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Dominic Reynolds
Strategic communications
Dominic Reynolds is a Director at Kekst CNC, a global strategic communications consultancy. Based in London, he leads the EMEA Leadership offering, focusing on helping CEOs and their teams utilize strategic communications to achieve their business objectives.
Reynolds has a rich background in journalism, having spent 12 years as a TV journalist with Sky News, CNN, and ITN's 5 News. His experience includes reporting globally and interviewing prominent political and business figures. After transitioning to Kekst CNC, he has expanded the firm's media training approach and developed a leadership communication offering that emphasizes agile working. His work encompasses strategic narrative development, media positioning, content creation, and presentation training, aimed at building trust with audiences.123
Prior to his role at Kekst CNC, Reynolds was a Senior Manager at KPMG UK, where he specialized in strategic communications for senior leadership.45
Highlights
You don’t often see Southgate stumped, but this question did yesterday.
“Does it hurt?”
He was being asked by the BBC’s football reporter John Murray about getting a hostile reception from England fans after a goalless draw with Slovenia. (link below)
It’s a classic reframing from the journalist. The question is looking to turn a strategic issue – what it is about England’s performance the fans are frustrated by – into an emotional issue – how Southgate feels about having beer cups thrown at him.
Because people click on stories about emotional reactions much faster than stories about strategies.
So how to respond? I imagine as he paused, he was turning over his options:
😪 VULNERABLE: “Of course it hurts. I’m human, I care about this job and no-one likes being booed.” But this would extend the media story further with an emotional quote and not project confidence to his players (almost half are at their first big tournament).
😠 PUNCHY: “No, the fans can throw and say what they like, it doesn’t bother me – I’m focused on the team”. But this sounds adversarial, would sour the relationship further and probably get him pelted with worse in the next round.
⚖ REFRAME: “What’s important is that the fans get behind the team”. This is what he went with (after a pause). Why? It’s not interesting enough to fuel the story and it takes back the framing of the issue. He’s answering in his own terms, not in those suggested by the journalist.
Like sports reporting, much of business and political journalism is gossip. It’s characters on journeys, going up, coming down, reacting.
There are plenty of publications in which an exec is more likely to be asked how they feel about the share price’s decline than what their strategy is to revive it.
Southgate has had more interview practice than most – with some wily interviewers. Interesting to see how he’s handling a more mixed reception.
#leadershipcomms #southgate
"Why didn’t he just take an umbrella?" ⛈
Lots of people shaking heads in disbelief today at Rishi Sunak’s choice to announce the election while getting soaked to the skin. What else could he have done? A few options he probably considered:
☔ 1. Hold a brolly.
Why not? Looks a bit weird, plus it obscures the No.10 Downing St door – the most powerful visual shorthand for credibility he has.
🧒 2. Get an assistant to hold a brolly out of shot. Looks good on camera and doesn’t obscure the black door. BUT...BBC, Sky and ITN would have had multiple cameras and the wide shot – in which a rain-soaked spad holds a brolly for his bone-dry boss – would have looked uncomfortable for a leader accused of being rich, out of touch and in denial about the economic weather.
🏚 3. Do it inside. Using the inside of government buildings for party political business is frowned upon. Plus, no black door (see above).
My take? We’ve talked about it in our office at some length today.
He was right to do it in the rain, with the door behind him. What was weird is that he pretended it wasn’t happening.
For any leader, if you don’t acknowledge something the audience is thinking about, you start to look a bit mad. As he got wetter and wetter, he needed to say so – eg. “We’ve got a plan for this country, and as you can see, we’ll stick to it, rain or shine.”
And when D:Ream started overpowering him? Again, Rishi acted like he couldn’t hear it. A sentence with a smile would have got the audience on his side. “Someone out there wants you to think it’s 1997, but I can assure you it’s not – it’s a different world, that needs proper plan to meet it”, etc.
You can imagine Blair pulling it off in 2001 or 2005. Definitely Thatcher in 83 or 87.
But Rishi doesn't have their experience. He came off more like Andie MacDowell in 1994:
“Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed.”
#execcomms #Rishi #fourweddings
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