L-3 Communications

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L-3 Communications (LLL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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L-3 Communications | Fortune

L-3 Communications (LLL): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Today’s CMO isn’t just selling the brand; they’re responsible for the business, owning revenue, product, and data. At the same time, AI is automating a huge slice of marketing and exposing the metrics that don’t actually move the business. At Cannes Lions, Fortune’s Ruth Umoh sat down with the marketing chiefs of Slack, Zoom, Slalom, and TD Bank U.S. to unpack how AI is reshaping their roles, what they now measure, and how they chase growth.

Killing Vanity Metrics: How AI Just Blew Up The CMO Job | Next to Lead

Leadership

nexttolead

In the modern corporation, AI tools are everywhere, every day. But access and adoption to AI? That’s table stakes. The most forward-thinking leaders understand that they can’t merely add AI to their existing mix—they need to break and rebuild their organizations for capabilities that never existed before. Where does that leave the individual employee? And what role must a company play in keeping the humans in the loop? 

Chris Bedi, Chief Customer Officer and Enterprise AI Advisor, ServiceNow 
China Widener, Vice Chair and US Technology, Media and Telecommunications Industry Leader, Deloitte 
Phil Wiser, Former Executive Vice President and CTO, Paramount 
Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director, Fortune 

Hosted by Deloitte

Rebuilding the Workforce for an Intelligent Age

Conferences

In an always-online world, reputational crises can erupt in real time, often before business leaders have the full picture. This conversation will explore how HR leaders and communications teams can work together to maintain culture and trust when scrutiny is immediate and stakes are high. Our panelists will share insights on how to respond with speed and credibility, with HR managing the internal fallout while PR shapes the external story, and what it takes to keep both tracks aligned when the pressure is on. 		 

Arielle Patrick, Managing Partner, Upland Workshop
Davia Temin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Temin and Company
Moderator: Phil Wahba, Senior Writer, Fortune; Co-Chair, Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit

Executive Crisis Goes Viral: How Can HR & PR Align?

