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Harvard Turns the Tables on Trump · Communication Breakdown

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Welcome back to Communication Breakdown, a weekly podcast from the Observatory on Corporate
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Reputation.
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Thanks for joining us.
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I'm Steve Dowling in Silicon Valley.
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And I'm Craig Carroll here all in New York City.
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Each week Steve and I take a look at strategies companies are using to shape headlines and
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sometimes save their skins.
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It's the post-game show for PR Pros.
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This week, Harvard turns the tables on Trump.
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After months of trying to somehow meet the White House in the middle on issues of free
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speech, diversity, and academic freedom, Harvard finally drew a bright line in its own
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defense and on behalf of American academia.
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Served with a Trump administration nasty-gram two Fridays ago, Harvard responded defiantly.
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Not with its fight song, but with an unflinching, unambiguous message from its president.
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Quote, "The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional
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rights."
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The White House immediately froze $2.2 billion in grants and went on to threaten the university's
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tax exempt status.
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Then, they started piling on new probes and demands for documents and then things started
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getting weird.
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The New York Times, citing multiple administration sources, reported some believed that the Friday
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afternoon letter had been sent in error. But in the same letter, a senior White House official
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stuck by that letter and blamed Harvard for responding publicly.
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This week, with no let up in Trump's pressure campaign, Harvard went on the offensive, suing
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nine federal agencies, calling the funding freeze arbitrary and unconstitutional.
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That was Monday.
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On Tuesday, more than 100 presidents of U.S. colleges and universities issued a statement
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rejecting what they called "undo government intrusion" and the coercive use of public
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research funding.
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The number of signatories has since climbed over 400.
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And on Wednesday, Harvard president Alan Garber took his case to NBC Nightly News, asked
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about the pain Harvard will have to endure going head-to-head with Trump.
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"We don't know how much we can actually absorb, but what we do know is that we cannot compromise
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on basic principles like defense of our First Amendment rights."
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Craig, this dispute is remarkable for a number of reasons, I think, not least of which is
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this Clash of the Titans' quality it brings.
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But what I think we're seeing here is the first actual PR blitz against the Trump administration,
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and it might have seemed a bit slow moving or limited in its audience because it's ostensibly
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a bunch of academics.
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But it has all the components.
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And this week, especially, I think Harvard has played it extremely well.
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If you rewind, they had a headline-grabbing rejection of Trump's threats, then the White House
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stumbled with this suggestion that the letter was some kind of misfire.
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And instead of treating that as an off-ramp, an excuse to de-escalate, Harvard puts its
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foot on the gas- lawsuit, letter, big interview, and crucially, I think they were able to do
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what industries have not achieved so far in this administration, which is to get an
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overwhelming number of its peers to stand up in support.
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And that's just the tactics.
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The substance of their message has been really strong as well, making this not about funding,
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but about universities being an economic asset.
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Healthcare has been a big part of the message.
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The first amendment, as we heard, there from Garber.
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They've broadened the dispute, they framed the issue as much more fundamental, and they've
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framed it importantly as a stand they have to take.
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It's not a war of choice.
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Garber frames the issue on Harvard's terms: constitutional rights, academic freedom, national
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impact.
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That is textbook narrative control.
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Yeah, and what's wild is, it's not just Harvard is fighting back.
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It's that they're fighting forward.
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This is in a defensive crouch.
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They're using every escalation as an opportunity to widen the frame.
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And, Steve, the way he laid it out really drives home something bigger here.
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But Harvard isn't just reacting, they are reframing the entire conversation.
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They're putting in emotion the three P's that we've been talking about for chaos management:
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principles, priorities, and perspective.
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I'd say, the principles are rock solid.
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It's about constitutional rights, academic freedom, the integrity of higher education.
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But it's also the value of truth seeking as a public good.
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That's a pretty strong moral center.
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It's not a tactical spin.
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It's pretty anchored.
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And Harvard's response isn't just well timed,
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it's well principled, you know, they're not flailing.
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They're not performing,
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they're standing on very deliberate principles.
