✅ Why high-performing communications teams are sense-making functions that deliver management-grade intelligence
Ten signals, ten failures of interpretation and a pattern that communications leaders and management can't afford to ignore.
Most communications teams still measure performance based on outputs. The best operate as intelligence systems, reading the external environment, identifying weak signals early and translating them into intelligence to support management decision-making.
Each example below surfaced during one of my Communications Management and Leadership workshops. In every case, the signal existed often years in advance. It was visible somewhere in the organisation, but simply wasn’t interpreted as a communications risk.
1. DEI and the slow drift of US regulatory language
The Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision in June 2023 made clear that the legal framing around affirmative action was shifting. Most communications teams did not interpret this as a risk to corporate DEI positioning.
When executive orders landed in January 2025 under President Trump, responses were reactive and often reputationally damaging. The Conference Board reported a 68% drop in “DEI” references in S&P 500 filings within months.
The signal was visible two years earlier. The language had changed, but communications hadn’t connected it to corporate risk.
2. The same companies, caught in two directions at once
While US firms were stripping DEI language, European operations were embedding it into disclosures under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
Multinationals removed DEI references from US filings while being required to publish them in Europe. Few communications teams developed a coherent strategy for managing the contradiction.
The signal was structural divergence and the response was fragmented.
3. UK water companies and the narrative they never built
Campaign groups had published sewage overflow data since 2019. Ofwat performance assessments were public. The financial structure of Thames Water was well documented. None of it was treated as a communications risk.
Companies led with technical and investment narratives while a counter-narrative built steadily around environmental failure. By the time the issue broke politically, the external narrative was already trusted.
The signal was the data. It was never translated into reputational risk.
4. The Red Sea and the sustainability narrative
When Houthi attacks disrupted Red Sea shipping in late 2023, organisations treated it as a logistics issue. For companies with strong sustainability positioning, that framing was incomplete. Rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope materially increased emissions, widening the gap between stated climate commitments and actual supply chain behaviour.
The signal was a misalignment between narrative and reality. Communications engaged only once stakeholders noticed.
5. Tariffs as a stakeholder communications problem
Tariff risk had been visible since President Trump’s first term. What caught organisations off guard in 2025 was enforcement. Held shipments became performance issues. Rejections became commercial disputes. Documentation failures became relationship risks.
Critically, legal, supply chain, and communications functions were operating from entirely different assumptions. There was no shared narrative ready for stakeholders when the pressure arrived.
The signal was enforcement and not the tariffs themselves.
6. Visa restrictions and enterprise continuity
Changes to H-1B vetting were clearly signalled in late 2024 policy updates from the US Department of Homeland Security. Most firms treated immigration as an HR issue.
By early 2026, companies were warning visa holders not to travel due to re-entry risks. The communications implications - for employees, clients, and investors - had no prepared response.
The signal sat in policy. It was never translated into organisational risk.
7. EU-US digital sovereignty: communications bifurcation
The 2025 tariff détente created a perception of stability. Most analysts viewed it as temporary. The underlying issue, namely, Europe’s push for digital sovereignty continued to diverge from US policy direction.
The EU AI Act, Digital Markets Act, and GDPR had been signalling this trajectory for years. Technology firms now face incompatible regulatory narratives across markets. Few communications functions have planned for it.
8. Critical minerals and the supply chain story you weren’t ready to tell
China’s tightening of rare earth export controls has been visible since 2023. The 2025 US National Security Strategy explicitly identified critical minerals as a strategic priority.
When constraints hit, CEOs improvised explanations for supply disruptions. Upstream dependencies had never been translated into stakeholder risk narratives.
The signal was geopolitical. The failure was narrative preparedness.
9. BlackRock and the ESG pivot with no story
BlackRock built its positioning around ESG leadership. Political resistance was visible from 2022, when state-level actors began withdrawing mandates. By 2025, ESG language had been quietly reduced without a coherent narrative explaining why.
The result was criticism from both supporters and opponents.
The signal was political backlash. The miss was narrative strategy.
10. Gaza and the expectation of corporate voice
From October 2023, organisations faced pressure to respond to the conflict in Gaza. Unlike Ukraine, any statement risked alienating key stakeholders across the political spectrum.
The deeper signal had arrived earlier: corporate activism across BLM, Ukraine, and climate had raised expectations of organisational voice. Communications functions had encouraged that expectation without defining governance for when, or indeed whether, to speak. Most responses were improvised under pressure.
The shift from signals to management-grade intelligence
Across all ten cases, the pattern is the same. The signal existed. The interpretation didn’t.
According to Ocean Tomo, intangible assets now represent 92% of S&P 500 market value, up from 17% in 1975. If that is the asset base, then communications is already a risk function whether it behaves like one or not.
Weak signals are the raw material. The reputational risk briefing is the mechanism. Management literacy is what makes the argument land.
Stop submitting a monthly communications report and start submitting a reputational risk briefing. It’s the same data, reframed:
What has changed externally
What it means for the organisation
What decisions management needs to take
The first module of my Communications Management and Leadership course is built around this shift from delivery to sensemaking and risk advisory. We work through how to identify weak signals, translate them into management counsel, and frame reputational risk at board level. Participants leave with a reputational risk briefing framework they can apply immediately.
The next date is 21 April. Use WADDSNEWSLETTER for a £100 discount.
Have a great weekend.
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