Stumble Rate

Totally agree. Just read an article about teaching reputation management in business schools. I gather it is not happening. Actually, this topic has been circulating for as many years as I have been in the field of reputation management. How is it possible that nothing has changed?  An analysis of highly ranked MBA programs by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) found that only 16% offer a single course in crisis management, strategic communications, public relations, or whatever on a company’s most competitive and valuable organizational asset — its reputation. With all the reputation failures we have seen over the past decade or more – starting with Enron, it is hard to believe that business schools are still treating communications as an elective, if at all. [Weber Shandwick's "stumble rate" shows that nearly one out of every two companies lost reputation in their industry last year.  Isn't that enough reason to teach MBA students how to communciate to avoid such reputation disasters?]

The article written by Anthony D’Angelo rightfully says: “One can’t blame organizational leaders for not understanding that the way they operate the business is inseparable from the way they communicate about the business, inside and outside the organization. They’re not educated sufficiently to know these are inextricably linked leadership requirements: You can’t have effective leadership without an effective communications strategy. The latter is based on authenticity and transparency because nothing else works.”

Communications is a requirement of good governance and smart leadership. New CEOs understand very well today the importance of communicating internally when they confront their first 100 days.  Nearly all those I have worked with are eager to communicate with employees and desperate to do it well. There is always a perception that the prior leadership did not do enough to communciate the strategy or to movitate and rally employees. But when does” communications amnesia” set in if they are all so eager on Day One?  It is too late to get the communciations bug when crisis is on the doorstep.

Reputation or communications management is sorely needed in business schools today. What’s keeping it away? Is it the perception that communications is all about excuses and spin? Responsible communications needs to be taught.

I am in a big believer in being prepared for reputational damage or crisis. My book on Corporate Reputation: 12 StepsTo Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation is all about learning from crisis and being ready for the next one.  As Weber Shandwick’s most admired stumble rate declares, every company should plan on some reputational mishap or misstep in the future. Nearly four in 10 companies have lost reputational status in the past year. I just read an article sent to me about the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard. The initiative’s goal was to learn lessons from leaders who have faced crisis situations such as terrorist attackes (Israel, Madrid, London), natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), health scares (pandemics), oil spills (Deepwater Horizon), etc. 

One of the first lessons they uncovered applies to companies and institutions and is:

“…that bad leadership – much like smoking – is a public health risk factor. Whether in the aftermath of a terror attack or a natural disaster, we have seen that when leaders don’t perform well lives are lost and people abandoned.”

And the second lesson is getting everyone on the same page so everyone can work quickly, effectively and efficiently on behalf of a common and shared goal. 

“Working together after a disaster requires forging bonds before a disaster.” 

Third, and a powerful lesson for companies, is to “expect every citizen to participate.”  Leaders have to listen no matter how soft or weak the signals are. And these early warning signs need to get to those who can act and whose job it is to protect reputation. Empowering employees is critical to averting reputational disaster. As the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative found, “citizen bystanders” can make all the difference as we saw with the shoe bomber and underwear bomber airline incidents of the past few years.

“We should regard these heroes as leaders in their own right.”

 Each year Weber Shandwick measures the rate at which companies lose their #1 most admired position in their respective industries on the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies survey. We call this the “stumble rate.” Between 2010 and 2011, 43% of the world’s largest companies (22 in absolute) experienced a stumble, down slightly from last year’s 49%.*  While this marginal improvement is a positive sign for the stabilization of reputation, the fact that 4-in-10 companies lost their enviable industry position during the past year highlights just how difficult a good name is to keep.

 A few things distinguish reputation stumblers from non-stumblers:

• Reputation stumblers had more CEO transitions or changes. Those companies that lost reputational status had more CEO transitions and retirement announcements during 2010. This is perhaps not surprising since change at the top can signal that a company is in turmoil or that a new strategic direction has been set.  On the other hand, rankings may be very sensitive to the uncertainty of any CEO transition – voluntary or not.
• Reputation stumblers underperformed non-stumblers in terms of financial performance. Stumblers’ average share price rose 9.5% year over year compared to the 21.2% for non-stumblers . Although it might seem confusing that stumblers’ share price rose, it is important to recognize that stumblers are most admired companies.
• Reputation stumblers did not lose admiration for any one particular reason. Stumblers lost reputational equity for a variety of reasons such as governmental investigations, bad loans, poor returns on mergers/acquisitions or issues related to the housing market.  No one reason appeared to stand out.

Reputation Drivers Most Affected

Weber Shandwick dug deeper into Fortune’s nine reputation drivers to explore possible reasons for stumblers’ loss of reputational esteem.  Of the 22 stumblers, we found that:

• The most pervasive loss of reputational equity between 2010 and 2011 was in the area of “wise use of corporate assets,” perhaps a sign of the challenging times. This attribute was the most frequently dinged by survey respondents – industry peers, financial analysts and board members. 
• Other factors that appeared to affect the overall stumble rate were perceptions on  “people management,” “management quality” and “long-term investment value.” The rankings of 15 stumbling companies on each of these factors dropped since 2010, possibly reflecting a lack of confidence in a company’s overall long-term strategic direction.
• The least damaged driver during 2010 for stumblers was “financial soundness.”  Only 8 of the 22 stumblers lost credit on this attribute, perhaps because of an improving economy and/or raters cut their peers some slack, recognizing how hard it’s been the past few years to grow a business.  

*Fortune reports 22 companies out of 57 industries experienced “tumult” (p111, March 21, 2011 issue). A reader would interpret that as a 39% stumble (22/57). Since Weber Shandwick is tracking the rate over time, our base of industries needs to include only those that are reported year over year. For example, the Packaging/Containers industry was not reported in 2010 so Weber Shandwick excluded it from the total 57 industries reported in 2011. In total, six industries were excluded for the 2011 stumble rate to net a base of 51 industries (22/51=43%).

 I know many of you do not stay awake worrying about what your company board is up to but it is definitely important if you think about it some more. No surprise that boards are talking alot about the economy and challenging times in this meltdown. However, a survey by Eisner LLP asked over 100 board members what they were worrying about besides the bottom line.

At the top of the list was regulatory compliance — 63% chose this worry to keep them awake.  Second on the list was reputational risk. With all the corporate reputation damage evident today (see more on Weber Shandwick’s stumble rate), it makes sense that board members would be asking how vulnerable their company reputations are as well as their very own.  One of the shifts I like to mention when I talk about reputation trends is how board members have to worry extensively today about how their reputations are impacted by reputational missteps and disasters. There are many companies that come to mind in the past two years where it was a legitimate question to ask who was on the board and what were they thinking (or not thinking).  As the article in CFO.com agrees, “Boards are concerned about their companies’ reputations, but also their own reputations,” says Steven Kreit, co-author of the study. “More and more you see that when something happens at a company, people are saying, ‘Where was the board?’” Great question. In fact, I typed “Where was the board?” into Google just now and got nearly 7 million hits. Wow. A good question to be asking.

    Barron’s released its list of best CEOs this past week.  I thought one of the criteria for making the list was telling — identifying CEOs who kept their companies out of trouble. As we have reported before on this blog, nearly one out of two companies stumbled and lost their industry #1 status in the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies report this year (Weber Shandwick’s Stumble Rate).  No doubt about it, 2010 will be the year of Reputation Rebuild. I’m ready for it.