What Happened
McKinsey recently published research examining how top-performing CEOs build and maintain relationships with their key stakeholders over time. The findings point to a clear pattern: the best leaders treat stakeholder communication as a deliberate, ongoing discipline rather than a reactive task they return to when something goes wrong. Most CEOs, it turns out, do the opposite.
The Communication Angle
Here is the contrast that matters. The average CEO communicates with stakeholders in crisis mode. Earnings disappoint, a deal falls through, an employee scandal surfaces, and suddenly the phones are ringing and the emails are flying. That reactive approach is not relationship-building. It is damage control wearing a relationship's clothing. And stakeholders know the difference immediately.
The best CEOs do something that looks almost boring from the outside. They communicate consistently when there is nothing urgent to say. They call a major investor to share a market observation, not to ask for anything. They tell a key supplier about a strategy shift before it affects them, not after. That proactive cadence does one thing nothing else can: it builds trust before you need to spend it.
The communication technique here is called "low-stakes contact," and it is more powerful than any polished presentation. When you reach out without an agenda, you signal three things at once. First, that you are thinking about the other person outside of transactions. Second, that you are confident enough not to hide between formal channels. Third, that when you do have something serious to discuss, you will come to them directly. Those three signals together are the architecture of a lasting professional relationship.
The failure mode most executives fall into is confusing communication volume with communication quality. They send quarterly updates, hold annual reviews, publish internal newsletters, and call it "stakeholder engagement." But volume without intimacy is noise. The CEOs McKinsey identifies as exceptional are not sending more messages. They are sending the right message to the right person at the right moment, and that message almost always has a personal dimension. They reference a previous conversation. They acknowledge something specific about the stakeholder's situation. They demonstrate memory. Memory signals respect, and respect is the foundation every durable relationship is built on.
The practical gap for most leaders is not knowing what to say. It is knowing when to say nothing and show up anyway. Pick up the phone with no pitch ready. Start the conversation with a question, not a point. This is the difference between a CEO who gets the benefit of the doubt in a crisis and one who has to earn it from scratch every single time.
This is exactly the kind of scenario I break down in Say It Right Every Time. The chapter on building credibility through consistency gives you a framework for designing what I call your "relationship maintenance rhythm": a simple, repeatable system for staying present with the people who matter most before the moment of need arrives.
Never Be Lost
for Words Again
Get word‑for‑word scripts for the conversations that shape your life, from job interviews and negotiations to difficult talks with family and partners, so you always know exactly what to say and how to say it.
Never Be Lost
for Words Again
Get word‑for‑word scripts for the conversations that shape your life, from job interviews and negotiations to difficult talks with family and partners, so you always know exactly what to say and how to say it.
Key Takeaway
Before your next routine stakeholder interaction, whether that is a board update, a vendor check-in, or an investor call, write down one specific thing you remember from your last conversation with that person and open by referencing it. Not a vague "good to connect again" but something real: "You mentioned last quarter you were watching the European market closely. What are you seeing now?" That one move separates a transactional communicator from a trusted one.