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There's so much that we can talk about here, right?
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But I would hit on some of the key aspects here because I think they're going to be showing
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up in companies' responses.
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They're defending constitutional integrity.
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They're maintaining their institutional independence, or they're protecting it.
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They're being radically transparent.
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They're not quietly compliant and they're acting with collective responsibility.
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No, not just institutional self-interest.
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And they're keeping their composure when escalation would be so easy.
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We should keep in mind that the initial scrutiny from the Trump administration was ostensibly
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about anti-Semitism at Harvard and other colleges.
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And in the response, Garber called that a political ploy.
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He said that the administration's effort were just disguised as an effort to address anti-Semitism.
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But in doing that, he's acknowledged that anti-Semitism is a real and serious issue at his institution.
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So that takes a weapon out of the administration's hand.
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He's not running from that issue.
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I think the general assessment is that he's taken a more head-on approach than his predecessor
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who resigned under pressure from Congress on the same issue.
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But in this round, Harvard sounds credible rather than cornered.
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They're owning the issue.
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They're defending their autonomy.
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That's a powerful messaging duo.
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They've taken the damaging part of the criticism and they're defusing it.
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It doesn't make a go away, but it shows strength, to your point.
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Yeah.
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And I think that's the distinction that matters here most, right?
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That Harvard isn't denying the problem,
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they're refusing to let it be weaponized.
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And I think that's a rare thing in institutional comms, right?
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Owning the issue without seeding the frame.
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And that's exactly what Garber is doing here.
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He's not deflecting.
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He's not minimizing.
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He's saying yes.
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And anti-Semitism exists here.
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Yes, it's unacceptable.
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And here's what we've done.
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And here's what we're doing about it.
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But he's also saying you don't get to use that as a troche and horse to audit ideology, to
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control governance, or to dismantle academic independence.
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And for me, that's what's so effective here, right?
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It's strength through acknowledgement.
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He's not trying to shut the conversation down.
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He's trying to re-anchor it in integrity.
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That contrast, especially coming off with how chaotic the previous leadership transition
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was, makes Harvard sound very steady, not defensive, not performative, but steady.
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And that changes the dynamic.
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It makes it harder for critics to say "Harvard won't deal with this."
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And it makes it easier for allies to stand with them without having to excuse the original
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concern.
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I think that's how you take oxygen out of the fire without pretending there was no fire.
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I agree.
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And it's also, it's a classic PR jujitsu move.
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Because once they has defused that issue, they've moved immediately to pointing out what the
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government is trying to do to them.
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And Harvard needs to keep that point about the government being unreasonable in its demands.
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You need to keep that at the center of this debate.
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Remind people why they're on defense- why this wasn't a fight that they chose, but that
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they had to engage in.
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And that can be difficult after a few rounds of back and forth, because the press loves
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a food fight.
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And we may be guilty of it ourselves here, focusing on the elements of Harvard's response.
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But Garber has been urging people to read the government's letter and framing it as pressure
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to audit the viewpoints of the faculty and of students and to reduce the power of students
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and some faculty based on their views.
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And that, as he describes it, and I think it's a fair reading, it's like 'thought police'
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stuff.
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And Harvard is calling the government out for starting with anti-Semitism, but really moving
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quickly to try and regulate the intellectual conditions-
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I think that's the administration's term- at the university.
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So that their Harvard is doing a good job in reframing this to their advantage.
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And I think to the benefit of all these institutions who are under pressure from the administration.
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This is where Harvard has to keep the spotlight on where it belongs, right?
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Because the longer this drags on, the easier it is for people to lose the plot.
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So you get caught up in the headlines about lawsuits or tone shifts or media strategy.
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But at the heart of it is the April 11th letter, a federal document telling a private institution
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how to govern, who to hire, and how to think.
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That's not reform, that's redesign.
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And it's not just about anti-Semitism.
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It's a blueprint for intellectual control.
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You know, reduce the power of certain faculty based on ideology.
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That's not campus safety.
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That's speech regulation dressed up as a discipline.
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You're exactly right.
