I’ve watched executives deliver technically accurate statements that somehow made everything worse. Not because they lied \u2014 because they reached for the same tired phrases everyone uses when they’re scared and stalling.<\/p>\n
Three phrases do the most damage, and they’re everywhere.<\/p>\n
The first: ‘We take this very seriously.<\/strong>‘ Every company says this. Every single one. It has become the corporate equivalent of ‘thoughts and prayers’ \u2014 words that fill space without conveying meaning. Your customers don’t want reassurance that you’re taking it seriously. They want evidence that you’re actually doing something. Show the work, not the sentiment.<\/p>\n The second: ‘At this time, we have no evidence that…<\/strong>‘ The moment you say ‘at this time,’ people hear the hedge. They know you’re building yourself an escape route for when more information surfaces. They’re right to be suspicious \u2014 this phrase exists to protect the company legally while technically telling the truth. The problem is that ‘technically true’ and ‘genuinely trustworthy’ are very different things.<\/p>\n The third: ‘We apologize if anyone was offended.<\/strong>‘ That little word ‘if’ carries enormous weight, and none of it is good. You’re not actually apologizing \u2014 you’re questioning whether the other person’s reaction was even valid. It makes the recipient feel worse.<\/p>\n What works instead is simpler than most leaders think. Acknowledge that the other person’s questions are the same ones you’re asking yourself. Tell them specifically what happened and what you’re doing about it. Tell them when they’ll hear from you again.<\/p>\n That’s empathy, specific action, and ownership without conditions.<\/p>\n The phrases that build trust in a crisis are almost always the ones that lawyers want to soften and executives want to avoid. They feel risky because they’re direct. But direct is what people remember, and it’s what they believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve watched executives deliver technically accurate statements that somehow made everything worse. Not because they lied \u2014 because they reached for the same tired phrases everyone uses when they’re scared and stalling. Three phrases do the most damage, and they’re everywhere. The first: ‘We take this very seriously.‘ Every company says this. Every single one. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/checkmatepublicaffairs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}