Posts Tagged ‘corporate communications officers’

We recently released an interesting exploration on the relationship between top corporate communications officers and legal counsel when it comes to reputation management. I have already posted about this relationship where these two senior corporate officers seem to be working together more than ever. In light of the multiplying crises that companies and its leaders are facing on an hourly basis, the relationship between the two officers including outside counsel has to be strong and respectful.  As we say in the report, “general counsels (GCs) and chief communications officers (CCOs) are now finding themselves participating in the same reputation management strategy meetings, conference calls and contingency planning sessions. GCs, external legal advisors and CCOs now have no choice but to trust and understand each other.”

There are several noteworthy insights and best practices in “Managing Legal and Reputation Risk” but two stand out for me in particular. The first is that you can’t prepare enough and expect surprises. …”executives still find the nature or intensity of the situations they’ve managed to be unfamiliar or unanticipated on some level.” This is so true. There is always something overlooked or unexpected.  In fact, it seems to me that it is getting harder to find precedence for some of the crises that arise. For example, the Olympus crisis has few precedents.  For this very reason, being ready, practicing a few scenarios ahead of time and giving time to “near misses” are sensible readiness processes to have in place.

Another finding that resonated with me was how general counsels appeared more willing today to balance the interests of the business with legal priorities. They said this, not just me. There are times when the short term hit (such as apologizing or admitting that the company could have done better and will do better in the future) outweighs the costs of winning or losing in a court of law down the road. The fact that many of the legal counsels we interviewed agreed that the “short-term pain for long-term gain” is often the right strategy demonstrated the transformation in communications-legal circles that we explored.

   We just published our new research (The Rising CCO) on CCOs — corporate communications officers around the world. We survey them every year with partner Spencer Stuart. This is our third wave and there are always interesting findings since 12 months certainly changes things quite a bit.

Here are some interesting findings that you were not called out in the press release.

• We asked CCOs which function they expect to increase most dramatically in importance in the next 12 months. The number one function is corporate reputation. This function has increased since we first asked this question.
• CCOs’ visit to the board is increasing as well, perhaps underscoring the importance of issues that CCOs and their CEOs face and its importance to the reputation of the company. In 2010, the median number of invitations to the board meeting was 14, a little more than once a month. This beats the median of 11 times in 2008.
• We asked about the presence of social media threats and how prepared CCOs feel today.  Most admired company CCOs and less admired company CCO both say that they’ve experienced these kinds of online threats in the past year (39% vs. 36%, respectively).  What I found most interesting was that the most admired company CCOs were considerably more likely to say they were prepared to deal with online threats compared to their less admired company CCOs (44% vs. 23%).  This large gap certainly says that communications officers working in companies lower on the totem pole of reputation esteem should get their houses in order when it comes to reputation defense.  The reputation attacks are only going to increase, not decrease.  North American CCOs are more likely than their peers in Europe and Asia Pacific to say they are prepared.

Hope you find these findings interesting like I do. Reputation, whether for the company or the brand, is increasingly critical to the bottom line and to public opinion. Glad that CCOs agree.

Hope to report more in my next blog. But take a look for yourself.

         We just released Chief Communications Officers: First 100 Days, an “e-book”  reflecting advice from dozens of veteran corporate communications officers (CCOs) around the world on how best to navigate their first 100 days. This mini-book is a favorite of mine because early tenures are a topic that interest me greatly. My first book on a CEO’s early tenure, CEO Capital, describes many of the same challenges and advice on how to hit the ground running.  For corporate communications officers, those first few weeks are critical because a crisis could arise at any moment and communications is always front and center these days. Therefore “onboarding” (a new HR term) needs to go smoothly because every day could be a red flag day.

Because we regularly survey corporate communications officers around the world, this e-book seemed like a natural extension of our insights on this rapidly rising and influential position.  In our last survey, we learned that nearly 6 out of 10 CCOs (58%) in Fortune 500 companies now report to the CEO. This was a 10 percent increase from the year earlier. The e-book captures advice in CCOs’ own words on do’s and don’ts for those newly coming on board and what to avoid so as not to derail the best of plans.

When we asked CCOs what the three greatest challenges were, this one response seemed to sum it all up:

1. Reputation management in an era of deterioration of traditional media,

2. Increasing effectiveness of voices of outrage, and

3. Light speed evolution of social media.

If anyone has additional advice, please send it this way and enjoy the book. (If you need a pdf of the book, write to me at lgaines-ross@webershandwick.com).