Posts Tagged ‘reputation’

It has been an unusually warm couple of months here in New York. I can’t    help but think that global warming is staring me right in the face.  I often think of myself as a bear that hibernates when cold weather arrives. I often joke with my neighbors that they won’t see me until spring because I’ll be going into my bear cave for my “winter sleep” when the first chill arrives.  So the past couple of months have been an anomaly as I have wandered out doors more often than usual on the weekends. Of course I have to go to work and do the ordinary errands that surround my life but given the choice, I stay inside. Maybe that is why I like to write about reputation because it gives me an excuse to sit in my little office cave that is closed off to the world.

All of this got me to thinking about how climate change gets communicated today when there is criticism about  the science after controversies arose from the release of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. This happened a year or two ago.  Undoubtedly this is the perfect case study for how an industry (climate change scientists) suffered reputational damage and now has to recover and restore reputational equity. Climate change skeptics were fairly adept at effectively persuading many in the general public to doubt the scientific validity of global warming.

I was glad to see an article in the New Scientist (sorry, you need a subscription) by Robert Ward (policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics) on how some of the reputation recovery methods that I recommend in my book might be applied to regain confidence and trust in climate science.  He sees the situation right, “Even if the claims of misconduct and incompetence are eventually proven to be largely untrue, or confined to a few bad apples, mud sticks.”  This is a truism — no matter how much science you have on your side, it is sometimes never enough when it comes to public opinion.  Sometimes the facts just don’t matter as much as they should in a perfect world.

Ward is right that hope is not a solution to rebuilding reputation. Many CEOs used to think they could outlast controversy but in fact learn the hard way that it only extends the problem.  ”Communicating tirelessly” — one of my recommendations — is the right path forward.  ”No comment” does not work as it used to. Whether it is finding neutral partners or independent coalitions to bring additional voices into the discussion or actually training climate scientists to transparently talk about and defend the science — its certainties and uncertainties, communications will do more good than harm in this digital world.

An interesting analysis of temperature records appeared in an article in The Economist  which speaks to the importance of bringing in a third, fourth or fifth party opinion to validate scientific findings.  I read it on a plane to Europe in November but kept it because it made commonsense as an approach to understanding the climate change debate — is it getting warmer or not?  Let me just add here that the topic of global warming is a lot more complicated than I will ever understand — gaps in readings, different criteria, different types of thermometers, urban settings where temperatures might be recorder higher, etc.  But interestingly, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project stepped into the argument on climate change 18 months ago to test existing analyses. And they did so with the addition of skeptical scientists and funders as well as Nobel prize winners. As it is often said, let’s open the kimono and thus they did. And they found that the existing temperature records that the earth was warming was not far off the mark from what had been previously reported.  A peer review is underway and I look forward to learning more about that when it is released.  Next up, however, for climate scientists and institutions affiliated with climate change,would be communicating openly and collectively (and maybe relentlessly) to explain how the newest findings answer questions, raise new ones and guide us as to what we need to be doing Now not Later.

I went to the Thesaurus today to get a sense of synonyms and antonyms for “reputation.” I was just curious. They are listed below. I thought it was interesting that the word “image” was not a top synonym for reputation. Perhaps it is an old-time word that is not used much these days. I also was surprised that “credibility” was not among the selected few. However, some standbys such as esteem, trustworthiness and character are there. As an antonym, the word “disreputableness” does not exactly roll off one’s tongue.

The note about reputation is not terribly illuminating. I agree that reputation is how you are perceived by others but I think that reputation shines a light on a company’s or individual’s reputation and reveals how they are perceived. Not sure I get the distinction. Reputation is character. Either way, how you behave reflects on reputation.

I love the voice when you click on the megaphone.

