Enterprise Leadership Network (IT Strategies for Delivering Business Value) interviewed me about how C-level executives such as CIOs can build their reputations.

Thought you might want to tune into the podcast.  Enjoy if you are in the mood.

Hard to ignore Warren Buffett quotes. They are always so “right on.” Have been meaning to write this one down for the record and here goes:

“I don’t want an easy business for competitors. I want a business with a moat around it. I want a very valuable castle in the middle, and then I want a duke who is in charge of that castle to be very honest, hardworking, and able. Then I want a moat around that castle.”

Buffett is making the point that differentiation and the right leader make all the difference between a successful company and one doomed to fail. Our stumble rate (over three-quarters –79 percent– of the world’s number-one most admired companies lost their crowns over the past five years in their respective industries) makes it increasingly clear how hard it is for companies today to maintain a castle, moat and duke that keeps a good reputation afloat.

Have been saving this quote for my blog. Remember Jean-Marie Messier of Vivendi Universal fame. He lost his CEO-ship when the company found itself $35 billion in debt in 2002. He is now the head of an acquisitions advisory in New York, Messier Partners. The former CEO has had a comeback and once again we see that people can restore their reputations, including damaged CEOs. Messier is quoted in Time (3.24.08) as saying:

“The U.S. is the country of the second chance–where there isn’t so much jealousy, and if you’ve had problems that you try to rebound from, everyone will applaud and will try to help.”

Interestingly, despite all the negative press and approval ratings chatter about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reputation, Messier is quoted as saying that Sarkozy is the one politico who still met with him after his ouster. I thought that this type of behavior speaks to a good character trait in the Sarkozy profiling.

In my new book, I mention the importance of “rewinding.” This is one of the four stages of reputation recovery that I describe as a means to restore reputation for the long-term. It basically means looking backwards at what went wrong (and right) to prevent wrongdoing from ever happening again. It sounds so basic but I am always surprised at how many companies and leaders do not look back at the root cause of their undoing as they try to repair their reputations.

Today I was reading The Economist  an article on Internet communities (3/22/08) when I came across a quote from Winston Churchill that resonated with my thinking on restoring reputation: “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” A good example was also cited. Philp Rosedale, the founder of Second Life (the virtual community), is said to review old media coverage of AOL’s life history to make sure that Second Life does not make the same mistakes as AOL in not adapting to the web’s open standards.

This got me to thinking about my friend, social psychologist and reputation expert, Joy Sever. She started a business (Tell Me O Muse) a few years ago on the timeless wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey, the ultimate literary story.  There is so much to be learned from the past as she has shown me. Listed below are 18 themes that Joy has culled from her tireless reading of that ancient journey back home.

The 18 Themes of Timeless Wisdom

1~Think carefully about what you’re pursuing … and how you’re pursuing it.
2~There is a right and a wrong time for modesty, but never a good
time for hubris. 3~Fear less. 4~Leaders need strategies. 5~Stay awake or
you may pay dearly. 6~ Use power to empower. 7~ Honor the guest-host relationship. 8~ Do not be fooled by disguises, beggars can be heroes.
9~Treat all people with dignity 10~ Accept the guidance of wise women and
the advice of wise men. 11~Honor solemn oaths. 12~Realize the potential
for enemies to become friends. 13~Maintain your vision, even in the face of temptation and despair. 14~When between a rock and a hard place,
select the path that minimizes loss. 15~When in doubt, test
before acting. 16~Take personal responsibility for your actions. 17~You’re
not home, until you’re home. 18~There comes a time when the
fighting must stop.

Unfortunately we are witnessing too many crises and fallen reputations today. Weber Shandwick’s stumble rate of most admired companies only continues to climb. Business schools need to include courses on the most colossal business mistakes of the past decade and on lessons from the classics (contact Joy!) to make sure that our next generation of business leaders realize the power of the past.

Recently came upon an interesting job opening for the Academic Director of the Centre for Corporate Reputation at the Said Business School at Oxford University. It was in the Economist (01.03.08). The reason the issue is several weeks old is that I saved the posting from my recent travels toEurope. Among the many qualities that Oxford is looking for (energetic, visionary, inspirational, leadership, networker, research management and scholar, international reputation, and prodigious publisher in prestigious publications) is having a “good media presence.” I found it interesting that the school is only requiring that the candidate be “good” with the media when media-bility would be so important to building a reputation for the Centre and attracting top-notch faculty and students.  I also was struck by the fact that there was no mention of having to be familiar with emerging or social media. Seems that academia is missing the boat by not even mentioning that they would mildly prefer someone with at least “passing” or “decent” familiarity with the rapidly evolving world of online reputation management. Nothing could be hotter. Why not ask for a blogger? I know. I know. Not going to happen. And I was also musing about why the job description did not mention that the preferred individual should be “great” or “electric” in the classroom (maybe they never teach students but I presume they have to be in the classroom at some point) or a talent magnet (how best to keep top talent and attract them). It seems to me that all of these other factors might have been mentioned in the criteria for this prestigious position. Maybe it would be nice to haves while the ones listed are must haves. But of all the factors that should have been noted, online presence or expertise should have been at least a footnote.

Quote of the Day:

“We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.” 

