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.

I think it is nice to see CEOs and companies have a sense of humor. Part of building a CEO reputation is knowing how to leave a legacy, the last part of CEO tenure.

So if you have a few moments, take a look at Microsofts’ founder and chairman Bill Gates’ last day video (he is off to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation full-time). It is on YouTube and it will make you laugh. Nothing wrong with that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEWMC4usElM

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.

Please excuse my tardiness in writing of late. I was traveling in Europe to our offices, visiting clients and talking about reputation recovery. My laptop’s wireless broke and I was unable to post to my blog. Now that I am back in the U.S., I asked myself what fascinated me the most about my visit. Without a doubt, I have to say that I was shocked that the first question I was usually asked was about Eliot Spitzer. Prior to my visit, I had seriously prepared myself to talk about European corporate scandals such as SocGen, Deutsche Post and Northern Rock. Imagine my surprise when the first question was often about the governor of New York. I did not expect Spitzer’s reputation and moral downfall to reach so far so quickly. But then again, who is surprised by anything these days? Since my new book is about reputation recovery and redemption, I guess it should not have been such a surprise. (I was also asked why wives in the U.S. stand by their disgraced husbands. I was not sure why this is so.)

Here is what I think. I do not believe, like most everyone, that Spitzer can ever rebuild his reputation in the political arena. That chapter is now closed. But I do believe that he can repair his reputation in time by dedicating himself to the common good. Years from now, we may actually hear Spitzer say that this colossal public failure (even crime?) gave him an opportunity to do something with his life that he would never have imagined possible or contemplated. Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld has written extensively about individuals who recover lost reputations over money, sex (less often) and other improprieties. Sonnenfeld’s recent book is called Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound from Career Disasters. In his chapter on “Lessons Learned from Legends and Losers” is his advice to “Know Your Own Story” — “…all of this entails knowing, telling and constantly retelling the leader’s story and to have an explanation for the downfall such that it enables faith in the leader’s ability to rebound.” Spitzer now has to find his own narrative to explain how his lost his way, betrayed his family and colleagues, and let New Yorkers down. He then has to find his own personal route to redemption and earn forgiveness.

Reputation forgiveness should not be ruled out.

We just released our new findings on Global 500 CEO Departures. Just as it was released this week, I see the news that Motorola’s CEO Ed Zander stepped down. As I have noted many times, being CEO today is a treacherous job. The shelf life is short and reputations quickly tarnished. Here are some of the key findings.

• Over 10 percent of the world’s largest companies lost their CEOs in the first three quarters of 2007. This departure rate amounts to a CEO departure among the world’s largest-revenue producing companies nearly every 5 days.

Global CEO Turnover by Region: First Three Quarters 2006 vs. 2007
	2006		2007
Region	Total (#)	Percent (%)	Total (#)	Percent (%)
North America	16	8.7%	12	6.7%
Europe	17	9.3%	24	12.6%
Asia Pacific	19	15.5%	20	16.4%
Latin America	0	0%	1	10.0%
Total	52	10.4%	57	11.4%

2007 saw more chief executives exit during the first quarter than the following two quarters (26 vs. 15 vs. 16, respectively) and when compared to the first quarter of 2006 (26 vs. 16, respectively).   

Overall, 28 percent of chief executives who left office in the first three quarters of 2007 exited involuntarily. European CEOs were more likely to be pressured to leave their jobs than their regional counterparts.  While only two European CEOs were forced out of office by the end of the third quarter in 2006, nine European CEOs exited involuntarily during the same time period in 2007 – a 350 percent increase.  

Ousted Global CEOs By Region: First Three Quarters 2006 vs. 2007
	2006		2007
	Total (#)	Percent (%)	Total (#)	Percent (%)
North America	3	18.8%	3	25.0%
Europe	2	11.8%	9	37.5%
Asia Pacific	8	42.1%	4	20.0%
Latin America	0	0%	0	0%
Total	13	25.0%	16	28.0%

For the first three quarters of 2006 and 2007, insider executives continued to outnumber outsider executives when new CEOs were selected to lead the world’s largest companies.  Interestingly, 2007 had an even greater proportion of insider CEO successions than seen in 2006 (70 vs. 64 percent, respectively).