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Garber's smartest move so far has been to keep pointing back to that letter because when
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people actually read it, it's hard not to see that it's overreach.
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That's the challenge in this politicized media environment.
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You have to keep re-centering the unrestable thing where else the debate shifts to your reaction
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instead of to their demand.
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In a weird way, I'd say this is a test of narrative stamina.
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Can Harvard keep anchoring the story in what was asking of them?
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And everyone else is trying to shift the frame to how they responded.
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Great.
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This is a question I have for you:
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From an outsider's non-academic perspective like mine, I have to wonder if this is one
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of those things that only Harvard could do.
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They're the oldest college in the country, the richest university in the world.
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We won't get into a debate about prestige, but they're on a very short list.
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Could an institution like Columbia or UCLA or the University of Minnesota - all of whom
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are on Trump's hit list -
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Could any of them or their peers have been just as defiant and rallied the troops as effectively?
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Or did it have to be Harvard?
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It's a great question.
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I think the honest answer is probably not in the same way, but maybe in their own way.
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The challenge is that Harvard has a sense of institutional gravity that a lot of universities
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simply don't have.
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When they speak, it ripples, not just an acudeme, but across business politics, philanthropy,
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media.
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That kind of cultural capital that gives you a lot of room to take a swing without immediately
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getting flattened by the backlash.
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Now at the same time, you can't let that be an excuse, right?
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There are things that Columbia can do, that UCLA can do, Minnesota can do, and any institution
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that can reframe an attack on them as an attack on something bigger - on education, speech,
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autonomy - they can mount a credible defense.
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And they might not get 150 universities to rally behind them overnight, but they
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could build legitimacy through clarity.
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So yeah, Harvard had the runway.
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They did just lean on the prestige, they used it strategically.
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Now they framed this around systems and not status, research, medicine, constitutional
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rights, national interest.
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I mean, these are the things that make it resonate beyond the Harvard bubble.
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And I think that part is replicable.
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So yeah, sure, they did have the runway, but what they did with it, that's the playbook.
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And I think the real takeaway here is that institutions don't need to be elite to be effective.
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They just need to be principled.
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They need to be consistent.
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And Harvard just happened to be the first one out of the gate with all three, you know,
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being principled, strategic, and consistent.
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They definitely broke out of this trap that other institutions we saw last summer.
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I think it was with all the congressional hearings, just like not being able to finally
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draw that line and say no more and then go on, you know, while still on defense go on offense
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to take control of the situation.
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Yeah.
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I want to talk about the support that they're getting from other universities in a second,
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but the tactician in me cannot let this one thing go.
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There was one flaw in Harvard's execution last week that was, it was not very consequential
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in the end, but I think it was somewhat telling about the balance that Harvard is trying
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to strike and those of us in communications, you know I think recognize the situation
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that they ended up in.
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But here's what it was, on Monday the 14th when Harvard first responded to that White House
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letter with real defiance, a really well written letter.
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Garber told his community, the initial quote was, "The university will not negotiate over
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its independence or its constitutional rights."
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On the Harvard website, his letter was edited to read (that line instead said), "The university
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will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights."
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I think the first version "will not negotiate" was in an email and the second "will not surrender"
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was public facing on their site.
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I don't think that Harvard was looking to signal any more flexibility with that change,
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but this theme of engagement seems very important.
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And I think it's because you seem unreasonable if you won't come to the table at all, if
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you say we will not negotiate.
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So it was an edit for tone-
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"We won't negotiate."
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Right.
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It was a little crisper, but "we won't surrender" is just as strong and felt like maybe it was
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meant to embrace dialogue.
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But just from an execution standpoint, when I got an alert about that change, I thought,
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"Oh geez, like that's going to look like a backpedal."
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And it's really hard to get away with that, making a change after you've released the
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message.
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But clearly it was important.
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And that messaging has been so consistent and strong on not surrendering, not compromising
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that it hasn't hurt them.
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I think it's a good reminder for every corporate communications team out there, tone is not
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just dialogue strategy, especially in moments like this when you're under public scrutiny.
