Crisis communications is perhaps the only discipline in marketing where the correct action most of the time is to communicate less, not more, and where the instincts that make someone good at promotional communication tend to make them terrible at damage control. The...

There is a visual language that has colonized corporate communication so completely that most people no longer notice it. It speaks in images of diverse groups smiling at laptops, handshakes in glass-walled conference rooms, young professionals pointing at whiteboards...

There is a body language, a verbal register, and a set of phrases that are unique to creative presentations — and they are almost uniformly self-sabotaging. The qualifier before the work is shown: "It's still a rough idea, but..." The apology for a brave decision: "We...