An article in today’s paper commented on Hillary Clinton’s reputation for the “responsibility gene.” I think that if she was going to have any special reputational DNA, that’s a good one to have. The writer was referring to her caution over what she says now as a candidate and what she will actually do if elected President. Hillary wants to make sure that she cannot be accused of changing her tune if elected. My sense is that if I was going to inherit anything, responsibility would be a good one to have been passed down through generations and should serve as a healthy structure for presidential success. We will soon seen how gene-ability favors her reputation in the primaries pretty soon.

The New York Times today has a front page article in the business section today on the next wave of CEOs. The article “C.E.O. Evolution Phase 3″ was apparently written as a direct result of recent high profile CEO departures at major financial services companies suffering huge losses from the subprime mortgage fallout. The article’s sub-title was “After Empire Builders and Repair Experts, the Team Captain.”

I can’t help but think that this story has already been written. There seems to have been a general theme in the news media that we went from celebrity CEOs and empire builders to post-Enron custodial turnaround CEOs.  Don’t get me wrong but the Team Captain is not a new leadership theme. Our research at Weber Shandwick on Safeguarding Reputation and the research I have been conducting on CEOs for years has always found that bench strength is critical to building CEO and company reputations. I am now going to wait for the next article in the top-tier media on the Eco-CEO such as GE’s Immelt and others. It cannot be far away.

Since I do collect CEO quotes, there were a few that I highlighted to put on our reputationRX site:

“It’s someone who can assemble a team that functions as smoothly as a jazz sextet.” (USC’s Warren Bennis)

“Both felt the need to make sure the top hundred people know that they’re in this together, that their fates are correlated.” (Referring to P&G’s CEO Lafley and Boeing’s CEO McNerney.)

“The academic research says if you want to predict what the future financial performance over the next one to three years will be, you need to know the top team.” (Wharton’s Michael Useem)

There are so many variations on explaining the next generation of CEOs…what happened to the Tech CEO or the Consensus CEO. Is there room for an Organic CEO or Shy CEO or Spiritual CEO? What about the Safety CEO? In light of recent product recalls, privacy issues and environmental disasters, can the Safety CEO be far from view? I don’ think so. I can even name a few.

Déja vu today reading about CEO Stan O’Neil at Merrill Lynch whose job is in jeopardy due to spectacular losses and proposing a merger with Wachovia without board consent. The article hinted at how the Merrill culture rose up and rejected O’Neil. O’Neil ran the Merrill ship in a very transaction-oriented manner whereas the renown “Mother Merrill” culture was famously relationship-oriented. This description brought back memories of what was said about CEO Carly Fiorina’s ouster at HP. She too was said to have been rejected by the ingrained and long-standing HP Way.  As I have heard some CEOs say, culture is the agenda. Don’t ever kid yourself. Changing cultures is like playing with fire.

Listened to a radio program (KQED) this afternoon on online reputation. It was about the light and dark side of online reputation today. There were several call-ins with disturbing examples of reputations ruined – telephone numbers endlessly listed on the Internet due to election campaign donations, unemployment due to criticisms about the accuracy of a school textbook, 1983 article in a college paper that was mis-edited, etc.  While the positive side of online reputation such as ebay seller ratings and the ability to find out information on companies of all sizes and sectors, the increasing negative side of the Internet for managing reputation consumed much of the program. The advice given was quite sound: 1. Take the long view of anything you write today. 2.  Google Early, Google Often.3. Take action (formally and informally) if there is something inflammatory written about you.4.  Monitor yourself carefully. Even the innocent can become victims.  Moderator Dave Iverson interviewed Professor Daniel Solove, law professor at George Washington School of Law, and author of a new book titled The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet. Timely indeed. The other person interviewed was Michael Fertik, CEO of ReputationDefender, a service that helps individuals manage their online reputations.  Enjoy.   

Rebranding. It seems to be the newest trend among people with tarnished reputations. There is such a thing as personal redemption. Bill Clinton has done a masterful job of rebranding himself. The afterglow from his time in office is only getting hotter. His philanthropy, Clinton Global Initiative, partnership with President Bush’s father post-tsunami has all converged to present the new and improved brand