personal reputation

  "I am not proud of my actions and have made a visit to the Vancouver Police Department, over the weekend to turn myself in."

The Vancouver riots have highlighted how we are all discoverable and all our actions are forever on display online.  Many people who participated in the riots over the Stanley Cup loss to the Boston Bruins have begun to publicly apologize, particularly after being caught on tape or in photos and posted online. They are painfully trying to recover their reputations for participating in the disturbing looting and bad bahavior that grabbed headlines all over the world. Here is a newscast  from CBC that caught my eye because it was identified under the title Reputation Recovery, the theme of my second book. The quote at the start of this blog is from a young woman who apologizes for her actions. She continues, "The pants are being returned.  I have made mistakes and I have learned from them.  The aftermath has been a tough ordeal and I let my emotions get in the way of my original apology.  But I take full responsibility for my actions and understand that it is nobody else’s fault but mine.  I am truly sorry for my actions and am ready to accept the consequences, including the public backlash." We are all public. Not much more to say.  Hard way to learn one of life's latest lessons. Hopefully, the rioters will repair their reputations and care for them like never before.

  How much does charisma affect leadership reputation today? It seems to be an age old debate. Too much? Too little? Just about right? When we asked this question years ago in my research on how to build an enduring and long-lasting CEO reputation, we learned that it is was important --  better to have than not have.  Charismatic leadership is not what you say but how you say it.  It’s not just what leaders communicate that makes them charismatic; it’s what they elicit from others. I think I read this somewhere and it stuck in my mind. Among the new breed of CEOs today, a quieter charisma is now more important. It is not about CEO celebrity but building CEO credibility. Maybe we should call it "slow charisma." Credibility or authenticity coupled with charisma can be electric.  When you see it, you know it. However, it is not all there is to leadership. Leadership also includes sound judgment, ethical conduct, the ability to listen and serve others. Lets not kid ourselves. The Economist just wrote an article about what we can learn from Lady Gaga and Mother Teresa about leadership. Apparently there is a lot to learn.  The article infers that brilliant and flawless communications helps enormously, particularly with these two charismatic (in their own way) women.  Here is an excerpt.

Mother Teresa was a “PR machine” who, whether talking to a dying leper or a rich donor, “always left her imprint by communicating in a language the other person understood”. Lady Gaga is “one of the first pop stars to have truly built her career through the internet and social media.  Lady Gaga has what Messrs Anderson, Kupp and Reckhenrich call “leadership projection” and a layman would call charisma. The authors think this is because she tells “three universal stories”. First, a personal story: who am I? (She stresses that she was the weird kid at school, but driven to be creative.) Second, a group narrative: who are we? (She calls her fans “my little monsters” and herself “Mama Monster”, and she communicates with them constantly via Facebook and Twitter.) And third, a collective mission: where are we going? (She promotes gay rights and celebrates self-expression; she tells her fans that together they can change the world.) Lady Gaga has the “ability to build emotional commitment” in those she leads, says Mr Reckhenrich. This ability is increasingly valuable in today’s business world, he believes. In “The Fine Art of Success”, a book he and his co-authors released last year, they examine it at length. They are now working with Egon Zehnder, an executive-recruitment firm, to figure out how to identify whether candidates for top corporate jobs have the ability to “project leadership” the way Lady Gaga does.

Charisma can be critical when a leader has to deliver an important message, whether the individual has it or not. I think former President George W. Bush demonstrated charisma when he faced the nation after 9-11, both on television from the oval office and when visiting the site of the World Trade Towers site in New York City. All eyes were on him and he delivered, as required.  However, that charismatic leadership soon faded with the war in Iraq and debacle of Hurricane Katrina because the empathy, emotional connection and authenticity were AWOL.  Former President Clinton has it in spades. President Obama has it and especially when he puts it to good use. In this day and age, it is not enough for CEOs to bark orders or to manage the bottom line only. Being able to deliver meaning and purpose along with a dose of slow charisma and empathetic communications is required. It is a tall order, I know.

An article on how CIOs need to get a seat at the table and boost their reputational status within the organization appeared in the WSJ this week. I read it on a plane but left myself a message to post about it  (are CIOs really second-class citizens in the C-suite?).  I am always interested in who is sitting at the table with the CEO and have over the years been particularly interested in the role of CCOs -- Chief Communications Officers -- and how they are increasingly sitting at that table as crises soar and reputations tumble. So naturally, this drew my attention.   As I went to find the article online, I stumbled upon another WSJ blog post about the article which had this quote or two from Brian Halligan, chief executive of Hubspot, who spoke at a panel by MIT's CIO Symposium on the role of the CIO:

 "Mr. Halligan also said CIOs are the logical choice to help chief executives master new communication tools like blogging, Facebook and Twitter. Many chief executives are either uncomfortable using those media, or hire professionals to stand in for them: Either way, their audiences can sense the lack of spontaneity. CIOs can help their CEOs “have a more authentic relationship with the market and vendors,” he said.