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The difference between defiance and dignity is often... it could be just one line of copy.
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And we've seen this in Boardrooms too.
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Some companies want to sound strong and sometimes they overshoot, they go out with a statement that's
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too sharp or too closed and then they have to walk it back a little bit.
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And that might make the milk a little weaker than if they just said less.
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But what Harvard did in that edit, we won't negotiate too, we won't surrender.
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That's a kind of calibration that matters.
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It protected their red line, it invited continued dialogue.
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And I would say that's what good corporate affairs strategy does.
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It defends the boundary, but it also keeps the door open because once you lose tone, you're
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going to lose trust and not just with your critics, but with your own people.
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And we should point out the language that Harvard has been using is really strong and clear.
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Everything they are saying is rooted in the stakes.
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What's at stake?
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Constitutional rights, academic independence.
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The long-term benefits of academic research, especially in medicine.
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These are broad and sweeping, but they're not hyperbolic.
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They're about shared values and they're not abstract.
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They mention Parkinson's research, Alzheimer's, diabetes.
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Harvard says the government is threatening the health of millions of people and that's hard
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to ignore.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And what's striking is how consistently Harvard has linked language to consequences that matter.
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They're not just using slogans, they're using stakes and not abstract ones.
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Concrete measurable ones.
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Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, battlefield medicine, that kind of research that doesn't
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just advance knowledge, it extends lives.
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And that's doing more than just moral positioning, to type of systems framing, if you will.
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They're not just reminding the public and regulators here that this isn't just about one institution
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being defined,
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it's about what happens when government overreach interrupt systems that benefit everyone.
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And I think that's a very different kind of appeal. It's not just 'protect Harvard'.
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It understands what Harvard enables and what they've done, which I think is what a lot of
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corporate leaders can learn from here is they've avoided the temptation to center the institution
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itself.
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They've centered impact.
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Yeah, it's not about being self-important.
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That's it.
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Yes.
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Right.
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And when you do that, you're not just defending the brand, you're defending a benefit.
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And the language just flows naturally from that posture.
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Let's talk about the other universities now.
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I think it's over 400 who have signed on to that message that came out the day after Harvard
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made its big stand with the lawsuit.
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I think the defiance of Harvard's stance is really important.
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But it may be just as significant that this was the week that colleges and universities
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started taking collective action.
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And I think it looks to be a very effective way to counter this White House's approach.
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The academics working together and maybe some signs that businesses might be ready to as
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well from some other developments this week.
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Could we be looking at a different equation?
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Because I think up until this week, as Harvard takes this stand and the other university stand
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up for the promise of higher education in Harvard's words, it's a really important departure
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from what we've been seeing and how others have dealt with the Trump administration to
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date, which is basically, if I can cut a deal for myself, I'm going to do it
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and the rest of the industry or the rest of the economy, they can figure it out for themselves.
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The white shoe law firms, I think are probably the best example of that or the worst depending
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on how you look at it.
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But now we have the universities taking collective action and it feels to me like this could
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be a different equation.
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Yeah, that's right.
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And what you're describing is the shift from fragmentation to formation.
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Trump's approach has always relied on isolating institutions.
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Find the weak point, apply pressure and make the response look like an overreaction.
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It's intimidation by fragmentation.
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And for a while, it worked, right?
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Schools, companies and even industries have backed off because they didn't want to stand alone.
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But what we saw this week was a different kind of posture.
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Collective institutional defense, right?
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You know, first Harvard steps up, then Columbia, then MIT, then the University of Minnesota.
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And suddenly now, you know, you've got 400 university presidents saying this isn't about
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Harvard.
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It's about higher education.
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That, I think, reframes entire encounter.
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It stops it being a referendum on one school and becomes a challenge to the legitimacy
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of the pressure itself.
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And, you know, if business joins in, not politically, but structurally around
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research, innovation and shared values, then the train can shift again because now it's
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not about whether one university will comply,
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it's about whether this whole idea of public / private partnerships can operate under political
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threat.
