I received a terrific paper titled “Building and Protecting Corporate Reputation,” that was written by Peter Firestein, president of reputation risk consultancy Global Strategic Communications. The article appeared in Strategy & Leadership in 2006.
Peter writes about the changing business landscape that is impacting reputation management. He comments on how consumers are judging companies for their values today and that a new “public self-consciousness” has arisen. One of the common threads of failure that Peter points out is the inability for companies to truly listen. “Constant feedback from outside is the best protection…” He is so right. In our research on Safeguarding Reputation, we underscore the importance of listening to the early warning signs that are usually present (sometimes in abundance) before crisis strikes.
One of the many helpful insights that Peter discusses has to do with three questions. He mentions that when designing best practices for building good reputation, companies might want to turn to the US Justice Department’s guidelines for attorneys trying corporate cases. The questions that they ask to help them decide on prosecuting and sentencing companies are:
“1. Is the company a repeat offender? Does it have a history of continued misconduct?
2. Has it been transparent and forthcoming with information, particularly in the voluntary reporting of any failure to comply with regulation or law?
3. Has the company instituted controls designed in good faith to prevent the offense from recurring?”
To quote the author, “When translated for internal corporate use, these principles offer some of the clearest and most widely applicable ‘best practices’ leaders can adopt to manage risk.”
A excellent source for those of us thinking about reputation risk. This article and the one by Robert Eccles and others (Reputation and Its Risks) in this month’s Harvard Business Review add greater depth to the science of reputation management.
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Building and Protecting Corporate Reputation, Peter Firestein, listening, good corporate reputation, Safeguarding Reputation, best practices, Robert Eccles, Harvard Business Review
