Decision Making For Rooms Where Everyone Disagrees

Communicators are constantly put in the center of uncertainty. They find themselves in rooms where people disagree, even when they're on the same team. So what separates the leaders who navigate those rooms successfully from those who leave with nothing resolved?

In this episode of The Piar Podcast, host Tan Sukhera sits down with Katherine Neebe, SVP and Chief Communications Officer at Duke Energy, one of America's largest utilities. Before stepping into that role, Katherine spent time at Walmart leading strategic sustainability initiatives and managed a $97 million partnership between Coca-Cola and the World Wildlife Fund across more than 45 countries. Her move from Chief Sustainability Officer to CCO gives her a rare vantage point on what transfers between the two disciplines and what doesn't.

What You'll Learn:

The Biggest Adjustment Is Pace, Not Skill - Sustainability deals with systemic problems 100 years in the making. Communications deals with things that happened three minutes ago. The cadence is completely different. But the core strategic muscle, bringing the external world inside to inform better decisions, is identical across both roles. The craft of communications, the precision, the range of tools, the preparation, was the real discovery.

Optimize the System, Don't Compromise - Katherine orients around two principles for high-disagreement rooms: reasonable people can disagree, and instead of looking for trade-offs, look for how to optimize the system. Compromise puts you in a "less" mindset. Optimization puts you in a "maximum" mindset. The difference shapes every outcome.

Experiential Storytelling Is the Unlock - At WWF, they called it walking in each other's shoes. At Walmart, they called it "what you cook." At Duke Energy, they don't call it anything, but the principle is the same: when stakeholders physically experience the world through someone else's reality, the conversation shifts from us-versus-them to shared problem solving. Communications is the lever that scales that experience when you can't take everyone into the field.

Transparency Has Limits That Matter - 86% of leaders believe more transparency produces more trust, but the research shows it's significantly more complicated. Katherine distinguishes between answering the question people are actually asking versus the polite version, and sharing relevant, usable, honest information versus dumping everything and hoping people find the kernel of truth. Companies that only share good news lose credibility. Being honest about complexity, clear about constraints, and transparent enough that people trust you even when they disagree is the real target.

The Holy Grail of Measurement Remains Unsolved - Katherine frames measurement in three buckets: input (dollars spent, campaigns launched), output (impressions, reach, coverage), and impact (did anything actually change?). Impact is the hardest and most important, but it's not a fixed destination. The strongest internal case pairs outputs with listening tools, polling, and stakeholder research, then shows discipline, consistency, and real-time learning. Communications is both a growth lever and an investment in organizational resilience. You can't wait for crisis to realize you should have invested earlier.

Crisis Readiness Is Muscle Memory - Duke Energy runs tabletop exercises repeatedly, not once. Calm is contagious. When people know their roles instinctively and the culture in the room supports honest problem-solving, the organization shows up to crisis with credibility under pressure. After every significant event, they run what Katherine calls COEs, sometimes celebrations of excellence, sometimes corrections of error, always followed by real action.