So as a journalist, I love corporate crises because they keep me employed. And they also keep you guys, uh, busy as well, um, and so, but I mean all kidding aside, there are, uh, there really needs to be a lot of rigor in how the crisis is handled and that's why we're glad to have you here. So when a crisis erupts and you have a sense that you're about to get a call. Are you immediately thinking about how HR and PR and IR, what will be each, each, uh, uh, unit's role in helping to quell the crisis, or, you know, how, how do you sort of look at a crisis when one erupts and, uh, and start to strategize? Great question, and I think that's changed over time as more people begin to feel that they know about crisis and that they're experts. It's something where um. A lot of knowledge has gone a very long way. I don't think about those things. The first thing I think about is governance, the board, what is the board thinking about, what is the CEO thinking about, what are the risk areas that nobody has even thought about yet, and then begin to align all of the different issues that you're gonna have to solve for and then a methodology, uh, so it's a, it's not knee jerk. And it's not assuming that you know the answer at that point, because there are all these red herrings out there right now, and you have to be, what, what I say is and what others say it is, is polycrisis. That means that it's not just one crisis, it's many crises agglomerating and they're intersectional, so they, they affect one another. So that's where I start to think about what I start to think about right away. Yeah, mapping it out. And how about you, Ariel? Well, first and foremost, I like to redefine the word crisis in the context of communications and governance. So when I think about crisis, it's really any situation where you have to act with urgency to clarify information that's material to the business. Where there's a risk of stakeholder confusion or loss in loss in trust or even a stakeholder emotion that can span a lot of things. So we're not just talking about me too accounting errors, we're talking M&A transactions that might, you know, perhaps create confusion about the direction of the business. We're talking about. Personnel changes that perhaps um can gravitationally shift the business and might be good, right? but need to be explained so I just like to think that most institutions need to start with broadening sort of the the definition of what requires urgency and what doesn't and actually embedding a culture of preparedness. So there need to be playbooks for pretty much all of these scenarios that exist within the organization, but what I see all the time is, you know, legal, HR, comms, IR work tirelessly with consultants to create these huge playbooks, and then they sit on a shelf for years and no one dusts them off. Um, I recently went back to consulting after being in-house as a CMO and CCO, and I will tell you we dusted those off every single year, and you'd be shocked at how much was incorrect even a year later. Technology systems change, the contact information changes, who's in the working group changes, and you also need to make sure that everyone is trained when they come in the door in those departments to actually know where they live, how to activate, and who should be around the table, so. You know, I'm sort of seeing two things, which is one, crisis isn't always salacious, and then two, it needs to be embedded in the sort of corporate posture. Yeah, I mean, and you're correct, I mean we all love a good scandal of a CEO carrying on with somebody in the broom closet, but you know, uh, there are also crises we saw with Air Canada which I think a lot of people didn't expect. What, what was that about? He, he was didn't learn French, so we'll get to that one in a minute, but. Um, you know, there can also be, uh, you know, Target got pulled into a lot of things, the, the, uh, the big demonstrations in Minneapolis, and, you know, remotely nothing, not their fault, but they got pulled into it. And so sometimes crises come and find you and they're not necessarily of, uh, your own making. So, but the core of it comes from knowing who you are and knowing what your raison d'etre is if you're, if you're an organization. Who you are, who you are in good times, who you are in very bad times, it better be consistent, and every move you make, it better be spawning trust. That means that there's not a divergence between what you say and what you do. And again, I say that this has to be done at the very top of the house and then filtered down, um, because we've all seen, I, there's one crisis, it was uh Drexel a long, long time ago. They had at 1.12 crisis managers working for them. All saying different things. Why would they do that? I think it's because the CEO at that point wanted somebody to confirm his way of doing it, and he would find somebody to do that in the group, shopping, opinion shopping, exactly right. So you wanna stay way away from that and do that work beforehand. Uh, we're not talking about just dusty books, we're talking about things that have to be re. Enforced, redesigned monthly, weekly, sometimes daily, and in a crisis, sometimes hourly. Um, and then I guess one thing too from where where I sit sometimes I'm wondering, you know, what is the most important thing for a company to address. So, um, you know, just over a year ago, Kohl's lost its CEO when it turned out that, uh, well, he was fired, uh, he was sending business to his girlfriend, and, um, and that, you know, Coles's handled it pretty well and quickly and, and, uh, so in a case like that, you know. Uh, when you've had multiple CEOs in the recent in the last few years, you know, you don't want, you're thinking about your share falling, you're thinking about employees being depressed, like, here we go again, another CEO surge, right, um, and trusting the culture. So how do you not nec, you know, don't nec you don't, don't feel like you have to comment on that particular situation, but how do you decide like addressing employees' concerns, investors' concerns, because if your stock is plummeting. That you know, how do you sort of organize the order in which you need to be responding. I actually love the Kohl's case study. Strangely, it's one I know a lot about because my husband was an activist investor in that stock and so it actually explains the larger picture. So this is a company that had come off of two activist campaigns, had lost a very prominent female CEO as part of that process. And had just sort of brought in their savior CEO who then again, you know, was acting sort of in a nefarious way. So there are many things at once. I would say it is natural for a management team in that situation to focus exclusively or at least predominantly on investor perception because that's the biggest vulnerability that they've been dealing with for years and years. I always tell clients start from the inside out. Your employees are your brand ambassadors. They keep your business alive and essentially. Um, rather than focusing on what you want the outside to think, focus one on what's true. I know that sounds very simplistic, but, um, far too often when I'm working with CEOs or, or management teams, they're so focused on the holding statement. What's the holding statement and then what's going in the 80 for investors? First of all, you have 4 days to file an 8K. Let's focus on what we're telling employees first and what information we have and also what information we don't have. It's far more credible to say that you are seeking the information, that you're working on gathering the information, and that you are starting to investigate rather than to pretend that it's wrapped in a bow and something's been dealt with. And often I think that institutions start at the end almost and they are like, well, what do we want the ideal holding statement to look like? And then they work back from there and that's how you get in trouble. Um, so, you know, I would say inside out always a perfect example of a company that does this really well is Gap Inc. Um, I'm a huge fan of Richard Dixon. When he had decided to completely revamp the marketing, um, organization, I loved this. When I went to the investor website, the first thing I saw was he had posted a letter that initially went to employees on the investor website. That is what investors notification was. And so he's