World Geostrategic Insights interview with Vladimir Melnikov on how business leaders can deal with geopolitical risks and should communicate and market in the midst of wars and clashes of cultures and values.
Vladimir Melnikov is a business consultant providing high-level strategic consulting for government relations, practical crisis communications and coordination of multiple activities (including cross-border), professional crisis management, internal corporate communications, and media trainer. He is based in Moscow, Russia.
– The conflict in Ukraine, the U.S.-China rivalry, and other hotbeds of crisis, including the aftermath of COVID, have made it clear that many of the old, comfortable certainties that businesses used to rely on no longer exist. Companies now find themselves in a world of persistent levels of disorder, rising inflationary pressures and the specter of further uncertainty. The ability to manage crises has never been more important and critical to business continuity. Leaders must understand the immediate and potential future risks to their business, assess their impact, and develop contingency plans. How can business leaders be prepared to deal with the challenges and risks of the geopolitical environment?
Wartime CEOs generally focus on three action points:
1. Accept the reality.
2. Adapt to the new reality (includes improving your financial health, revisiting your continuity plan etc.).
3. Collaborate and build new partnerships.
It may look commonsensical and straightforward, but it is much easier said than done.
The first fundamental problem is what reality must be accepted. I won’t bore you with arguments that our perceptions of an independent reality in general are illusions (if you are interested, you may start with studying the cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman’s argument against reality). But you will most likely agree that there is no such thing as one “objective reality”, when it comes to geopolitics and assessing future political and regulatory risks. Much will depend on the CEO’s and the team’s frame of reference being constantly reinforced by the news-flow coming from the ever-lying media, especially during wars and economic crises.
It requires a lot of will and wisdom to assess ‘the reality’ from different angles before accepting it. No, ‘fact-checking’ is not very helpful. People tend to cherry-pick only those facts that fit their frame of reference and disregard or ‘interpret’ the ‘wrong facts’ to support their standpoint based on values (this phenomenon was well described in Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope back in 1968).
If you live and do business in Western Europe, for example, your frame of reference (or set of values) will most likely rest on notions of ‘democracies are better than dictatorships’, ‘human rights’, ‘freedom of the press’ (this concept has been a bit undermined of late), ‘net zero’, SDGs, ‘freedom of choice’, ‘transatlantic unity in times of war’ etc. If, to some extent, you think that these are not ‘your values’, if, say, you live in Germany or Italy, think again: you just cannot do business in the West if you do not conform to those mainstream European and national ideas. If you do not claim carbon neutrality, support Ukraine or/and LGBTQIA+ you will go bust sooner that you see gas prices at $4000 per 1000 cubic meters. Therefore, these values will inevitably sink in, whether you want it or not. This set of values shared by your management team help your business stay afloat, which, however, blurs the picture and lets you see trends and risks only from one perspective.
So, what helps you see ‘the reality’ from different angles before you accept it? Two things:
1. (Re-)reading some of the classic literature at the expense of watching/reading the news. Nothing is new under the sun. Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls might give you a perspective into what is happening in Ukraine. Demons of Dostoevsky – of how orange revolutions are staged. Not to mention Nineteen Eighty-Four of George Orwell or Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents of Octavia E. Butler to grasp the process of ‘democracies’ turning into tyrannies.
2. Asking external consultants—strategists with different backgrounds — paint different ‘realities’ for you. We, for example, do run such strategic workshops based on our preconceived ideas blended with results of opinion audits among top-managers and external stakeholders. Such a strategic workshop can be held in three separate sessions: 1) defining and accepting the realities; 2) adapting to the new normal and 3) collaborations and partnerships.
Once you analyze and paint an ‘integrated reality’, the next thing to do is to accept it.
Acceptance is coming to terms with what is irrefutably, irrevocably true. The right question to ask is not “How can my business avoid those risks?” to, “How can we not be debilitated by the new reality and, most importantly, what are new opportunities in there?”. This sort of acceptance generates creativity and search for big game-changing ideas. Quest for such game-changing ideas will be futile unless you
— can simultaneously see the big picture and care about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with accepting the new normal;
— are ready to violate protocol in order to win;
— are paranoid about the competition sneaking around;
— disregard management books written by consultants who have never managed anything.
Collaborations and new partnerships is a separate thread of activity that needs to be given full attention. Partnerships in the new normal may range from expanding your business network to new social initiatives and collaborations with selected media and other information disseminators. It requires a separate dedicated discussion.
– The outbreak of the military conflict in Ukraine made us realize how difficult it is for a brand to decide how to behave in a dramatic context. The information war has had a profound impact in shaping public opinion and pushing entrepreneurs and companies to act. Many companies had to express their position on the conflict and cease business activities in Russia to show their disapproval of the attack on Ukraine. In essence, they had to take into account the public perception of their position, even if it clashed with efficient business processes. Thus applying to the extreme the concept of “brand activism,” that is, a brand’s engagement and involvement in causes of social, environmental, political significance. In your opinion, how should a company communicate in times of war? Does marketing and communication still make sense during geopolitical crises?
As I said before, if you live and do business in Europe, you must conform to mainstream ideas. You have to cancel Russia, or your business is canceled. You must communicate accordingly. The freedom of speech concept has degenerated into the cancel culture.
I remember one leading journalist of The Financial Times, who I was friends with, when working in Kyiv, told me about the internal censorship in The FT (he did not call it as such though): the editors tended to work only with those correspondents who fitted their frame of reference. If correspondents found ugly ‘facts’ about Russia – they were immediately published, if some suggested news did not correspond with what the editors believed in, it simply was not published.
The irony is that in Russia we know that when we watch TV, we are exposed to state propaganda. In the West, when you read The FT, you think you read the independent media not aware that the news, stories and analysis are prepared and cherry-picked by like-minded people with a shared frame of reference, which is getting more rigid in times of war. I have nothing against The FT that remains a high-quality edition, but you can imagine what is happening in other media outlets across Europe.
The cancel culture now permeates all societal strata across Europe. To a greater extent than in the US. Having lived and worked in London, San Jose (CA), Kyiv and Moscow, I can sadly state that European democracies are turning into ‘tyrannies of the enlightened’ very fast.
I would, therefore, rephrase the question: how should a company communicate amidst the rise of the cancel culture?
The short discreet answer is: with great caution.
– Strategic communication is a combination of theory and practice that seeks to understand the dynamics of consumer behavior, trends in marketing strategies, and changes in global culture. Given that in today’s business environment, change is the new normal, how are strategic communication models and tools changing? Why is strategic communication so important for companies and organizations?
The best way to get past white-water waves of sweeping changes is using the Turtle Roll technique (the act of turning one’s kayak from an upright position, laterally 360 degrees — going underwater and coming back up — while still moving forward).
Today’s change is the perfect timing to go underwater and strategize before gaining an upright position, well prepared for the new normal.
‘Strategic communication’ is perhaps the wrong term here, I would rather say defining the New Optimal for the new normal. It is more about brainstorming game-changing ideas that would enable the business to increase resilience but not at the expense of efficiency. The ideas may be about, inter alia, partnering with other players to start a self-regulatory initiative, or launching social initiatives, or else collaborating with a think tank to change the fundamental perceptions in the industry.
The key here is to run strategic workshops with the people who can add several unusual perspectives and organize the right brainstorming session which is not about discussing the same old ideas but brave ideas for the Brave New World.
Vladimir Melnikov – Business Consultant