The Stories They Tell When You're Not There: Exploring the R.I.S.K. Aperture

I'm a sucker for a good acronym, especially one that actually gets you to think (or gets others to talk) about what the word itself means. So when Elie Jacobs casually dropped his “risk” framework during a recent Just Press Record with Eric Markowitz, my notes app pretty much said “open sesame” and started doing the work itself.

For context: Elie is a strategic communications specialist and geopolitical consultant who’s found himself in high demand lately (global crises are terrible for lots of businesses, but they can be great for your business, IF your expertise is in navigating them…). Hearing the way he fundamentally explains such a simple sounding concept, like risk, to his clients - it was a real conversation stopper. Every person in business is in the business of risk communications and control.

When Elie talks about risk, he doesn't reach for market volatility charts or insurance matrices. Instead, he breaks it down as R.I.S.K. 

Reputational Intelligence, Stakeholder Knowledge.

Here's where it gets interesting (and even more applicable). Brand, as Elie explained it to Eric and me, is not reputation. Your brand is the story you tell about yourself, aka the carefully crafted narrative you push out into the world to describe yourself. Your reputation is the story others tell when you're not in the room. And that distinction changes everything. Looking at both is why Elie does this professionally.

A real risk assessment begins with understanding the combinatorial powers of these external narratives. You’re trying to honestly measure not what you wish people were saying, but what they’re actually saying. You can’t do this without some old fashioned brutal honesty. There is no room for corporate wishful thinking here.

The stakeholder piece completes the puzzle. Digging for what your employees, clients, and their wider networks believe they know about you will shape your future and how you move forward. Some of it comes directly from your messaging, but most of it’s absorbed through osmosis, the way we all hear others talking about stuff (like me and you) in the wild.

The big consulting bucks are earned in this bit: the gap between your self-proclaimed brand and your public-proclaimed reputation is your risk aperture. The wider that gap, the more vulnerable you are. The narrower the gap, meaning what you project and what others reflect back at you are in harmony, then the more resilient your position. Everybody wants a narrower risk aperture at the end of the day. Nobody wants it widening out of control.

Since our recording, I've found myself testing this lens on everything. Look at me trying to build this archive of ideas I can pull from with clients. I repeatedly position myself as intensely curious, casually dropping “make curiosity a habit” whenever and wherever I can because I think it’s insanely important. Now, if people behind my back are saying, "Yeah, but that guy never asks questions and seems bored by new ideas," my risk aperture is dangerously wide. But if they're echoing back any variation of my own curiosity-driven narrative, I've achieved that tight aperture that signals alignment.*

The framework gets especially fascinating when applied to political figures. Especially here in 2025. Sure, having opponents and supporters with different narratives about you is baked into the game. But when the aperture widens beyond strategic polarization, when even your stakeholders' narratives start diverging wildly from your own, that's when careers implode. I’m not here to analyze those headlines, but through Elie’s lens, it’s a little easier to digest some of the news these days.

I'm still unpacking all the implications of Elie's framework, but what makes it stick is how it's both immediately graspable and endlessly applicable. You hold onto these models. When you truly understand the difference between how you frame yourself and how others frame you, you've got something more valuable than mere reputation management, you've got a dashboard for navigating reality itself.

Check out the full conversation between Elie Jacobs, Eric Markowitz, and me on Just Press Record, on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

*I think I’m doing ok with it. Here’s Eric making me feel like I’ve got the right aperture: