadership on this topic, it's making sure that one and done is never your, is never your mantra. Two, charting a path to understanding, charting a path for here's our vision, here's how, here's what's going on in the world, here's what I know, here's what I don't know, and here's we're gonna- how we're gonna handle it. But I think the promise for, um, leaders to their employees today has to be, "We are not gonna leave you behind. We are gonna be a relevant company, and by being with us, you're gonna be relevant." And that relevance has to be around how to deal with any technology, but today it's AI

Sam 7:01

Right. And I think that the, the, the new norm that people have to embrace with change is also the pain of

Lee Caraher 7:08

Oh, so much true. So true

Sam 7:12

being a, a constant learner, uh, you know, making sure that you're, you're, you know, you're doing your, I mean, be- being curious, right?

Lee Caraher 7:20

If you're not curious, you got no hope. There is no hope. Because in, you know, how, I mean... Well, I guess there's not no hope, but, uh, you know, often as an agency, as an outsider to a c- so you have clients, an outsider, we are responsible for being ahead of our clients in our domain, right? And I can't tell you how often I go into a room and I assume, I should never assume this, I assume everyone's reading the same am- as- same amount I am about stuff, and they're not. They're worrying about their business. They hire us because we are experts in our field, and we're there to make them better. So, um, s- it's true that often I'm like I, I, "I'm not gonna drop any science on these people. Of course they know everything. They're, they're brilliant." And we go in and I'm like, "Okay, they know nothing. All right, let's backtrack. Gotta bring them up to speed." Or, you know, uh, uh... And in general, you know, what you hear about AI is what the companies who are doing it want you to know. It's way out... And I've worked in Silicon Valley for now, you know, with Silicon Valley companies for over 30 years. Uh, what's true and what's aspirational are v- rarely the same thing, right? What's true and what's positioning, particularly for startups, we hope, right? But what is real, how you navigate all the, the FUD, all high, the noise of, you know, "This is gonna be the biggest one. This is gonna be the bigger. I'm better, you're better, you're better. This is gonna be dead," all those things, uh, and do the through line of what's possible, uh, is, is constant, and it's part of our responsibility. I mean, I'd like to say, you know, everyone's talking about, like, the death of software. Salesforce is not going anywhere. Can I just say this? Salesforce is embedded in so many of the Fortune 2000, 3000, 5000. The investment that Salesforce people have made in Salesforce, they're not gonna throw that out with the baby and the bathwater. It's not gonna happen, right? So they're not, AI is not displacing all systems right this second. AI is gonna enhance a lot of those systems. Hopefully enhance, not degrade. We already have three clients who have taken out their AI modules from their systems because they corrupted the system because it's too early. It's just too early, right?

Sam 9:40

Yeah

Lee Caraher 9:41

but you, with the, the noise around AI is, "If you're not on board, you're dead." It's not true. And that's your job, is to fig- figure out what's, what's the wheat, what's the chaff, and go in the middle.

Sam 9:51

Right. Well, anybody that's out there that's done, uh, vibe coding will, will know that, that, uh, you know, it's like it's not as... Y- y- recreating what Salesforce does is not as easy as speaking into your computer and it, and it's...

Lee Caraher 10:02

Exactly.

Sam 10:03

You can create a, a mock-up, but

Lee Caraher 10:06

Oh my God.