Main Entry:	reputation [rep-yuh-tey-shuhn]  Show IPA
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	commonly held opinion of person’s character
Synonyms:	acceptability, account, approval, authority,character, credit, dependability, distinction,eminence, esteem, estimation,  fame, favor,honor, influence, mark*, name*, notoriety,opinion, position, prestige, privilege, prominence,rank, regard, reliability, renown, rep, report,repute, respectability, standing, stature,trustworthiness, weight, éclat
Notes:	character is what one is; reputation is what one is thought to be by others
Antonyms:	disreputableness, ill repute, notoriety

You’ve heard this statement before. “What you spend years building, someone can  destroy overnight.” I have probably written this several times on this blog when talking about crisis and reputation risk and I certainly wrote something very close in my book on reputation recovery. Well today it was cited in an article about GM‘s former CEO Rick Wagoner. The article was about his graduation speech made at Virginia Commonwealth University. A short 12 minute speech about “taking risks and accepting defeat gracefully.”  He has been silent for over three years. Talk about grace.  But in his closing lines, he made the statement about building and losing reputation which Mother Teresa apparently said (I did not know and am glad to have learned the origin of this statement). And he added his own two cents at the end to this famous piece of advice about reputation. He said “Build anyway.” A good reminder to those who wonder if being CEO is worth it or leading a country, I might add.

One of the advantages of having worked at several companies is that you really get to understand how different cultures can be. In the newest strategy + business study — The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture is Key, the researchers make the point that the most important ingredients in building an innovative environment is strategic alignment and a culture that supports innovation. They found after studying the world’s biggest spenders on R&D over seven years that “there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending, in terms of either total R&D dollars or R&D as a percentage of revenues.” That’s a very revealing statistic. It is natural to assume that high R&D spenders would have the best bottom lines and most success. It just is not true.

Now that innovation spending is back on track after a poor economy, the authors conclude the following below. This is such a critical point for those wishing to understand innovation and what really is important in building a reputation for being a best place to work:

“Culture matters, enormously. Studies have shown again and again that there may be no more critical source of business success or failure than a company’s culture — it trumps strategy and leadership. This isn’t to say that strategy doesn’t matter, but rather that the particular strategy a company employs will succed only if it is supported by the appropriate cultural attributes.”

It always gets back to the people and the culture. The research is alot deeper than this but the quote above about culture trumping strategy and leadership just jumped out at me. I’d have to argue that the leadership provides the foundation for a culture that supports innovation and that leadership might matter even more than strategy but culture shapes success, and ultimately reputation.

Interesting news today from my very own Weber Shandwick. We are releasing a study today called Socializing Your Brand: A Brand’s Guide to Sociability that we did with Forbes Insights.  The survey was among nearly 2,000 marketing and communications executives with digital responsibility in 50 countries worldwide. As a reputation maven, I have to share the interesting insight about reputation.

According to the study, global brand executives believe that sociability is growing rapidly as a contributor to a brand’s overall reputation, from 52 percent today with a projected estimate of 65 percent three years from now.  Thus having a vibrant and thoughtful online presence is not for the weak-hearted brands. 52% is a substantial estimate which is only going to grow.

So for all those brands out there wishing to be world class, go get social. Check out the survey.

The new CSR Index from Boston College and Reputation Institute is out.  Katherine Smith, executive director of the Carroll School of Management Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, remarked, ”Reputation is now widely accepted as a valuable intangible asset for firms, and as such it is an aspect of business that is earning increasing interest and attention from the C-suite and board. It is an indicator of how strongly connected consumers are to a brand. The effectiveness of a company’s reputation management will influence the bottom line — in either a positive or negative manner.” A total of 285 companies were measured among the general public for their best corporate citizenship reputations in the U.S.

Interestingly, there was a decline in ratings (2011′s top rating of 80.59 vs. 82.67 in 2010) speaks to the higher expectations placed on companies and greater skepticism about business in general. The continuing scandals, CEO ousters, board malfeasance, strategic missteps, etc. is now placing an equally intense spotlight on integrity and governance issues as it does on corporate social responsbility.  Additionally, I have been asked more than once whether CSR is fading in importance as the economy sours and the world seems to be in one big funk.  My answer is that it is probably more important than ever that companies step in to make a difference and commit to creating a better world. I think that citizenship is tablestakes today.

Globalization. Everything is different and everything is the same.

In an interview with the Dean of Harvard Business School, Nitrin Nohria noted: “When I came to Harvard Business School in the 1980s, the vast majority of people were interested in studying America, because this is where they hoped to have job opportunities. As late as 1988, when I joined, less than 5% of our case [studies] were outside of the United States. Last year more than a third of our cases were global.” Similarly, Fortune‘s Most Admired Companies survey used to be broken into the America’s Most Admired and World’s Most Admired lists as if they were two different beasts. Fortune now combines them into one big list of the World’s Most Admired and rightfully so. As we are seeing with the ups and downs of the stock market, we are all interconnected. The reputation of UBS or Sony or Procter & Gamble matters the world over.