Since I have been carefully monitoring how CEOs become more social, I admit that I had not thought about this in the same way. In my world of communications, I think that CCOs are the natural teacher for showing CEOs how to use social media and video to communicate deep within the organization and to customers and other important stakeholders. I liked Halligan's statement about how being more social might change perceptions of CEOs as stodgy, risk-adverse and uncommunicative. He is probably right. Related to this topic, it is probably not a good idea to hire professionals to stand in for CEOs although I don't doubt that it is done. CEO voices are hard to imitate and employees should be fairly adept at noticing counterfeit CEO-speak. So I would advise that if you are getting your CEO to blog (it does not have to be too often as we advise in our research) to get to know people and let them get to know the CEO, get them to do it themselves.

   A new survey from Norton made its way to me and collided in my head with another observation. The survey among British adults was about online reputation and some interesting tidbits surfaced in the perennial discussion of reputations online. Once again, it quickly gets down to privacy issues that seem increasingly difficult to fence in online.  Over one half of British respondents said they would not mind “resetting” the button to erase everything about them online. I think there is a huge pent up demand to hit that reset button at least once in our lifetimes -- and for good reason. About four in ten (40%) report that they don’t actively safeguard their reputations online.  We worry and pout about the loss of privacy but do we do anything really to protect ourselves? I sometimes try to imagine the world even five years from now when everything about us is woven together into an online profile about where we were born, our friends, colleagues, indiscretions, good deeds, professional and professional events we attended all spliced together with rumors, hearsay, innuendo and just plain misinformation.  I got to thinking about this as I was reading an interesting article about President Obama’s mother and her journey to Indonesia with the president as a young boy.  I thought how interesting it was that the author, Janny Scott, had to interview Stanley Ann Dunham’s  (Obama’s mother) former colleagues, friends, neighbors and two children (one being in the White House) about her because she never lived her life online. This was all pre-Internet days. Probably a good thing. The author had to resort to the old way of writing a book . It is almost delicious in its quaintness. Here is what is says on Amazon about the book:

Award-winning reporter Janny Scott interviewed nearly two hundred of Dunham's friends, colleagues, and relatives (including both her children), and combed through boxes of personal and professional papers, letters to friends, and photo albums, to uncover the full breadth of this woman's inspiring and untraditional life, and to show the remarkable extent to which she shaped the man Obama is today.

The juxtaposition of people living their lives online for all to see with people who lived the majority of their lives without the scrutiny and accessibility of the Internet actually makes the new book even more interesting because it probably contains the unknowable.  Imagine depending on letters and photo albums to tell our lives today.  Almost unthinkable.

 No doubt you have heard about icorrect.com -- the web site that sets the record straight about rumors and hearsay. The website says that it  is about protecting " one’s reputation in cyberspace forever." ICorrect was started by the founder of Shanghai Tang, the terrifically classy and expensive department store chain. Since I was recently in China, I certainly did not pass up the opportunity to drop into Shanghai Tang and admire all its beautiful apparel and items. It is known as a luxury lifestyle brand.  Sir David, the founder and businessman, began this web site to help people clear up misinformation that lives permanently on the Internet. Several well-known celebrities and luminaries have taken to clearing their records. Anyone can view the corrections although to post costs $1,000 annually. There are posts from Cherie Blair, Sienna Miller and Michael Cain. I do wonder if they are actually took the trouble to post these corrections but it seems to be the case.  Here is an example -- the accusation followed by the correction.

Accusation: Kate Moss to make her acting debut in Shakespeare's The Tempest

Kate Moss is taking the acting world by storm - making her stage debut in the Tempest. The supermodel, 36, has landed a minor role as a nymph in an upcoming version of Shakespeare's play. It follows a series of meetings and phone calls with Kevin Spacey who is overseeing the production as part of the Bridge project at London's Old Vic. Our spy tells us: "Kate has had several acting lessons and is keen to broaden her.......

Good to be home from traveling around Asia Pacific the past couple of weeks talking about Reputation Warfare.  So am now back on the blog posting trail. Two things struck me this week although I will make sure to write more about some of my observations about reputation in Asia in the weeks to come. Just to start out, while I was away, Barron's World's Best CEO list came out.  This highly coveted and selective list usually has a theme in addition to its traditional focus on longterm financial performance.  As they say, they like to  identify corporate leaders who make a difference to their companies and deliver for investors. Barron's require that a CEO has been at the job for at least three years and prefers companies with market values of at least $5 billion. This year their advice to leaders is "Go Thee to Asia."

"Any big company looking for serious growth in the 21st century must have a plan for Asia. The region is home to half the globe's population and, increasingly, it's driving the world's economy. So, as Barron's drew up its annual list of the world's 30 best chief executives, we took a hard look at how each candidate was approaching Asia and other developing markets."