Sam 10:07

you know, live and, and

Lee Caraher 10:08

Yeah

Sam 10:08

you're gonna... There's, there's some work that need, needs to be done, for sure

Lee Caraher 10:12

Well, I think it's the same true on, on the written word. So the first thing that AI was gonna replace was humans who were writing, right? Which is what we do all day long when we write. Uh, and, uh, I can tell you that, um, we, you know, some of our clients, each... probably half of our clients have demanded that we use AI in some way, shape, or form. Uh, and so we have to be on six different LLMs right now because a client is on one and has invested in one. So we're on six, which is ridiculous. But I'm here to tell you they're all different. You cannot prompt Chat like you can prompt Gemini, like you prompt Ch- Claude, like you would prompt Perplexity. So we have to know how to optimize all those systems, right? Number one. Number two is the output of these things If you don't have the judgment to know if it was good or not, you got nothing. So the human judgment piece, uh, they're not gonna... They're nowhere near what a human can do right now who has experience and expertise. But it can speed things up, that's for sure. Absolutely. Can do some things in the background, like reporting. And I guess the second piece of that, Sam, is AI is not new. Like, we've been getting Word. Like, in Word, you have the wor- you know, the, um, here, is this what your next sentence is? Is this next to your word? That's been around forever. AI's been around forever. We just didn't call it that, right? So again, um, how to embrace it without letting it, uh, wash over you. Um, and I think there's a lot of regret right now with a lot of the companies who are, who have laid people off because they think that AI can re- replace. And, we've already seen that Microsoft spent more money in tokens, AI tokens, than they did in, in payroll on the people that they displaced in the first quarter of this year, for the whole year of payroll. So you know, you'd think a company like Microsoft might understand that before they do it, but they didn't.

Sam 12:10

Yeah.

Lee Caraher 12:11

So you know, it's a good, it's a good thing to understand, right?

Sam 12:15

For sure. So I would love to just hear your perspective. I mean, I, I know that there's... we're all learning in-

Lee Caraher 12:22

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Sam 12:24

And just like y- as a business, you just mentioned that there's, there's... You have customers that are saying, "Hey, we, we need you to use this platform. We need you to do X, Y, and Z." And so, you took, took us through the, the, the prompting differences,

Lee Caraher 12:38

Hmm

Sam 12:39

how has AI adoption been for your organization, and, and what are the learnings that you've had?

Lee Caraher 12:45

Uh, uneven. So, um, because we have clients who mandate the use of it, uh, we are having conversations with them about who's paying for that, because that's not who you hired. Uh, and we're happy to use technology. We use a lot of technology. We always have. But first it's like, who's paying for that and who's gonna train people to get proficient on it? Because you're demanding something new out of the contract that didn't exist when we wrote this contract. So that's the first piece. Number two is always saying, "Yes, of course we can," and, right? Uh, and then identifying, um, we have a core team. Uh, we only have like, I guess we have like 40-ish people who work with us either full-time or part-time. We have a core team of six who are avi- are in most of these LLMs. I am one of them, um, 'cause I need to know. I just need to know. Um, and then we have identified several people who are gonna be subject matter experts in different ways to use it. So we don't co- we don't, we, we're doing no coding. Um, we're doing some modules that will help us in, uh, reporting, uh, and we've outsourced that to use different models that different clients want to use in their, in their reporting. But we have a core team that's looking at all the, being assigned to specific LLMs, and then we have two people who are looking at what are the best practices across. Um, and actually we're just kicking off, next week we kick off our big, um, like a formal training for the whole company on how to use all these things because, uh, again, our, my responsibility to my team is that they're relevant all the time, 'cause if our team isn't relevant, we don't get clients. That's the peer, you know. So, uh, if we don't get them trained, they won't be relevant and I can't take 'em anywhere. If I can't take 'em anywhere, they got no job. So that kicks off next week and it's pretty robust. Um, it's pretty robust and, um, it won't be sufficient. We already know it won't be sufficient because of what, how fast it's moving. So we need to, you know, we, and we have a AI policy, what you can and can't put in LLMs. We put all, we protect ourselves and all those things. No one can use a free AI tool in our company for any company work. Um, and then on the paid ones, you, you still have to lock 'em down so that your stuff's not used, or that at least there's a recourse if it is used, uh, for you. So there's just a lot of learning in each of them. They all work differently. But if you don't train your... You can't assume that what you, if you, someone who's really good at Chat will be someone who's really good at Claude, 'cause it's not true.

Sam 15:28

Yes. Yes. I've, I found that out with my team as well. I mean, it's

Lee Caraher 15:32

Mm-hmm.

