In partnership with
Dear {{ first_name | reader }},
A quick word before we start.
No newsletter last Wednesday. I was in Belgrade, running a 2-day crisis simulation exercise for a humanitarian organisation client, and by the end of it I had precisely nothing left in the tank. You know how it goes, or if you don't, consider yourself lucky. 😅
Worth the wait, I think.
This edition covers something I've been wanting to write about for a few days: consultant colleague Rod Cartwright's 2026 Reputation, Risk and Resilience report.
Rod synthesises twelve major global risk and trust reports every year so the rest of us don't have to. This year's edition is, frankly, one of his best.
The findings are not comfortable. Neither are the questions they raise.
Let's get into it.
WAG THE DOG NEWSLETTER | ISSUE WEEK 22, 2026
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Geoeconomic confrontation has replaced armed conflict as the world's most immediate risk — and most crisis communication plans haven't noticed. Tariffs and sanctions are now crisis triggers. Treat them accordingly.
The risks actually disrupting organisations are not the ones on their risk registers. Absenteeism is the #1 driver of financial loss. It ranks 39th. Human-centred disruptions have topped the actual disruption index for five consecutive years. They sit 16th and 19th in forward planning. The gap is not closing.
AI is no longer just an opportunity with risks attached. It is a risk in its own right. Deepfakes, synthetic media, and AI-assisted disinformation are active crisis scenarios today. If your response protocols don't reflect that, they are already out of date.
Strategic silence has become the default ESG communication posture for most organisations — including, probably, yours. That is defensible in the short term. It becomes a liability the moment a crisis forces the question you have been avoiding.
Fragmentation is not a communication challenge. It is a communication reality. Seventy per cent of people globally are now hesitant or unwilling to engage with anyone who holds different values. The "general public" your crisis plan is written for does not exist. It is time to write a plan for the world as it actually is.
Table of Contents
The 2026 Reputation, Risk and Resilience report
Every year, Rod Cartwright does something most of us lack the stamina to do: he reads everything. Twelve major global reports on trust, reputation, risk and resilience — Aon, AXA, the World Economic Forum, Edelman, Gallup, the Business Continuity Institute, and six more. Over 800 pages of data, distilled into one synthesis — the 2025 edition alone, was downloaded in 67 countries across six continents.
Rod and I go back. We share a professional obsession with the gap between what organisations say they are prepared for and what actually happens when things go wrong.
His annual report is one of the most honest mirrors the communications and risk profession holds up to itself. Not because it delivers surprises. Because it documents, with uncomfortable precision, the distance between awareness and action — year after year, across every sector and every geography.
As you read it, prepare to be challenged. Rod critiques what he calls the "rather supplicant refrain" of "why doesn't communication have a seat at the top table?"
His hope is that this 2026 edition will help the communication function to "kick down the boardroom door and inhabit a seat that's been actively earned — through an attitude, mindset and substantive approach to practice that means it can't not be there".
The 2026 edition lands under the banner Assuming Agency and Achieving Balance in the Age of Angst and Rage. Rod is not backward in coming forward with his intentional choice of language. He describes his core term of agency "not as an illusory proxy for control, but rather as a central focus on intentional action and purposeful choice as the ultimate drivers of the real-world outcomes we aspire to achieve for ourselves and others".
Rod Cartwright's Assuming Agency framework – the conceptual spine of the 2026 report.
What follows are the ten themes Rod identifies, seen through the Wag The Dog lens – and what they actually mean if your job is crisis, risk, or emergency communication.
Have a cup or glass of your favourite drink and Enjoy!