literally telling the market I prioritized my internal organization and here's what we shared. So can I add to that a little bit um. So I think that there, there are a million things that are categorized as crisis these days. When I started in this world, the only thing that people talked about was Tylenol, and that's like 30 years old or something, 40, so very old, and if you did what Tylenol did then now. Your CEO would be gone, your board would be gone. Everything would be gone. It would be so old, so. I believe that the thing that makes this the most interesting is there is no one way. There is only, there's not one road to Mecca. There are many roads, and each crisis demands something figuring out the je ne sais quo, what's gone wrong within this organization, and how do we fix it, ideally so that it doesn't blow up and it become a real public, uh, scandal. And there are ways to do that. And in fact, you don't know those because they've worked, but right? Well, we've been trying to find them, but yeah, you've been trying like what happened to the Kroger CEO. But anyway, continue. So, so that, yeah, somebody's behind that in a way that's not nefarious but that is, um, not public. We've gotten so very public about so very much and it's not always truthful. It's not always based on truth. We figured that out over time. So the trick is, I think to be strategic. And that is what boards look for. That's what the great CEOs look for, uh, inquisitive on it, working 25 to 8. And working with a great group of professionals, this you start before it happens. This you start long before it happens, which is why what we do, I'm sure what you do is are longgoing engagements that have just a holding kind of fee, but then we all know who does what when. At one point I worked with an energy company that you know and that you would recognize. One reason that they've not gotten into any public trouble at all is because everything was thought through and it was thought through almost with military precision. Uh, and it was, didn't always work that way, but it did work, um, in the, in the short run quite well and long run. So, yeah, I'm gonna come to you folks for if there are any questions, but, um, uh, so think about it for a second. I have another question for you both is the role of boards here. I mean, you know, not to pick on coal, but, you know, apparently it was an open secret in Dallas that the CEO and this woman were a pair. Um, Air Canada, uh, you know, the board had told the CEO to learn French in 2021, and, uh, five years later you used more French on stage than he did in his apology. His own, that's your pronunciation perfect. I'm, I'm from Montreal, so I'm allowing myself to, to judge here, but, uh. It, it's so this, especially they, these were unnecessary crises, I think if the boards had been on top of, of things and, uh, certainly in our Canada it's like, hey, how's your French coming along, Michael, and it's not so the role of boards and all this, uh, best crisis is one that never happens, right? so. So the role of boards is critical. So now they talk about risk, and risk is obviously underlies crises, and if you're great at identifying and then working the risk out, you've got a very good strategy, but Boards love risk. They love, they can circle that, whereas the crisis is uncircleable sometimes and as it unfolds, it unfolds in real time, a speed and uh that's when you've got to have really experienced people behind you, um. Every board member I know these days who are coming on fresh, they are really wanting to engage with risk. The risk committee is one of the more popular ones. And um, If they don't endorse it, it doesn't happen. So they're, they're for me, they're the first stop. They're thinking about their. Workers, they're thinking about their customers, that's undeniable and that they have to work in there too, so there are many different priorities, there are many different threads that you have to put together into wise action and action that other people will know is wise, yeah. So I spend a lot of my time thinking about board composition, which I actually believe that many in the room, especially if they're CHROs, have some seat at the at the table around because they probably engage with the nominating and governance committee fairly often or the talent, the Human Capital Committee if it exists. Um, one of the things that I think is starting to change, and I also advise clients on, especially startups or pre-IPO companies that are trying to have the best board composition possible, is ensuring that your risk committee is actually comprehensive. So often people, when they think of risk, they're really thinking audit. So it's former CFOs, former CEOs, that's all well and good, but it wouldn't be, it wouldn't hurt to have an AI expert who understands the vulnerabilities of this burgeoning trend. Um, you know, someone perhaps with communications expertise, maybe a former CMO at a big brand who can bring that sensibility to the table, a former lawyer perhaps, um, or current lawyer, and so, um. Making communications, reputation, and all of that ecosystem an embedded part of how you see risk is one of the best ways to make sure that your board is prepared to actually handle these kinds of matters and oversee them properly. Otherwise they're sort of flying a little bit blind. OK, we have time for one question. Can I say one thing? Yes, if you're an AI expert, there is no end to how many boards you can get on. They're all looking for that kind of expertise, deep expertise with great judgment attached to it. Um, so I don't see any questions, so I'll, I'll continue, uh, in our last couple of minutes here, but, uh, has social media Complicated your work. I think I know the answer, but yeah. Hm, yeah, yeah, who would I wonder about that. I feel like there's, you know, I don't want to cover the obvious, which is that in today's day and age everyone isn't is a journalist. They have Twitter, they have Instagram. There's even, you know, people who are part of your workforce that might be influencers in their own little corner of the world that talk about their workplace experience, right? That's neither here nor there. But I think the other piece of digital media, I don't want to only focus on social, back to AI that worries me. Is AI note takers. The amount of times I've seen clients lose privilege because an AI note taker disseminates notes from a confidential meeting to a group of people without a lawyer and a copy, or the AI note taker perhaps is inaccurate and has some issues that need to be scrubbed, or something gets leaked inadvertently. This is one of the biggest risks actually that I'm starting. It's giving me a lot of agita. Um, and so unfortunately, uh, your teams may have to actually type their own notes, God forbid. So the one thing that I think that colors everything right now is disinformation and misinformation. The difference between the two being misinformation is something that could be just a mistake. It could be a wrong take on it. It could be whatever. Maybe it's fixable and addressable, maybe it isn't, but disinformation is insidious. It is everywhere. It's really getting good, so at some point, there's no doubt that we're not gonna be able to tell, you're not gonna be able to tell what the difference between truth and untruth is. And to live in a world that has so little ballast and so little grounding. In, in the best, in what makes us the best, in what makes us the finest, in what makes us good enough. Is a societal danger, yeah, and it's very, uh, very disorienting. So on that note, I mean, I wanted, if we had a couple more minutes, I would have asked you your favorite scandals of all time, but, uh, that'll be for the coffee break, uh, later. So join me in thanking, uh, Dave and Ariel for being here at this point.

Tara McGuinness, Founder and Executive Director, New Practice Lab Sir Craig Oliver, Global Co-head, Strategy and Reputation, FGS Global  Julius van de Laar, Political Strategist and Communications Consultant, Van De Laar Campaigning Moderator: Alan Murray, FORTUNE

Brainstorm AI London 2024: Combating Deep Fakes And Protecting Public Trust

Photography by Joe Maher/Fortune Brainstorm AI

Tara McGuinness, New Practice Lab, Sir Craig Oliver, FGS Global, Julius van de Laar, Van De Laar Campaigning, Alan Murray, FORTUNE

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