Espousing ‘integrity’ or ‘empathy’ to build a company culture is a bit like nailing jelly to the wall: trying to achieve the impossible - no-one…
Peter WilkinsonNovember 27, 2018
Are we ‘in business to make a profit’, or do we ‘make a profit to stay in business’?
Peter WilkinsonOctober 31, 2018
When I left 60 Minutes to be a public relations adviser I can remember being genuinely surprised at how scared people were of journalists.
Peter WilkinsonOctober 30, 2018
Culture is the one way we can unite our organisation behind our business goals and behaviours. A rotten culture holds a company back; a positive…
Peter WilkinsonOctober 8, 2018
Think of your social media asset as a classroom, and you are the teacher. How do you use the carrot and the stick to inspire,…
Peter WilkinsonOctober 7, 2018
Two possible take-outs for leaders and corporate affairs specialists from the ABC chaos.
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 27, 2018
Crisis PR is perhaps the most stressful type of communication. It usually involves intense media, which can be merciless, and for a period we will…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 26, 2018
Good leaders learn techniques. So what can we learn from Malcolm Turnbull's mistakes?
Peter WilkinsonAugust 27, 2018
Create a knockout headline first, then an amazing first par, then a fantastic picture. A great story will follow.
Peter WilkinsonAugust 26, 2018
In both Crisis Management and Change Management, flip-flopping on a strategy is a no-no.
Peter WilkinsonAugust 21, 2018
Crisis PR Overview Crisis PR is perhaps the most stressful type of communication. It usually involves intense media, which can be merciless, and for a…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 20, 2018
Crisis PR: Overview After over 30 years as a journalist, and 15 as a public relations consultant, mainly in Crisis PR, I've learnt the discipline of…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 13, 2018
Becoming a victim of a data breach can leave you feeling violated and helpless. But you have options.
Peter WilkinsonAugust 3, 2018
PR professionals and journalists share a poor reputation. It's highlighted by fake news and Donald Trump's war on media. This looks at what some countries…
Peter WilkinsonJuly 6, 2018
Transparency in leadership can be confronting, especially when it’s forced out of you by a royal commission.
Peter WilkinsonMay 22, 2018
This week, Peter Greste, while being awarded the Australian Press Council’s 2018 Press Freedom Medal, announced the formation of an organisation to fight for journalist…
Peter WilkinsonMay 4, 2018
Media Training: Overview Photo: Channel 7 News In this now hyper competitive environment, CEO’s must be able communicate on behalf of the company to external…
Peter WilkinsonMay 1, 2018
It seemed inevitable to us, from the beginning, that Ford would come unstuck with the deception.
Peter WilkinsonApril 27, 2018
There is a basic first step in media interviews: answer the question. It’s dead simple.
Peter WilkinsonApril 24, 2018
To guide the folks at Wilkinson Group we have a Code of Conduct that we, and our clients, sign up to when we start each…
Peter WilkinsonApril 24, 2018
A lot of it has to do with the transmission of information. The competitive pressure now is to publish first, fact-check later. In the race…
Peter WilkinsonApril 16, 2018
It’s easy to say that the culture in Australian cricket needs reforming. Easy to say, hard to change.
Peter WilkinsonApril 3, 2018
Social media manipulation, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the allegations of Russian troll farms distorting elections, has brought sharply into focus that people are…
Peter WilkinsonMarch 26, 2018
The power behind the school student uprising that’s taking on the NRA over the US gun laws, is a warning to governments (and large companies)…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 26, 2018
It’s hard to think of a good reason, any reason, why George Christensen, only days after the Florida school massacre, posted a Facebook photo of…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 21, 2018
The Bell Pottinger catastrophe is a harsh reminder of the value of values. The British firm co-founded by Lord Tim Bell, to whom the New…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 9, 2018
The great challenge of the decade for leadership is to work out how to lead rapid change; for employees, how to accommodate it. The phrase…
Peter WilkinsonDecember 19, 2017
It’s pretty clear that we are now entering a painful period for many people, mainly women but also men (scoundrels, yes, but good men too)…
Peter WilkinsonNovember 20, 2017
I struggled with the concept for years. It seemed to imply that I should, a) spend less time doing the work I loved while fighting…
Peter WilkinsonOctober 28, 2017
Ian Narev (Commonwealth Bank), Ahmed Fahour (Australia Post), Deb Thomas (Dreamworld) are all defined by events in which they lost control of the narrative. Their…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 21, 2017
Criticism imposes confronting choices on an organisation. And repeated criticism, particularly in the media, starts a downward spiral, eroding trust, inspiring more criticism, further eroding…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 4, 2017
Little destroys a political party’s or a company’s hopes faster than the loss of trust in the leader; think Trump, Turnbull, Narev (Commonwealth Bank). We…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 7, 2017
In Australia there's a conversation, an undercurrent, about replacing PM Turnbull. Some say "Why, who else is there?"; others say "Why not replace one lack…
Peter WilkinsonJune 19, 2017
We can learn a lot about how to deal with crises and crisis PR from studying others under extreme pressure. It’s hard to imagine what…
Peter WilkinsonJune 10, 2017
It’s a sensational period for good journalism. In the last short period: 1. The Washington Post scooped that Trump leaked classified information to the Russians. 2. The…
Peter WilkinsonJune 7, 2017
This week on Channel Seven’s Sunrise I was asked how Schapelle Corby, incarcerated for almost a decade, can get on with her life, particularly when…
Peter WilkinsonMay 30, 2017
James Ashby (Hanson’s chief-of-staff) was caught on tape describing a way to describing a way to ‘skim’ money from taxpayers and the party’s candidates. There…
Peter WilkinsonMay 24, 2017
Watching Trump carries lessons for us all, especially for practitioners in Crisis PR. If your boss doesn’t have values grounded in solid foundations, beware. That…
Peter WilkinsonMay 16, 2017
Crisis PR is about probabilities – there is no certainty. So I think it was reckless for the CEO of United Airlines to commit to…
Peter WilkinsonMay 3, 2017
Crisis PR & Communications Some entrepreneurs think change is easy – “I’ll lead, you follow.” For others, it’s hard; we like what we are doing,…
Peter WilkinsonApril 5, 2017
The arguments swirling around the RDA may seem like a side issue in Australian politics, but they’re not – they’re of fundamental importance. They go…
Peter WilkinsonMarch 14, 2017
Trump’s war on media last week shone a light on its critical role in a democracy - unfettered and frank two-way communication between the people…
Peter WilkinsonMarch 1, 2017
It’s the communications professionals who have failed social media. By not taking responsibility we’ve spoilt it for the rest. Traditional media has set an expectation.…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 8, 2017
So, we’ve had our crisis and it’s been flagged we need to transform our communications team. We can use history to inform us but not…
Peter WilkinsonJanuary 23, 2017
We need to change. Russia’s mischief with the US elections is just the latest in a litany of misevents enabled by digital disruption, with its…
Peter WilkinsonJanuary 16, 2017
(Peter Wilkinson has been elected Chair of the Global Communications Alliance, an organisation of senior independent public relations and public affairs companies) To be a…
Peter WilkinsonJanuary 6, 2017
‘Post-truth’ has been named word-of-the-year by the Oxford Dictionary. For me, it's best described in this scathing Economist article, ‘The Art of the Lie’, written…
Peter WilkinsonDecember 7, 2016
The passionate debate and controversy around 18C, and Bill Leak's cartoon, has made a simple choice appear complex. It’s about free speech, or restricting it,…
Peter WilkinsonNovember 17, 2016