On June 23rd the UK public rejected the consensus view among experts from politics, business, finance and the international community – and voted to leave the EU.
The result reverses more than four decades of integration, has triggered leadership battles at the top of both major parties and, many believe, threatens a constitutional crisis.
Voters have upended the card table that business has been playing on, so investors, customers, partners and employees are carefully watching your next moves. Every major relationship, public position and strategic or operational assumption must now be re-evaluated.
The vote also reinforces a trend that Edelman Trust Barometer®data has been tracking for more than a decade – the decline of traditional authority and top-down communications models.
The communications challenge for business at this pivotal time is to focus more than ever on the things that matter most: developing the messages, systems and relationships that will protect and build reputation in a post-Brexit environment.
Below is a guide to the communications questions that every business needs to answer now. This guide can also be viewed and downloaded here.