Global everything is on my mind because I am off to Asia to give a speech on reputation and how to build it, safeguard it and defend it. I’ve been catching up on how reputation plays out in Asia Pacific so that I can be a bit more relevant to my audience. As I am preparing, an article I found struck me as a good example of how things are the same and yet different.

As a keen observer on how reputations get damaged in a crisis, I am always on the lookout for estimates of that damage.  A recent article provided me with some valuable information on how Chinese companies perform when scandal touches them. Scandal plays out slightly differently in China and on their balance sheets than it does in the US and Europe/EMEA. An academic study examined hundreds of scandals linked to companies traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges between 1997 and 2005. Revelations of financial fraud and various other similar crimes, such as embezzlement and kickbacks, definitely impacted share price as it does in the US.  The researchers found, however, that to really create a cataclysmic collapse of a company’s stock among Chinese companies, there had to be an additional element. “The study found that companies caught up in mere accounting scandals saw their shares drop by an average of 8.8% over the six months on either side of the incident. In those involving the bribery of government officials or theft of state assets, on the other hand, the stock fell by almost a third.” As they conclude, “In China and other less developed markets….business is done on the basis of political and social relationships, not numbers.”  Companies are all impacted by financial scandal but if you undermine the government in China or any of its officials, expect that your financial damage will be compounded by losing discounted financing, access to trusted suppliers, loss of customers, land acquisitions and other benefits that can come with good government relations. Thus, being on good terms with government is critical to success in China. In many ways, this is also becoming the norm in the US as government plays a more visible hand in business affairs.

As I mentioned in my WSJ Europe post on tips on defending your digital reputation, video has taken off and is an excellent means of communications and telling your business narrative for CEOs. Especially for getting CEOs comfortable with social media in general. As I quoted in the article, 75% of Internet traffic will be video this year. In our research on Socializing Your CEO, we talk about the benefits of using video for your CEO, particularly the ones who are wary of too much attention and visibility.

Therefore I nodded to myself when I read about the major expansion of the WSJ’s video unit. Now it is producing 3 1/2 hours of live daily programming. I did not realize that the Journal produces more live video than other newspapers in the US. I think we will be seeing a WSJ business network soon that rivals CNBC (who they partner with) and Fox (their parent company’s network).  Will be interesting to watch and as I said, a good opportunity for CEOs as well. How much trouble can you get in three minutes live?

Short note for a busy Friday afternoon. This was in my alert inbox on reputation. I had to chuckle.

Indeed, Brandseye, an online reputation management service (“reputation” is the new catchword for companies once called marketers, PRs and media managers)….

I can attest that reputation is not a “new” catchword. It has been around for a long long time. It is just that the world has caught up with us reputation pioneers.

Last night I could not help but wonder how the huge decline in the Dow of 500+ points was a reflection on the perceived reputation of the U.S. government as well as the country itself. I was not at all surprised to see a poll today that expressed basically the same thing. Here is what I knew to be true as I turned in last night: almost three-quarters of the American public believe that the congressional debate over the debt ceiling agreement has harmed the worldwide image of the United States . And a whopping 82% say that the debate was all about political advantage, not what is best for the country.

The reputation of the US has been severely bruised in the eyes of its own citizens and certainly around the world. We have plenty of reputation repair to do if distrust of government becomes the new normal. Whereas most companies and their leaders recognize that reputation is essential to their success today, our dueling political parties have yet to truly acknowledge how all the rancor and incivility is a vote from the daily majority about their behavior and decision-making. For more on civility in America, please click here for Weber Shandwick’s recent poll.

As I looked into people’s somber faces last night as I subwayed home, I could not stop thinking about how the American public had given the reputation of the US a solid “thumbs down” on confidence in this country’s future. You don’t even need a poll to tell you what we already learned from the Dow. Reputation rules whether it’s related to a company, a brand, an individual, an organization or a country. We cannot afford more reputation erosion on our country’s reputation. In addition to a bipartisan committee on how to reduce the debt, I think that we should be calling for a task force on restoring our reputation for the long-term.  As more people tune out of government, as we learned in our survey, the harder it will be to build back America’s reputation for getting things done.