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S4E12: What Government Communicators Need to Know About Earning Trust Right Now · Empathy Affect

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_10: What does it take to earn the public's trust right now?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_10: It seems like a simple question.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_10: But ask the people whose job is communicating with the public, and the answer gets complicated fast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_16: With AI power in these scams, it's just been like rocket fuel for making them faster, more sophisticated.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_10: Dr.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_10: Cohen, what can you do to restore trust with the public?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_10: There's more information competing for people's attention than ever.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_14: If you do a real you watch, today's lesson about Larry Bird story.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_10: Government is being watched and questioned from every direction.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_10: Majority of people do not want to be filmed.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Please do the right thing.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_10: Your community is telling you that we don't want this.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_10: And people aren't starting from the same set of facts anymore.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_10: They're getting their information from different places and trusting different messages.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Turn on the news tonight.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_09: I'm pretty sure that I have shared fake news.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_10: This is Empathy Affect, Force Marsh Media's podcast that explores the human side of government.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_10: I'm Melissa Szyzinski, and today's episode takes us back to the Mid-Atlantic Marcom Summit in Washington, DC, where hundreds of the region's marketers and communicators gather to work through the same kind of challenges government leaders face every day.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_10: How do you earn trust when people don't agree on who to believe?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_10: How do you get a message heard in a Washington that keeps shifting?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_10: And as AI continues to rise, how do you leverage it as a responsible tool in your comms toolkit?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_10: The conference explored these questions and more, so today we bring you the conference's highlights and inside conversations from public affairs leaders, health and nonprofit communicators, AI experts, and the people in the hallways between sessions.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_10: Together, they'll show us what's working and not, and how to build trust that holds up to scrutiny.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_10: A quick note before we start, Force Marsh was the sponsor of this year's summit.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_10: We started with the question that brought us here.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_10: Throughout the day, we asked attendees what the hardest part of earning public trust is right now.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_10: Their answers paint a picture of what it's like to communicate in Washington today.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_04: Staying, being your authentic self, credibility, and what your purpose is.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_06: They really look for trust in emotional ways.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_06: It's not a logical thing.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_06: They look for trust in who feels like somebody they know, who feels like their neighbor, who feels like their friend.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_06: I think people are still coming back to some of those traditional ways of I know who I trust in my life and who I trust in my circle and my world.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_10: Information overload, constant scrutiny, audiences who don't share the same sources or the same starting point.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_10: And a reminder that trust isn't only logical, it's emotional.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_10: For public affairs and comms leaders, these aren't abstract challenges.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_10: They're the daily reality of their work.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_10: During one public affairs roundtable at the summit, four speakers doubled down on these challenges in their session.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_10: Becca Bycott of the Public Affairs Council set the scene.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_09: This is probably one of the most complex, fast-paced, challenging moments, I think, for communication leaders over the past 10 years.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_09: Things are just moving so quickly.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_10: Amy Ruth Cole leads strategy communications and content at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_10: She underscored that trust is something that has to be continuously built and earned.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Trust can no longer be assumed.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, you know, now more than ever, it's not just about sharing information.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's about really being intentional with your communications and making sure that you're constantly thinking about your targeted audiences.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: What do they need, and what does that look like?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And making sure that you're giving them, you know, the tools and resources that they need and the content that they need that's going to continue to make sure that you're a trusted source and building that ongoing credibility.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_10: Moments of crisis can also easily topple the trust when it's fragile.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_10: Eric Pahan leads Defense Communications at Rolls-Royce after nine years at the Pentagon, where planning for the worst was baked into his daily work.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_10: In his current position, he built the company's first crisis communications plan, boiling down complex technical plans and best practices into practical steps.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_10: And of course, a crisis comms plan only works if you actually test and use it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_10: Preparation, practice, and relationships before you need them.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_10: Those habits came up again and again throughout the day, along with two more: knowing your mission and knowing who you're talking to.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_10: If trust has to be earned, where do you start?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_10: Again and again throughout the conference, I kept hearing the same piece of advice.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_10: Be clear on what you stand for.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_10: Amy Cole Ruth said that Clarity keeps her team steady, no matter who's on the other side of the table.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's always knowing about your North Star, and for us, our North Star is uh is our mission.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if it's impacting pharmacy practice and uh patient care, that's where we need to be communicating.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_10: Knowing your mission doesn't mean saying the same thing to everyone, though.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_10: Alex Dickinson, managing partner of Beekeeper Group, said that's one of the hardest shifts for organizations to make.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_17: How do you make sure that your messaging aligns to the right audiences?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_17: And that's hard for people.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_17: They want to stick straight to they want they're stuck in an old playbook of, well, we want to say the same thing on X as we say on uh say here and say the same thing to different people.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_17: And that that's a tough pill to swallow.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_10: To make sure your message is right for your audience, you have to meet them where they are, as Kara Salibi of the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation touched on.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_05: If I'm going into a freshman office or a new staffer, that's where that one pager has to provide a little bit more background, making sure that they understand the issue, why they should care, and then an action for them to do.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_10: Expanding on that point, Alex said that meeting people where they are means making your message understandable and repeatable.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_10: That's what's changed how Beekeeper builds its materials.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_10: And the clearest messages are often human ones.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_10: Kara described how her team brings global health work to life.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_05: So you're not just spitting facts, but it's the humanitarian aspect.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_05: How does the mom get to the clinic to get her meds?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_05: What is she uh what does that transport look like?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_05: Is she walking?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_10: Mike Malia, who heads media at Evoke after two decades at PBS NewsHour and CNN, summed up the mindset with a phrase from his years in public television.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Viewers like you.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Think about a viewer like you.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: What is that person gonna need and how can you help them?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_10: So, to recap for a moment, have a clear mission, a message shaped for the person hearing it, a real understanding of what they need.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_10: That's how you get someone to listen, but getting them to act is another step.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_10: And it's where some of the most interesting conversations of the day happened.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_10: This is where behavior science comes in.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_10: Misha Thigpen is creative director at Marketing for Change, an agency built on applied behavior science.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_10: By the end of the summit, she'd noticed one idea coming up again and again.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_06: Letting your audience tell their story as a way to build trust with your audience.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_06: If you want to get them to trust you, you have to make it communal and you have to invite them in to be a part of it with you.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_10: That idea carried into a session about the role of trust in driving meaningful behavior change and campaigns.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_10: The panel started from a simple idea.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_10: When the goal is getting people to act, awareness isn't enough.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_10: Misha, who also spoke on the panel, put it in terms anyone can relate to.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_06: We like to joke internally that, you know, if behavior change was just about knowledge and information, we'd all be eating kale salads day in and day out.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_06: We all know that like veggies are the way to longevity and health, but we eat pizza sometimes.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_06: Sometimes you just need the easy option.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_10: So instead of adding more information, behavior change work looks for the barriers between people and action.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_10: Misha shared an example close to this show's heart, a campaign for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, this time in Baltimore and Central Maryland.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_10: Her team assumed at first that it was an awareness campaign.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_10: The research said otherwise.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_10: People wouldn't call unless reaching out for help felt normal.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_06: So the team started with the words themselves.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_06: So we didn't call it a hotline, we called it a helpline because our research showed us that people felt like that was more welcoming and not so much of a crisis state.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_06: We called it emotional support instead of mental health support because people felt like, well, mental health is like a real problem and it has a lot of stigma associated with it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_06: But using emotional support, that could be anything.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_06: That could be a bad day, a tough breakup, you know, it could be so many things.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_10: That's trust built into the design of a campaign, not added at the end.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_10: Kristen Murphy, my colleague at Forsmarsh, who is also on the panel, said that it also changes how you measure success.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_10: Instead of asking people whether they trust you, you look at whether you're showing up in ways that earn it.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_08: Moving away from measuring trust as an attitude and moving towards measuring trust as a perceived value proposition, right?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_08: And what I mean about value is it comes down to what we're offering.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_08: Everybody has a pain point or a problem to be solved or a job to be done, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_08: And that problem can often, for us and be the behavior change work, that problem can look like, you know, uh lack of motivation, maybe.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_08: It can look like a heck of a lot of uncertainty or nervousness or fear or stigma.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_08: It can look like that.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_08: So how do we show up on a problem like that?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_08: Do we show up as empathetic?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_08: Do we do we show up as competent?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_08: Do we show up, you know, being perceived as predictable?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_08: These are all ingredients that build trust.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_08: They are the basis of it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_08: And at the end of the day, do we consistently and reliably solve the problem, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_08: Do we help them do the job that is to be done?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_08: Because there's really nothing more, nothing better at building trust than just simply being helpful.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_10: Tom Ayello, an Army veteran and founder of March Marketing, shared what that looks like in veteran suicide prevention.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_10: Most outreach in that space is built around a moment of crisis.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_10: Tom's team moved earlier.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_10: Their research pointed to three things that help keep veterans from reaching that point: volunteering with other veterans, connecting with a fellow veteran, and building financial know-how.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_10: So instead of asking veterans to think differently, the campaign asked them to do something.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_14: So we can get them to go volunteer, get them to go connect to another veteran.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_10: So, lesson learned.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_10: Make the action feel normal, remove the barriers, be genuinely helpful, then measure whether people actually act.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_10: Doing that for one audience is hard enough.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_10: Doing it for millions of people, each with different needs, is where this little thing everyone was talking about called AI enters the chat to start changing the picture and raise new questions about trust.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_10: I'm gonna be real with y'all.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_10: For anyone who is at the summit, you know AI was the talk of the town.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_10: But feelings were a little mixed about it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_10: People I talked to were a little excited and also a little wary.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_10: It's not human in the loop, it's AI in the loop.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_10: One session dedicated its time to responsible AI, taking this tension head on.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_10: It opened with a reality we need to acknowledge.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_10: Nearly every organization is using AI, but just under half, yes, half, have a policy for it.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_10: And fewer than one in ten communicators are helping write that governance.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_10: After the session, I sat down with two of the pros from the panel.