Sam 15:32

we use a variety of different platforms, and, uh, they are different, and it's a different learning curve on each and,

Lee Caraher 15:38

Each

Sam 15:39

And, and you know, with the, the AI race between these companies, I mean, one does well, the other one drops off. The other one does well, the other one drops off, you know, so

Lee Caraher 15:46

I mean, it's constant.

Sam 15:48

Yeah.

Lee Caraher 15:48

con-

Sam 15:48

have to

Lee Caraher 15:49

and, you know, we have an advantage 'cause we've been in Silicon Valley for so long, and we've worked with Silicon Valley, so we get it, right? You have to be, like at the beginning of Twitter, there were nine other Twitters. But you, we had to be on all of them to know what was gonna prevail, right? So we've been through this. The difference is that it's not delivering a message, it's actually helping us do our work. It's very different

Sam 16:10

Well, let's switch gears a bit. I wanna talk about your, your

Lee Caraher 16:13

Yeah

Sam 16:13

You know, so the, The Boomerang Principle. And so tell us, you know, uh, when you wrote that, who did you write it for,

Lee Caraher 16:20

Mm-hmm

Sam 16:21

was the main, the main thing that you were trying to, to deliver there?

Lee Caraher 16:25

I wrote it out of response to my first book, which was about millennials and management, which was, you know, four years previous to that, where people were saying those, basically HR people and leaders were saying, "If someone leaves me, they are dead to me." And that is exactly opposite of where your head needs to be, either in HR or in leadership. And I think HR people get it better than leaders do. But at that time when I published this book, which was now I guess eight years ago, over 50% of companies in this country had a policy a- against rehiring people. And my point of view remains that if you have a c- a culture that people return to, you have a strategic advantage. So it's a strategic advantage of you for you to be in a company that encourages people to return, because what the, what it, what, because from lack of anything else, what it says to the people who are there, right? It says that grease, that grass is not so much greener, and that we water our gr- you know, grass is where, grass is green where you water it, and you c- can't always see the watering you're doing in training and development and culture and progression, all those kind of things. When you're in it, it looks better. But when people come back to you, they have a lot to share from the outside world, and it's a great message, and it's, it's not just a great message, it's a great culture. Um, and then that's who I wrote it for. It's like, get this out of your head. This is an old trope that does not work, and there's this concept that, you know, they're not loyal anymore. You're paying them. That's not an act of loyalty. An act of loyalty is not when they're employed. You pay them, they show up. If they don't show up, you fire them. That, nothing in there is loyal. Nothing. In fact, I think the most loyal thing someone can do when they work for you is leave when they don't wanna be there anymore, or they're not engaged. And we talk about today, like quiet quitting. No, no, no. Quit. Goodbye. That's the loyal act, right? The most loyal thing, loyalty happens when you don't expect anything, that you're not compensated for. There's no agreement to do it. And so what I know about our people at Double, well, when I meet people who join us, so I don't hire everybody, but I meet everybody in the first two or three days, and the second or third thing out of my mouth, Sam, is, "I know you're gonna leave us." So I just say it. 'Cause when you hire someone, you know they're gonna go. Like, there are very few companies who will keep you for their whole careers, right? And particularly with the younger generation, uh, I would say X, um, Zs, and, um, uh, millennials, they anticipate having seven or eight or nine careers, not just jobs, like functions. That is their anticipation. It's very unusual that a company could keep people through six iterations of ideas on that. So I say in that first few minutes, "I know you're gonna leave us. I hope you're here for a long time, and I hope that whatever you decide you wanna do as you progress, we can accommodate at Double Forte. But that requires you to tell us what you wanna do, so we can figure out how to accommodate that within the structure of our company, if we can or not." So I just get it off the table, right? And so what that has yiel- yielded is people who stay longer 'cause they're not worried about telling me they're gonna leave. It has yielded people who are like, "You know, I really wanna go, I really wanna learn about this," or, "You know, I wanna be on that account. I know nothing about wine, and I know I have to go get some schooling to be on that account, but can I do that?" Sure. Sure. Um, and it keeps us them longer. And the, and we know about, um, churn, is that the longer you keep engaged people, the better your business is, the more profitable your business is, the stronger your business is. So that's really where it is. And what we've seen is over time, so company now 24 years old, we have rehired 16 people. We have rehired five people twice. So every time they come back, someone comes back, one, they come back with more skills that are not ours 'cause they've learned something else, number one. Number two, they, their onboarding is down to one month, not six, not 12, 'cause it really takes somebody 12 months to be fully aligned, right? But they can come back, and there's... You have to have a different onboarding for these people, but they can come back and be fully engaged, fully, you know, working on all cylinders within, you know, 30, 60 days. That's amazing, right? And then they're also saying, "Hey, this is a good place to be." We all need that reinforcement as much as we can. So that's the premise of the book, and then I, I take people with, through, like, how to do that. Here's how you do that kind of stuff.

