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Public Relations Reputation Management Crisis Management

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Insights.

 

 

As you know, every fortnight we publish this email, Take a Beat Tuesday (TABT). This fortnight we found a weird thing.

 The "weird thing" was that despite sending relatively few emails, apart from TABT, our most clicked link was my email signature.

The only thing that changed was that I added a bit (after my name) that says [she/her (here's why that matters at work)].

I have an adult child for whom this is deeply relevant, there's almost zero career risk for me in that statement, and yet I wasn't brave enough to put my pronouns in my email signature (*sigh*).

What was I worried about?

Probably being judged by you, my clients, for being too "woke". That's despite the fact this is a deeply personal and important issue for my own family, that my transgender child is encouraging open discussion about making our workplaces more inclusive, and all my kids and stepkids think we should get with the program on pronouns.

Here's the thing that made me go there. On Monday of last week, my friend Mat posted a piece on LinkedIn that made me cry like a baby. Mat wrote about Freya, his daughter with Down's Syndrome and why we shouldn't ever say we're "sorry" when we hear that from him or any other parent.

It caught me in a tender moment given what's going on with my kid, and it called me to be braver - to bring more of my whole self to work.

The issue of using the correct pronouns and having your gender identity understood remains deeply personal and relevant to meYet I wasn’t brave enough to make the point until I saw several finance sector clients doing it. I was worried about what people would think.

This is my public apology for being a wimp.

Please don't be me.

I'd like to encourage you, in this moment in history in which we've faced a genuine threat to the lives of those we love, to think about what positive examples you can set that might make a difference. 

As one child said when I was going to scrape the rainbow flag off my mum-wagon "But Mum what if some kid who's in the closet because his family doesn't accept him looks at your car, sees you and your kids, feels better about who he is and knows some families are accepting even if he isn't?"

It's the same with pronouns. Thank you for reading. Thank you if you were braver than I was and encouraged me to go there too.

This blog was originally published in our fortnightly email, Take a beat Tuesday. To get these direct to your inbox before they're published, subscribe here

If you’d like to discuss adjusting your communication strategy for the current times, please call us or fill out our contact form here. 

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