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And that's a much harder question for the administration to answer.
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Yeah.
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And it's a much easier place for institutions to align without looking partisan.
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Yeah.
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The Trump team loves this "flood the zone" approach where they have so many outrageous things
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going on at once that the press can't keep up, let alone the rest of the audience.
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This is the first time I think that we've seen a serious, multi-prong pushback.
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And I wonder how the White House is going to keep up with the sustained battle - if they
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can sustain it - against consistent messaging.
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Harvard has 400 universities and countless voices out there lining up under this banner of
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the promise of higher education, freedom of speech, health research, and all the benefits
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of that brings.
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They could, I think because of all the voices, they can keep that fresh and keep making
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consistent points.
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The White House...Trump signed another executive order on Wednesday.
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I think it was targeting admissions.
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He's out on his Twitter-lookalike, calling Harvard anti-Semitic.
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But I don't see anything in the White House playbook except more pressure and more doubling
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down.
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And that's not to dismiss those things.
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It's just, I think it's likely going to feel like even more overreach, which would play
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into Harvard's strategy.
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This is where it flips, right?
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Trump's model has always been about movement without message.
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Create enough chaos that clarity becomes impossible.
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And Harvard didn't try to just match the volume.
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They matched it with message consistency and that's much harder to counter.
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The real reversal here is that the longer the White House keeps throwing new threats:
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executive orders, new accusations, loyalty tests- the more they start to sound erratic.
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Meanwhile, Harvard keeps saying the same thing in different ways with more people.
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This is about research, this is about speech, this is about how institutions function in
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the democracy.
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And I think that's what's giving the response more power.
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It's not escalation, it's repetition with discipline.
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And there's examples of that at every one of these, I'm sure, 400 plus universities
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who have signed on, which means there could be a local story there.
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There could be a trend in a certain area of research.
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And anyone who's tried to orchestrate a campaign like this, and we don't have any insight
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about how much coordination Harvard's actually doing behind the scenes, but when you run something
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like this, one of the first things you look for is supporters, surrogates.
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Prominent people who can keep the conversation going, write those op-eds, appear on television,
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demonstrate the support for your position.
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And I can't think of an institution in this country that has a more potent network of surrogates
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than Harvard.
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Totally.
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And what's impressive is that they're not overplaying it.
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They're using the circuit network strategically.
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They're not flooding the zone with big names, but letting those validators surface organically
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in ways that feel credible, not coordinated.
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I think that's a hard balance to strike.
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We've got op-eds, interviews, legal minds, former cabinet members, all reinforcing the
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core narrative without stepping in.
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That's key, right?
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You don't want to have circuits introducing new messages.
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You want them to repeat, amplify, and lend legitimacy.
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Yeah.
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And here's the broader point.
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Most institutions might not have Harvard's rolodex, but every organization has got some
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form of a circuit ecosystem.
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Alumni, former exec, strategic partners, people with credibility, yes, suppliers, right?
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Yeah.
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People whose credibility carry weight with key audiences.
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The question is whether or not who they are and whether or not you're prepared to use
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them in a moment like this, because when the heat comes - and it will - you're not going
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to have time to recruit.
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You need to have people art at position to speak, not just on your behalf, but on behalf
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of the principles that you share.
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Yeah.
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I think the configuration in this instance with the academic institutions that we talked
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about collective action, and so it's more like peers, rather than someone whose business
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is dependent on, let's say, a company that's running a campaign like this.
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But I think we are seeing perhaps the signs of more collective like action in the private
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sector.
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We talked on this podcast about GM and Stellantis directly with Trump over tariffs, but
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we've heard of some companies and sectors supposedly getting exemptions for themselves from the
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tarot.
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A really interesting story in Bloomberg had this week about a major Coca-Cola, Cola bottler
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who had given money to Trump.
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Anyway, on the same day that Harvard sued Trump met in the Oval Office with who CEOs of
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Target, Walmart, Home Depot, private meeting, so very different, I think.
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Their message reportedly was about higher prices in this summer of scarcity that we've
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started to hear about empty shelves with a possibility of empty shelves at big box retailers.