Sam 21:03

Yeah. I, I mean that, I mean, I've found that time and time again at the organizations I, I work with is that, um, you know, having that openness, having people

Lee Caraher 21:12

Mm-hmm

Sam 21:12

leave the organization, keeping, um, uh, open arms for them to come

Lee Caraher 21:16

Mm-hmm

Sam 21:17

e- exceptional learning, e- e- expe- this great experience that they can shower upon your, your

Lee Caraher 21:24

Mm-hmm

Sam 21:25

And then the, when they come back, they often stay much

Lee Caraher 21:28

Much longer. Oh, yeah. I mean, and I think about when something is loyal, a loyal act of an employee, I talk about lifetime loyalty from employees. I don't mean staying with you for their life. I mean, wherever you go, you, "Oh, you know what? I'm gonna introduce Sam to Lee. I just met this person. You, you guys would t- this would be a great client for you guys. Let me introduce you." They don't have to do that. I don't pay them for that, or they send us people, or whatever it is. that network, has such an impact on our business in terms of profile thud weight and, "Oh, that person worked for Double Forte?" How I measure our success for people who have left us is, do they keep us on their resume? 'Cause you don't have to. And if they do, I know we're winning,

Sam 22:13

Yeah,

Lee Caraher 22:14

because it means something to them that they're keeping us on their resume

Sam 22:18

Right. So what I often find in the, in the companies I work with is that, uh, because I- what I do in, in my... when I'm not podcasting, is I am a, a compensation expert. So I help

Lee Caraher 22:30

Mm-hmm

Sam 22:32

put together their total rewards programs,

Lee Caraher 22:34

Mm-hmm

Sam 22:35

management, uh, career growth, things like this. And what I find is the biggest gap I, uh, in organizations is their actually ability to communicate effectively internally with their own people, and

Lee Caraher 22:48

Mm-hmm

Sam 22:48

uh, and of course externally. But the, the big piece is, is communicating effectively with your, your people.

Lee Caraher 22:55

Mm-hmm.

Sam 22:55

d- do you come across this a lot, Lee?

Lee Caraher 22:57

All the time. And I think that my, um, often we get hired for the PR side, which p- in general, public relations is the outside world, external communication. Um, and when we do that, sometimes we only get hired in that, in that lane. But, um, o- our belief is your first audience is your employees, so they should not be the last to know anything. They should be the first to know something, right? And, and so many companies, like, take the, "We're gonna make this big announcement," and then employees are like, "What the hell was that?" Right? So from my perspect- You're, you are paying people. They're there. They should be carrying a lot of water, because they get a lot of questions out in the world. Like, "Oh, what's your company doing?" "I have no idea." That is the worst message you can have for a company, that employees don't have a clue what you're doing. Big mistake, because all of those people have a network. So if you have 10 employees, minimum their, their reach, minimum, is 500 people. Minimum. Why aren't we, and, you know, why aren't we talking with them first so that they can carry the water for the company that they're being paid to carry the water for?

