The Key to Everything

“Who you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reputation Management: The Key to Everything

When I talk to clients about the importance of reputation management, I often get knowing and dismissive nods. The responses are almost uniformly lukewarm. “Yes, we know it’s important, but…” The “but” always seems to be related to the shiny new social media technologies of marketing and the single-minded focus of driving bottom line results.

Responses often sound like this:

“Uh-huh, yes, we know that reputation management is important, but right now our focus is on developing social media strategies to extend our reach.”  Translation: (So, we don’t want to spend any money on planning for something that might or might not happen. If we get in trouble, we know where to find you. We’ll call you.)

Or

“We’re new, we’re hip, we’re growing. We’re in our ‘First Act’. Perhaps, when we’re in our ‘second’ or ‘third act’ we’ll call you.” Translation: (We’re so cool and we’re the stars of the moment. What could you possibly offer us that is better than what we are doing now?)

Legitimate responses until…

• Until there is a product recall
• Until consumers’ privacy is breached
• Until the company is accused of defrauding investors
• Until the head of the company says on national television, “I want my life back, too!”
• Until a group of workers who are so sick of being treated badly organize a union or bring a class action lawsuit against the company
• Until everything you’ve worked for over the past 50 years starts unraveling because there is an underlying culture of deceit and “let’s see what we can get away with” attitude that permeates everything and everyone in your organization.

This last “Until” is focused directly at Rupert Murdoch, a man who for many decades has used the power of his global media organization to forward his own agenda and control government leaders around the world. This recent maelstrom related to phone hacking is actually not the worst part of this crisis.  Given time, as the rats jump ship, we will all come to learn about the “dark arts” of tabloid journalism—the lying, the subterfuge, the entrapment, the stalking, the hidden cameras, the bullying, and God knows what else. But I digress…

Reputation Management is not the same thing as Crisis Communication. Crisis communication deals with the outward dissemination of information that is designed to minimize and mitigate the crisis with the least amount of damage to an organization’s reputation and bottom line.

Reputation management, on the other hand, is about helping an organization to grow, cultivate, and protect its valuable name or brand. Think of Tylenol. If the public believes that the organization is trustworthy and predisposed to “do the right thing”—even in times of crisis—then its reputation and marketability will survive.

The key to reputation management is that it always starts at the top and trickles down and through every level of the organization. If the culture of senior management is one of mistrust, greed, self-interest, get ahead at all costs, and burn through employees then sooner or later that reputation will poison everything about the organization.

This is why companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Proctor & Gamble, IBM, The Ritz Carlton, Southwest Airlines, and many others fiercely guard, protect, and watch over their organizational reputations. The leaders of these corporations know that their very existence depends on the public’s continuing trust and belief that they will not just do things right, but they will do the right thing.