On another note, this morning while waking up super early from jet lag crazies, I read about the Warren Buffet-Berkshire Hathaway reputation bruise.  In a New York Times article, it says: 

 "In a July 2010 letter, Mr. Buffett instructed his managers to “zealously guard Berkshire’s reputation.”

“We can afford to lose money — even a lot of money,” Mr. Buffett said. “But we can’t afford to lose reputation — even a shred of reputation.”

These Buffett quotes don't surprise me and neither does the removal of Mr. Sokol. When I turn to my favorite quote of all time from the sage/oracle from Omaha, it appears he acted swiftly and deliberately. In case you have never heard me say it, it is quite appropriate today. 

"If you lose dollars for the firm by bad decisions, I will be understanding.  If you lose reputation for the firm, I will be ruthless."

  Where is privacy going?  Do all newborns have digital footprints in addition to those inky-stained ones on birth certificates? Are we going to need pre-natal reputation managers in the near future? A survey by AVG  among mothers in several countries found that 81% of children under the age of two had some form of digital profile including photos online. This percentage was even greater in the US where an astounding 92% of children under two have an online profile.  It gets even stranger so hold on. Nearly one quarter -- one in four! -- have uploaded their pre-birth sonograms online. Again, US moms are more prone to sonogram-posting (34%).  Is technology getting out of hand? And nearly one in 10 (7%) moms have picked out an email address for their young ones with nearly as many having a social network profile already. Privacy has to be among the greatest risks facing humankind as we march into the future. Parents have to learn to be extra cautious with their privacy controls if they want to maintain some sort of safeguard for their growing children. Of course, young parents today have only known life online. All of this makes me wonder if  in year 2050, we have to employ baby reputation managers to protect our children's backgrounds and photographs from being used improperly? We have a lot of work ahead to understand the true dimensions of privacy loss and how it will affect this generation coming up. We have already seen the downsides (along with the upsides of course) in recent years but the early warning signs of concern are here.

  There is an interesting article on Cnet about online reputation management. The article by Tom Krazit is mostly about the many ways that online reputation companies help people manage their reputations online. There have been many articles on online reputation management but I suspect that the reason this article appeared when it did was due to the change in name at ReputationDefender to Reputation.com. Why did ReputationDefender changes its name? It says on their website the following:  "It also better communicates the scope of our solutions, beyond the “defensive” and onto the “proactive” face of reputation and privacy management. Through Reputation.com, we will continue to focus on delivering high-quality reputation management and privacy products, but we will also focus more broadly on the issue of Internet identity and proactive reputation building." When you read Krazit's article, it reviews the savory and less savory ways that one's reputation can be improved online or somewhat buried in the rankings lineup on search engines. And of course, some of the methods are not revealed because that is the secret sauce of these firms. The founder of Reputation.com, Michael Fertik, defends people's rights to put their best foot (face?) forward in his brash quote: "Google is not God, it is not the First Amendment, and it's not the truth. It's probably the best machine of the last 10 years, but it's just a machine." I met Michael about two years ago because of our mutual interest in reputation.  I am sure he said the same thing to me about Google at our first meeting. He has a good point. Just because something surfaces at the top of Google does not necessarily make it absolutely true or the last word on an issue or topic or person.  I sincerely admire what Michael has built and the passion he puts into his business and people's right to defend themselves when they have been wronged or privacy is invaded in harmful ways (they have a product for cyberbullying,  MyChild).  He has built a business from the ground up and I applaud that. I am glad that his business is doing so well. Interestingly, the writer asked Google for its opinion on reputation management online and they forwarded the following comment:

Our goal is to help people find relevant information. So, we don't condone reputation management campaigns that attempt to hide relevant information. While there is nothing in our guidelines that explicitly forbids reputation management, if we uncover link schemes or other violations, we reserve the right to take action in response. We are constantly working to improve our algorithms to ensure people find the most relevant information possible for their searches.

Ultimately, I agree with the author who at the end of the article concludes:

    The tragic story Buy Synthroid Without Prescription, of a young student violinist who jumped off the George Washington bridge this week because of a posted video of his liasion with another man made my heart stop. The New York Times obviously thought it would stop and make others think because it was featured on their front page today, Jacksonville, Florida, Columbus, Ohio. Buy Synthroid from mexico, There must be a way to teach people about online privacy and how reputations can be harmed beyond repair if no one is thinking. This poor young man was convinced his reputation was irrecoverable once his roommate and friend crossed the boundary of common deceny, where can i order Synthroid without prescription. Order Synthroid online overnight delivery no prescription, Ironically, Rutger's University where the young man went to school, purchase Synthroid online no prescription, Nashville-Davidson, Tennessee. Portland, Oregon, was embarking on a week devoted to Civility.  I immediately thought about our timely recent research on Civility in America and I provide it to you at this link.  On the radio this morning, I also heard President Obama mentioning political civility, köpa Synthroid online, Osta Synthroid online, Jotta Synthroid verkossa. Farmacia Synthroid baratos, Synthroid online kaufen, What will it take to change our course of behavior.

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