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So maybe we are seeing other signs that industry is going to be more likely to take this collective
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approach.
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Well, let me make one other point here about this notion of collective action because the
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colleges and universities, I think, have really landed on something here.
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And that is, you know, the targets are one thing, but this is a group of peers who are each
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finding themselves in the same situation.
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And they have finally found a voice and a sort of rally round effect here thanks to Harvard.
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I wonder what lessons the business community can take from this because they have approached
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it very differently.
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I think with the most important thing from a tactical point of view is that Harvard has
25:01
broken out of the pattern we've seen of institutions and companies dealing with this
25:06
administration, which has basically been, if I can cut a deal for myself, I'm going to do
25:11
it and everybody else can figure it out for themselves.
25:14
We've talked on this podcast about GM and Stellantis dealing directly with Trump over
25:19
tariffs.
25:21
We've heard of other companies and other sectors supposedly getting exemptions for themselves.
25:26
I think there's an interesting contrast to draw here because on the same day that Harvard
25:31
sued Monday of this week, Trump met in the Oval Office with the CEOs of Target, Walmart
25:37
and Home Depot together and reportedly their message was a unified one about higher prices
25:43
coming because of tariffs.
25:45
And this concept of summer of scarcity that we've started to hear about that there may be
25:49
empty shelves at the big box retailers.
25:52
And I just wonder if there's going to be signs of a different approach here for business.
25:59
Yeah, I think that's probably the cleanest contrast that you could ask for.
26:04
On one side of Pennsylvania Avenue, you've got Harvard saying, we're drawing a constitutional
26:09
line in the sand and on the other, you've got CEOs walking into the Oval Office saying,
26:13
let's talk supply chains.
26:16
Neither approach is wrong in its own, but if they tell you everything you need to know
26:20
about the current playbook for power, if you're not aligned politically, you better be
26:24
aligned economically.
26:26
What makes this moment so striking is that it shows two different models for access.
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Harvard's betting on principled resistance to find the institution, protect the system,
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and the big box CEOs, that's transactional navigation.
26:40
Stay in the room, protect the margins, but both are trying to manage the chaos and both
26:45
are trying to do so using totally different instruments.
26:48
But they're both showing strength and numbers, I think, as much as the point I was trying
26:52
to make.
26:53
They're both showing strength and numbers.
26:54
But let's be honest, corporate America has largely at this point, try to stay out of the ideological
27:01
line of fire this time around, and that came at a cost because if you're not careful,
27:06
the silence starts to look like complicity or worse opportunism and this climate, what
27:12
you get seen that way, your license, stop rate can evaporate overnight.
27:16
So I think the contrast is vivid.
27:18
Harvard's showing lines, big business is cutting deals.
27:21
And it's not just about their ability to work together or to elicit so much support from other
27:43
universities.
27:44
I was impressed with the letter they wrote in the first place, just circling back to where
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we began, right?
27:50
The whole idea of that they're not going to take Trump's charge to them, a non-disclosure
27:57
agreement, right?
27:58
That they're going to handle this behind the scenes.
27:59
They were very open.
28:01
They put the letter out there.
28:03
They stood firm in their principles and they're allowing everyone else to see it for themselves.
28:08
That's something any other company could do.
28:10
And I wonder if we might be in a different place if other companies had been willing to
28:15
do that.
28:16
Maybe, maybe not.
28:17
I mean, maybe Harvard might have given the size of, given their size based on the size of
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their downwind and also the number of the alumni that they have infusing all throughout society
28:30
and throughout the world.
28:32
I think the key there is the message is rock solid and it was clear, like I said, bright
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line.
28:39
This is a hard no.
28:41
But in addition, what it signaled was, it was an acknowledgement that what they'd been
28:46
trying wasn't working and they needed to do something else if they wanted to break out
28:52
of this limbo.
28:53
Well, who's the they?
28:55
Harvard.
