Reputation erodes in many ways. One sure-fire way is when employees spill the beans. A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that employees lead the list of corporate whistleblowers when it comes to fraud.  Companies often wonder how they get themselves into these jams. It is actually pretty simple. Perhaps if they kept the lines of communications wide open or just a little open, employees would not have to resort to tattle-telling. Remember Sharon Watkins and Enron’s Kenneth Lay. If he had only listened and acted sooner.  We continually see reputations dashed as negative things come to light. The worse is when it surfaces little by little.  I wait every day to hear the Societe Generale story continue to unfold. Now we hear that another person may have been involved with rogue trader Jerome Kerviel. This week we heard that there were early warning signals alerting Societe Generale officers about the fuzzy transactions. Employee fraud is usually suspected by other employees but no one says anything out of fear. The article in BusinessWeek (January 28, 2008) where I learned about the corporate whistleblowers reports that 82% of them are ostracized, fired or demoted. Not much incentive for telling the truth.  

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

Weber Shandwick just released some new research on the executive conference business. The Global Strategic Media Group at Weber Shandwick audited the CEOs and top executives of the world’s 50 most admired companies to see where they were speaking and how the conference world had changed over the past three years.

The “Five-Star Conference” study found that executive participation in top-tier, or Five-Star, events is soaring. Since 2005, there has been an extraordinary five-fold (525 percent*) increase among elite C-level executives at five star speaking forums. For elite CEOs during the same time period, there has been an increase of 35 percent in participation at these distinguished events. Strikingly, the rising importance of these events as a vital communications tool is underscored by a 50 percent rise in the number of top-tier global conferences from 2005 to 2007.

The research also identifies the top events for CEOs (#1 WEF) and C-suite executives (Fortune Innovation/iMeme).

I am pleased to see the CEO/executive conference business heating up again. A few years ago, many of the business publications abandoned this service offering due to the expense and difficulty proving the return on investment. In my humble opinion, it’s a great way to push CEOs to think outside the box and find something important to say. It requires putting one’s thinking cap on and on that subject, I am in favor.

*Small sample size

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.