Sam 24:02

That's

Lee Caraher 24:03

So that's so important

Sam 24:05

Yeah, they're, they're... I mean, they're, they, they can be, they are great advocates. As you

Lee Caraher 24:09

Mm-hmm

Sam 24:09

they're a force multiplier if they have that big network. They're g- if

Lee Caraher 24:13

Absolutely

Sam 24:13

company, they know what the company's doing. And

Lee Caraher 24:16

Mm-hmm

Sam 24:16

there was... So that, I have a story that, uh, it's, it's, it's quite old now. It's, like, 15 years ago when I had this conversation. I was talking to a, uh, t- a total rewards, um, professional at Disney at the time,

Lee Caraher 24:29

Mm-hmm

Sam 24:29

and they were talking about the... It's so important for them to have a common experience between their

Lee Caraher 24:35

Mm-hmm

Sam 24:37

and what they experience in the... and what the customer experiences externally.

Lee Caraher 24:41

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Sam 24:43

course, you know, Disney, uh, was, is all about the magic.

Lee Caraher 24:48

Yeah

Sam 24:48

magical for in- internally as

Lee Caraher 24:50

Mm-hmm

Sam 24:51

a mismatch, then you have a, a conflict

Lee Caraher 24:54

Absolutely

Sam 24:54

you know, and a rub where people are, don't wanna be advocates. And so,

Lee Caraher 24:59

Yeah.

Sam 25:00

big drive at the time

Lee Caraher 25:01

I mean, they're good at it, and think about the wa- particularly on the properties, they're excellent at it. But think about everything that Disney's gone through in the last three or four years, with management change, with challenges to their, um, in Florida, uh, from the governor and from the president and the old, I mean, all the things, right? So it's, uh, often it's hard to keep everybody abreast of everything. Um, but if you are a company that can say, "We can't tell you everything, but we're gonna as soon as we can," at least you've acknowledged it, 'cause they're a publicly traded company. They have things to do themselves, but their first... What you don't need is employees who say, "Don't invest here." Right? "Whatever you do, don't put your money here," right? That's the worst thing possible. So, um, I think that a couple of observations on this. So one, when I started Double Forte, the chief communications officer was not a thing. Outside of government and military, that's where you saw C- CCOs. Um, and in the last really 15 years, now you over 60% of, probably 70% now of, uh, a Fortune, I'll just say 2000, 3000, 5000, has a CCO, and when- it's usually a public relations person, someone who understands all those things, right? They've, we've been begging, when I started my career, we're like, "I just wanna get at that table. Just bring me to the table and I can help." And now there's, it's an officer at the table. So in terms of the importance of m- of communication, uh, in the last 15, 20 years, nothing has risen faster than this function, communication, public relations, communicat- internal communications. And in comm- internal communications also is a- usually a follower to external, because external we're worried about what's going on on Twitter, and we have to manage it all the time, and who's saying what, and, you know, what did Kid Rock do to my beer, and all that kind of stuff. But, um, internal communication in the last three or four years, particularly since COVID, has, uh, really risen in respect from, uh, in corporate America, which is a wonderful thing. It's a great thing

Sam 27:13

Yeah, well, it just makes sense. I mean, just, let's just think about, you know, like a, a case study, and then maybe you can help me walk through

Lee Caraher 27:19

Mm-hmm

Sam 27:19

you know, a, an, if a, a large organization, that has something terrible happen, you know? So

Lee Caraher 27:26

Mm-hmm

Sam 27:26

Mm-hmm there was something that, uh, uh, hits the press

Lee Caraher 27:30

Mm-hmm.

Sam 27:30

Mm and you needed to hire a PR expert

Lee Caraher 27:32

Mm-hmm

Sam 27:34

And but then there's also, uh, an impact on our employees as well

Lee Caraher 27:39

Oh, for sure

Sam 27:40

Mm a sense of, it could be a sense of shame or, you know- Mm or whatever because they're, they're associated with that organization.