28:56
I and the other colleges and universities who have been stuck in this trap and they get
29:00
hold in front of Congress and then they're, you know, the next thing you know, they're
29:03
university president is out and it just feels like, you know, capitulation on important
29:09
issues that were also reducing, you know, their standing and their ability to fight this because
29:17
I think maybe they were kind of trying to do it halfway.
29:20
And I remember reading that there was, you know, a movement inside of Harvard by hundreds
29:26
of members of the faculty essentially saying like, it is time to fight back.
29:32
And I think that's what we saw this week.
29:34
I think that's, you know, the dual frame that they've got a whole principle and consequence.
29:39
If it's just about values, it starts to sound at risk sounding a little abstract, but if
29:45
it's only about money, it's the same time, right?
29:47
It sounds self interested.
29:48
And it sounds worse.
29:49
Yeah, even worse, right?
29:51
But when you put them together, constitutional overreach on one side and cancer trials on
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the other, then I think that's when the public starts to get it.
29:58
And to your point, look, they're still on defense, but it doesn't feel like retreat.
30:02
Yeah.
30:03
You know, it feels like resolve.
30:04
Yeah.
30:05
And that's what's rare.
30:06
Final thoughts from the professor?
30:09
I would say you look when most institutions, when they're under this kind of pressure, they're
30:15
either going to law you up and go quiet or they over-correct and they spend those cell
30:19
center corner and Harvard's done either one of these.
30:22
They've stayed in the conversation.
30:25
They've kept their tone steady and they've kept asking the public to read the letter.
30:29
I think that's the move.
30:31
What's next?
30:32
I think it depends on other institutions treating this as Harvard's fight or if it's the rehearsal.
30:39
This playbook won't stay on campus.
30:41
The idea that you can engineer compliance or public funding or reputational pressure or
30:47
loyalty signaling, that's not going to go away.
30:50
I think the only question is who's ready for it when it shows up at their doorstep?
30:54
Yeah, I agree.
30:56
Harvard's approach here, I think, is packed with lessons for communicating through a crisis
31:00
and turning the tables on an attack.
31:03
They're still on defense.
31:04
That's a key message.
31:06
They didn't start this fight but with the moves that they've made over this past week,
31:10
they've shifted from simple self-defense to a really principled stand.
31:15
As I said, they're credible rather than cornered.
31:18
They've found their narrative.
31:20
They're getting ahead of the critics.
31:22
They're rallying support.
31:24
I don't know what Trump's going to come back with, but I said earlier, Harvard needs to
31:28
keep that concept of government overreach at the center of this for the principle.
31:33
And the rest of us.
31:34
Yeah, and they've got to keep talking about the negative impact of the funding freeze for
31:38
the practical.
31:40
In closing out here, I think the chief concern that I have is we're doing a podcast where
31:45
Harvard is in the center of it is the idea that any organization says, "Well, we're not
31:51
Harvard.
31:52
We can't do that.
31:53
An only Harvard could do this."
31:54
For me, it circles back to the idea that when you don't have resources, you have to be
31:58
resourceful.
32:00
Every organization can think about the resources they have, the capacity they have, but it starts
32:05
with the belief that there's something that they can do and that they have the power to
32:09
think creatively.
32:11
And with clarity about, "Okay, what's the end goal?
32:14
What are we trying to accomplish here?"
32:16
Yeah.
32:17
You got to plant the flag, draw the line, choose your metaphor, and really stick to it, commit
32:22
to it.
32:23
And figure out how you can be consistent in that message and in that stand.
32:28
And so far, I think we've seen Harvard and now 400 other universities rallying to it, so
32:33
we'll see where it ends up.
32:34
Well, that's our show for this week.
32:36
We want to thank Shawn P Neal and the team at AdvoCast as well as the People Forward Network
32:42
for making our podcast possible.
32:44
If you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, we'd love to hear from you.
32:47
Our email address is podcast@ocrnetwork.com.
32:53
And breakdown is a production of the Observatory on Corporate Reputation.
32:57
I'm Steve Dowling.
32:58
And I'm Craig Carroll.
32:59
Thanks for listening.
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We'll be back next week.
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