A single offhand remark can be enough to expose deep gaps between a company’s internal culture and its public promises. Tim Gray, senior PR advisor at Intelligent Relations, explores how private conversations can become a public test of trust.

When a former Campbell Soup employee released a recording of a senior executive mocking the company’s products as “food for poor people,” the story travelled fast. Within hours, a private exchange had become public through local news and then across social platforms.

The audio captured the executive dismissing the food’s quality and admitting he barely ate it, directly contradicting the company’s public assurances about its ingredients and standards. Campbell’s placed him on leave, calling the remarks inaccurate and unacceptable. But by then, the controversy had already taken hold. One internal comment, made casually and recorded quietly, had become a public test of trust.

Incidents like this reveal something many organisations already know but don’t always act on: internal conversations no longer stay internal. Screenshots, recordings, and forwarded messages are now a routine way workplace culture is exposed and judged. That reality makes it essential for companies to actively test whether the way leaders talk about products, customers, and strategy behind closed doors aligns with how the organisation presents itself publicly. This means paying attention to everyday language in internal meetings, town halls, and informal exchanges – not just polished external statements.

When leadership language diverges internally, it signals that values may not be fully embedded in daily decision-making. In the Campbell’s case, the issue wasn’t simply a poorly chosen remark, but the fact that an executive’s private description of the product clashed so sharply with the company’s public narrative. That kind of disconnect is often detectable internally long before it becomes a headline, if organisations take the time to listen for it and address it early.

These moments usually stem from cultural blind spots rather than intentional misconduct. Many organisations have formal value statements, but fewer consistently check how those values are understood and applied in day-to-day conversations. When leaders aren’t given clear, shared context for how the company expects them to speak about sensitive topics, personal interpretations tend to fill the gaps. Companies that spot and address these differences early – through regular feedback loops, informal check-ins, and clear escalation paths for concerns – reduce the likelihood that employees will feel the need to take issues outside the organisation.

Communications teams are often closest to early signs of misalignment, from the concerns that employees raise to the off-script language leaders use in internal settings. The difference lies in how those signals are handled. Rather than treating them as isolated issues, effective teams track recurring themes, flag patterns to leadership, and connect internal feedback to potential external risk. When communications functions as an early-warning system – synthesising what people say internally and how it could be interpreted publicly – organisations are far better positioned to address gaps before a single comment turns into a reputational issue.

This is why communications teams need to stay closely connected to day-to-day culture, not just major announcements or moments of crisis. That connection is built through routine listening: sitting in on internal meetings, hearing how teams talk about the company when they are not performing for an audience, and checking in regularly with managers across the organisation. These everyday interactions reveal where values are well understood and where guidance is unclear, making it possible to offer practical direction that leaders can actually use.

Executive preparation is another area where many organisations fall short. Media training often focuses on external interviews, even though many reputational issues tend now to originate inside the organisation. Leaders need preparation that reflects that reality, including guidance on how casual remarks in meetings, internal Q&A sessions, or informal discussions can shape trust. Walking executives through realistic internal scenarios – moments when they’re pressed for opinions or tempted to speak loosely about value-laden topics – helps them respond consistently and with confidence, even when they’re off-script.

Clear messaging guardrails matter most when they translate values into usable guidance. That means grounding them in real examples that show how leaders should talk about sensitive topics such as products, customers, or strategy in everyday conversations, not just formal statements. When guardrails spell out both what to emphasise and what to avoid, they reduce guesswork and limit the drift toward personal interpretation.

The cost of leaving these issues unaddressed is high. Lawsuits, whistleblower complaints, and viral recordings rarely come out of nowhere. Instead, they emerge from patterns that were visible internally long before they became public. Once a misalignment becomes a public story, even a prompt and transparent response competes with the idea that something more systemic is at play. Repairing trust after that point takes far more effort than building alignment early.

A single recorded remark may spark the crisis, but the underlying cause is almost always structural. Organisations that invest in listening to employees, equipping leaders with context, and making values tangible in everyday behaviour reduce the likelihood that an off-script comment becomes a reputational threat. Culture is no longer something that sits separately from reputation. It is the foundation that determines whether an organisation's values hold up under scrutiny, both inside the building and beyond it.