Lee Caraher 27:46

Mm-hmm

Sam 27:47

walk me through that, Lee. How

Lee Caraher 27:48

Sure.

Sam 27:49

that crisis?

Lee Caraher 27:51

So I think from a crisis perspective, it, I mean, there's things that happen externally that, uh, on your brand that y- was not your intention, but you're, it's, uh, you're a casualty of it. There are crises that happen because of bad behavior, and those usually are bad behaviors that are either r- super egregious or harmful, like physically harmful, or they're from the executive level where they should've known better, right? Those are the two kind of things. And then there's natural disaster. So let's not worry about natural disaster. Um, wh- I can give you an example of a company we worked with for a v- very long time before they got sold, which is Clif Bar, the energy bar company, and they're an organic, um, organic energy bar. Most of it is organic. And, um, uh, you'll... This is a while ago, so this is probably, oh, it's like 15 years ago But, uh, it, you'll probably remember there was the salmonella problem with peanut butter and peanuts that people died. Uh, actually, people, uh, were killed by eating peanut butter. And the Clif Bar used the same company, uh, to, for their peanut butter in their peanut butter products that that peanut butter came from. It was a different line, right? But they used the same product. And they pulled... So it was a shock. They'd never had a product recall ever. So first of all, it wa- and then it, all these things came out about that company, that it was dirty, that there were rats, they were doing non-organic things on the organic line, all the terrible things. And, uh, Clif Bar felt, uh, I can te- I can tell you 'cause I was in the war room with this every single day for a month, was they held the employees as importantly as they held the consumers, as importantly as they held the customers. Uh, so the first thing was we were ta- you know, it's, you could die. We didn't know if the, if that peanut butter was in a Clif Bar product or not. We didn't know for like a week and a half. So total recall of all peanut butter products. Well, that is, um, national news, right? That's customer news. And Costco actually, which sells, at that time they sold the most peanut butter products of any company. They sent a letter to all of the people who had bought a Clif Bar product within the, within, uh, uh, 30 to 60 days. They sent a letter to over a million people, and, and we're sitting in the room and the pr- chief people person comes in and goes, "Where is the letter to the c- to the employees?" Oh my God. We can't send a letter to the consumers of C- of Costco before we send a letter to our employees. Oh my gosh. And, um, we were so focused on that Costco w- 'cause Costco was gonna do it without us or with us, uh, that we, you know, and then that she w- and it was a woman, she was like all the time. And because all of these people who had joined Clif Bar, who were so proud to be of this company that was doing something new in energy bars, panicking. Like, "How could this happen to us?" All of our checks and balances And a lot of things you can't... You know, in the end, they didn't use any of the peanut butter. In the end, um, they actually re- their peanut butter business actually recovered because of how well they communicated to employees, customers, and consumers. But you have to have a whole view on it, you have to act fast, and you have to keep everybody informed on where you are in the process, 'cause you're not gonna know. Here's what we know now. I'll have an update in th- you know, in three hours. Here's what we know now. I'll have an update in four hours. Internally, push that button before you push your external button, and you have to get really detailed on this. Which means right today, we'll flip over to communications for a second, if you're a company that doesn't have a crisis plan, please call me, because you need a crisis plan, 'cause it's going to happen to you. It's going to happen to you, and just having a plan gives you a leg up

Sam 31:39

Yeah. Stuff happens, right? You just need to be ready for it

Lee Caraher 31:42

I mean, you don't know... Well, you know, we li- in California, uh, half our companies are in California. Fire, earthquake, flood. We have plans on all of those things

Sam 31:51

Hmm. Excellent

Lee Caraher 31:52

You know, we have a, we had a retailer at one time, we had to have a, we had a, a big retailer in California we worked with for 12 years before they got sold, and, you know, we needed a open, uh, and it was during the whole, uh, conceal and carry in California, so we needed a, um, a gun policy, a gun, a problem around guns, problem around i- you know, in a retailer anyone can come in, what's your crowd policy? What's gonna happen when something bad happens in the store that had nothing to do with you? A dog bites a person, you know, all the things. That company's, um, crisis plan was over 300 pages long, and you just went, "What happened?" Flip to that page and start, you know.