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_10: The first was Camille Stewart Gloucester, CEO of CAS Strategies, and the White House's first Deputy National Cyber Director for Technology and Ecosystem Security.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_10: I asked her the one thing she wanted the room to leave with.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_10: Camille's new book, The Insider You Built, looks at what happens when organizations hand AI real authority.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_07: When it moves from information to action, you have gotten into that realm of authority and you need to be thinking about how you delegate your authority.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_10: And she said the stakes are higher still when the communicator is a government agency.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_07: It only gets that much more important because it is more heavily scrutinized.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_07: When it's a government agency, people's livelihoods, health, finances, a lot of their critical functions and services are often tied to those announcements.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_10: Her advice on where to start came with a comparison that's hard to forget.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_07: You wouldn't let your intern pay the bills.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_07: You wouldn't let your intern decide who gets payroll, all of these things.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_07: And we have just decided to let these new actors who have not even earned the level of trust as our interns, who had to go through some kind of interview process.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_07: We've given them all kinds of access, all kinds of authority, all kinds of tools, and they can really cause hot havoc in our organization.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_10: My second conversation was with Sharon Rees, founder of the Rees Group, a health communications firm.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_10: I spoke with her after she moderated the panel on responsible AI, which Camille was also a speaker on.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_10: During our discussion, she shared a recent wake-up call that reminded me of Camille's point.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_18: I asked AI to help me improve the look of one page.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_18: And unbeknownst to me, it changed some of the logos of our clients.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_18: It changed the font.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_18: It changed the color.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_18: It changed the people in the photo.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_18: Now, because I know what our clients' logos look like, I could do some self-quality control, but maybe someone wasn't familiar with all of the different logos.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_18: It's really essential that you have a quality control process because AI makes mistakes.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_18: And it's the human experience, it's the human decision-making, the animal analytical thinking.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_18: That's what clients want, our expertise.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_18: AI can help us streamline, AI can help us be more efficient, maybe add some checks and balances, but we have to remember that we are driving it and we are responsible.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_10: Sharon's team built its AI policy together, treats it as a living document, and shares use cases every week.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_10: Seems like a lot of work, but to Sharon, the reason was simple but critical to remember.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_10: Just like how we were talking about earlier with planning crisis communications.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_18: You know, it takes your entire career to build a positive reputation, and it can be ruined by a bad decision with AI.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_10: There's another side to this too.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_10: AI isn't only a tool communicators use.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_10: It's also where people go looking for answers.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_10: Policymakers, reporters, just about anyone these days.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_10: Mia Logan from Climate Power was on Sharon and Camille's panel and offered some simple advice for being the source of information that AI tools trust.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Is your content relevant and can you make it more relevant, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Is it authoritative?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: Cite your sources when you can bring in that authority and that research into your work and into your writing so that when those chatbots and when those AI tools are crawling your website, because they are just SEL 101, they are crawling your website, they are crawling what you put out there, they know that this is something that they can trust and that it's authoritative and it's likely to get engagement from the people that are searching, because that's really what they're looking for.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_10: Amid the risks, best practices, and how it feels like everyone is still trying to figure out AI, I think Camille gave a pretty good final piece of advice for communicators, government or otherwise, to keep in mind when adopting AI.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_07: Convenience is very appealing.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_07: But convenience is only one part of the equation.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_07: All of the things that you are capable of doing might not be all of the things that you should do.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_10: So, what does it take to earn the public's trust right now?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_10: Here's what we heard.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_10: First, trust can't be assumed.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_10: It has to be earned again and again, and that means being prepared before something goes wrong.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_10: Second, clarity is a skill, not a shortcut.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_10: You want a message people can understand, one that can repeat as it travels, whether it's for your teen at home or professionals in the workplace.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_10: Third, trust is emotional and communal.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_10: People trust those who feel familiar and who understand their lives.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_10: So invite your audiences in instead of talking at them.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_10: Fourth, stay anchored to your mission, but shape the message for the people hearing it.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_10: Start with what they need, not just what you want to say.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_10: And finally, AI can help, but only with intention.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_10: Keep a human in charge, be open about how you use it, start to lay the groundwork for governance if you haven't already, and remember what a tool can do isn't always what it should do.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_10: While the communications landscape is a tricky one for anyone to handle these days, let alone government communicators, I hope that some of the advice we gathered and shared today can provide some stepping stones to help you earn and maintain the trust of the people you serve.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_10: A big thank you to everyone who stopped to talk with us, from the speakers who sat down for interviews, to the attendees who shared their thoughts in the hallways.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_10: Thank you to the organizers of the Mid-Atlantic Marcom Summit for having us.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_10: And thank you to our listeners for listening, sharing, and spending some of your time with us as we wrap up season four of Empathy Affect.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_10: We'll be back in December for our fifth, yes, fifth, season of the show.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_10: So follow us wherever you get podcasts and subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter to get more stories on the human side of government.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_10: I hope you'll join us next time.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_10: Thanks, y'all.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_10: Are shows like old enough for kindergarten now?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_12: What Empathy Effect is a product of Forrest Marsh.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_12: You can reach us at Forrest Marsh Media at Forzmarsh.com with any feedback, questions, or inquiries.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_12: If you want to know more about today's guest, are interested in participating with Forrest Marsh, or becoming part of our community, check out our show notes for more information.