Peter Drucker

Seems like everyone knows that Starbucks shut its U.S. stores last night for several hours to retrain employees/barristers. Even my college-aged son e-mailed me to make sure I knew. The news traveled far and wide. One of the reasons I have been following the Starbucks Saga is that it’s a casebook study of reputation recovery and redemption. The CEO and founder returns as savior and instills a sense of urgency with a shot of humility. In my new book on reputation recovery, CEO Schultz is a text book case for following one of my recommended steps (Step #4) — Resetting the Company Clock. As I write in chapter four,

Instilling a sense of urgency often requires getting the senior team to focus more on what has to happen next and less on what went wrong in the first place. Internal politics and finger pointing distracts leadership from attending to those critical moments when moving toward recovery is essential. Wallowing in regret and recriminations is simply not helpful and keeps the company from moving forward. Even if the company is not frozen in time by recent calamities, business as usual is unacceptable. The pace of getting things done has to be accelerated. A good solution is shock therapy in the form of an overwhelmingly heavy dose of undeniable reality. One CEO, for example, summoned his senior team and displayed charts of its rapidly falling market share. To stun the team further into accepting the facts, he showed slides of competitors with quotes mocking the company. The shock value alone accelerated the team’s drive to rescue the company from their downward spiral.

By shutting down the stores and getting employees to focus on what the chain’s core competency used to be and now needs to be going forward, the CEO has essentially built a burning platform — acknowledge the flames of doom or else we all die. Return Starbucks back to what it once was or else lose out to complacency and sameness. Indeed, all the publicity surrounding the store closings for Expresso Excellence training dramatically underscores that Schultz means business. As someone said in my local Park Slope blog wrote, let’s see how the coffee tastes this morning on Seventh Avenue. To test Starbucks’ sincerity, I went to the Starbucks’ web site to see how they were communicating –if at all – their return to their roots and rebuilding trust. Right there on the home page are links to Schultz’s transformation agenda. Nos. 7 and 8 are clearly posted and I found these words in Communications #8 about last night’s training.

Tomorrow evening, we will come together in an unprecedented event in our company’s storied history.  We will close all of our U.S. company-operated stores to teach, educate and share our love of coffee, and the art of espresso.  And in doing so, we will begin to elevate the Starbucks Experience for our customers.  We are passionate about our coffee. And we will revisit our standards of quality that are the foundation for the trust that our customers have in our coffee and in all of us.But, as I think about it, there is another perhaps equally important reason why we have scheduled this training.  It’s to celebrate who we are. We are Starbucks.  We should be incredibly proud of what we have built. We are the worldwide leader of specialty coffee.  And, believe me when I tell you, we are just getting started.  We will overcome the difficult and humbling challenges we face, and will be stronger for it.  You have my word on that.

Schultz follows my book’s third step to reputation repair and protecting its brand for the long-term — Communicate Tirelessly. I will be watching and ordering a latte today.

Great communications quote in one of the Wharton Knowledge newsletters that I get. “You can never err on the side of communication as a leader,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the US World Wildlife Fund (WWF).  “In the absence of communication, you will be surprised by the incredible things they assume about you…. It’s great to have a vision, but where I see people fall down” is when they fail to “communicate that vision in every way, shape and form, every second of the day.” 

Communications is an integral part of leadership today. We see it being played out right now in the political arena. Obama is a gifted communicator. Hillary, on the other hand, had to communicate her emotional side in order to change the storyline about herself that might have cost her New Hampshire. When people ask me why communications is so important, I remind them how they felt on September 11th waiting for President Bush to speak about the horrific tragedy. Despite what people may think about him today, his words on 9.11 were critical to reassuring to Americans and helped steady this nation’s sense of loss. The wrong words would have been devastating. Unfortunately we saw what happens when leadership communications does fail — when the levees broke in New Orleans and the White House communicated too late about the destruction of homes and human lives. Without a doubt, communications can build or erode leadership reputation as much as any crisis.

A good quote for the day.

Have been meaning to mention that I attended a luncheon a few weeks ago where Bill Holstein spoke about the relationship between CEOs and the media. Bill is an award-winning editor and journalist who regularly writes about CEOs and board members. You have probably seen his name mentioned in The New York Times, Fortune, BusinessWeek and so on. Bill just wrote a book for Harvard Business School Press titled Manage the Media (Don’t Let the Media Manage You). It is part of a new series of HBS books called Memo to the CEO. These books provide leaders with advice on a wide variety of topics pertinent to top executives.  The premise of the book is that CEOs are not managing the media well and instead are having their reputations shellacked. Bill’s advice is to manage the relationships with the media for the long-term, not just when you need it. He advises proactively working with shareholder groups, using social media, architecting messages and never underestimating the importance of communications. Instead of living in a “gotcha” media environment, take control or your reputation will suffer.

Bill had a few unconventional ideas. He suggested that all CEOs in training spend one year training in the communications department to learn how to articulate their messages better and understand the media. His hope of course would be that rising stars would see joining the corporate communications department as an opportunity and not as punishment or a career detour. Not sure this will happen soon. His second suggestion had to do with his belief that many reporters do not really understand what CEOs do. He suggested an Adopt A Reporter program where CEOs educate reporters on the overwhelming complexity of the corner office. I thought that these ideas did a good job of challenging the status quo. 

We regularly get curious about things that happen in the communications and reputation space. Recently we were wondering if the frequency of “the company declined to comment” in the global media had risen or fallen in light of the intense media scrutiny that accompanies corporate crises and companies’ growing recognition of the need to be transparent.  My hypothesis, which was proven wrong, was that there had been a preciptious decline in “no comment” over the past several years. I based that assumption on the fact that “no comment” is increasingly perceived to be “guilty as read.” Instead no commentitis has risen steadily and although it has seen a few dips, remains standard operating procedure in the business world. Of course, every situation is different but reputations can be chipped over those two simple words.