Sam 32:35

Yeah, it's interesting you say that 'cause I, I have the same thing for, uh, compensation policies. You know, it's like if there's a natural disaster

Lee Caraher 32:41

Yeah

Sam 32:41

or, or, uh, or, you know, economic crisis in a certain, uh, uh, country, I mean, you need... Uh, uh, people, if you don't have the program, you act reactively. You know?

Lee Caraher 32:51

Yeah.

Sam 32:52

you say the wrong thing, you do

Lee Caraher 32:53

Right

Sam 32:54

And so it's, it's good to, to take the n- the nice, comfortable, slow, peaceful time to

Lee Caraher 33:00

It's true.

Sam 33:01

and get it down.

Lee Caraher 33:02

And you're never, your plan's never gonna be exactly in, you know, rolled out the way you planned it, but you're gonna have a starting place. Like, what are our values? What's gonna guide our decision maker? Who are the people who have to be involved in any decision? Decide that now before, before the proverbial S hits the fan

Sam 33:20

Yeah. And so, yeah, and, and so, of course, is there a, um, have you ever seen an organization over-communicate or communicate too much, be too transparent?

Lee Caraher 33:32

No. I ha- I don't think you can over-communicate. I think you can over-explain. Those are two different things. Um, you see a lot of companies get in trouble because they try to over-explain or give all the rationale for something, why they did something wrong or... And that's a mistake. I did something wrong. I F'd up. We're gonna look at it, we're never gonna do it again, and then we promise we're never gonna do it again. As opposed to, "We had a policy, and this person wasn't trained well, but they meant well. And then, you know, her boss was out that day, and his boss..." You know, you see this a lot, right? Over-explaining. Over-explaining and over-communicating are not the same thing. Over-communicating, I don't think you ever get there, 'cause I think, um, you can, you should communicate and can- until someone else can finish your sentence. Very hard to do. Like Nike does it, "Just do..." You could fill in the blank there, right? Just do it. Or, you know, with their advertising. But they've spent billions of dollars on that. Most people can't do that, right? So in a entity, a company, you cannot over-communicate with your staff, and when they can finish your sentences, you're getting there. And then you hire somebody new, and you have to start all over again, because the weakest link is the person who doesn't know. So you're never done over-communicating. You can over-explain. And usually people who over-explain get themselves into bigger pickles. And you s- there are a lot of examples of this in the, in the airline business. United, Air Ca- I mean, there's so many. "Well, you know, our policy in Chicago is not the policy in San Francisco, is not the policy..." No, there's a policy on how you take someone off a plane. So... And in the era of, you know, the, that genie is out of the bottle, right? Everyone's got the camera. You're gonna be the last to know what happened. We used to be the first people to know. We're gonna be the last people to know what happened. So you ca- you know, don't bother trying to explain the evidence. Don't bother.

Sam 35:33

is... And, uh, to, to come full circle with the, the concept of, of how, how to handle communication in an AI-powered world,

Lee Caraher 35:41

Mm-hmm.

Sam 35:41

the risks that you're seeing,

Lee Caraher 35:43

Oh.

Sam 35:44

coming ahead?

Lee Caraher 35:45

I think a lot of risk in AI manipulated imaging, AI, uh, audio, you know, y- we've seen, you know, being able to detect what's AI and what's real is critical in any communications, um, environment. So we are always looking at that best practice on the, on those things. Did he say it? Was he, where was he? Can I prove that he wasn't there at the same time? You know, kind of stuff. So that's our biggest risk is imposter sy- you know, AI imposters, right? Um, number one, and then number two is what AI, you know, uh, well, it, you can think about bots as AI, you know. So a bot happens, they program the bot and the bot tells another bot and the bot tells another bot, tells another bot and all of a sudden, right? Um, understanding how to maneuver in a, not just a 24/7 but a 60 minute times three 24, whatever the that is world, um, where it can get outta hand pretty quickly. Like you can, a, a piece, a meme can travel super fast. Um, and understanding how to manage, like how to take a d- a big breath, not to overreact but to respond. Reaction and response are two different mindsets, right? Responding is, is, uh, I would think about it as thoughtful. Here's the situation, here's where we stand on it, here's what we're gonna do going forward. Reacting is like, "Oh my God!" Right? It's a little frantic and you don't wanna be in a business that's frantic

Sam 37:16

For sure. Well, this has been a great conversation, Lee. So, uh, one last question. What would, what would be the one thing that you would leave with leaders that are listening right now? What, what is the most important thing that

Lee Caraher 37:28

Mm-hmm

Sam 37:29

away, uh, from your, uh, current experiences with AI, the, your book? What, what is the

Lee Caraher 37:35

Sure.

Sam 37:35

you want them to walk away with?

Lee Caraher 37:37

I think that the biggest thing right now is that we don't know what AI is gonna do. We don't know, and to say that we do is a lie. So, and your people also don't know, and your people are looking to you for answers, like, "How are we gonna handle this?" And you do not know-- need to know all the answers. You do need to have a framework. "Here's what I know today. Here's our mission. Here's how we think AI, we can use AI to improve our mission or our deliverable. I'm not sure how it's all gonna work out, but i- we're gonna make sure you're trained, we're gonna make sure we're monitoring it, we're gonna make sure all the things. And we're gonna have to watch how it evolves. But I don't know all the answers." And to just be comfortable in the fact that you don't know, 'cause your people know you don't know. Are you an expert in AI? Even the experts in AI... Anthropic said, "Please stop developing." Hello. They don't know where it's going. So being comfortable in what you don't know, but making sure that you share your vision for it and have a process or a framework for talking to your people, 'cause they're all waiting for you to say something. They're all waiting for you to say, "Are you gonna replace me with AI?" I mean, I'll tell you that's the wrong answer.

Sam 38:48

Yeah

Lee Caraher 38:48

wrong answer. I mean, I don't know, 150 years ago, there was a whole industry of people who were in elevators pushing buttons and moving gears. Those people got displaced by buttons. We're not, like, saying, "Oh, I wish the elevator man could come back," right? We're never gonna say that ever again. Those people all got better jobs. AI is gonna improve our world. We have to have that point of view. How are we gonna make sure... Our job is to make sure AI improves us, doesn't take us down, and that's your job. And number one, uh, you may not know how to do it. I would say don't be on the bleeding edge. Don't be the, uh, you know, don't be the bug splat 'cause you're so far out there, you choose the wrong one, 'cause we don't know yet. But you need to have a plan, and you need to communicate that plan

Sam 39:33

So Lee, how do people get ahold of you if they have questions

Lee Caraher 39:37

Mm-hmm

Sam 39:37

would like to hire you as a, their PR expert?

Lee Caraher 39:41

crisis people come... No, I'm kidding. Uh, if you, uh, but e- I'm really easy to find, so it's Lee Carherher. Google me and you'll find me. But it's, uh, leecarherher.com is where my books are, and then is the company. Um, and I will respond to all emails

Sam 39:57

Perfect. Well, to our listeners out there, uh, if you found this, this, uh, conversation interesting, please share it with a friend, uh, that... And especially those that definitely need that, uh, AI, uh, policy in place, uh, that, uh,

Lee Caraher 40:11

Mm-hmm.

Sam 40:11

policy, uh, as we tend, is super important to, to ensure that we, we can, uh, know how to react when crisis comes our way, because it will someday, and we need to be prepared for it. but once again, if you, if you, uh, enjoyed this, please subscribe and like, share with your friends, and we'll see you next week on the People Strategy Forum. All right. Take care, everyone