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Dr. Leslie Gaines Ross leads Weber Shandwick’s global reputation consulting services and proprietary thought leadership development. She is the architect of groundbreaking, award-winning research into CEO and corporate reputation, executive team reputation, leadership transitions, and reputation sustainability and recovery. Dr. Gaines-Ross is a member of Weber Shandwick’s global senior management team and is based in the firm’s corporate headquarters in New York.

Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation
Dr. Gaines-Ross started her talk by telling us that the growing significance of reputation became very apparent to her when her manilla folders on the topic began growing. It was around 2000 that reputation as a subject was becoming an important body of knowledge and a discipline.

Gaines-Ross found herself and others asking questions: What is driving reputation? What is the relationship to financial performance? How can you recover reputation?

She found the titles of her folders changing – dot coms, pre Enron and post Enron – all these reputation shattering events made her realize that reputation management needed to be more than building and maintaining your reputation – companies now needed to know how to PROTECT their reputation.

Reputation became a shifting landscape. With all the mergers and acquisition that were going on, how does a company build a reputation that lasts? No one likes to see their name on the board of directors list when a failure occurs.

Some entire industries are worrying about their reputations. We all live in glass houses…how do you help your clients realize that there are no secrets anymore? And there are new types of reputation such as e-reputation. Google is a reputation management system. The companies on the first three pages are the high ranking companies. How do you manage reputation when the boundaries of companies and even nations are shape shifting?

She presented a diagram with a butterfly in the center: the BUTTERFLY EFFECT comes from studies show that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can affect the environment in Boston. Reputation management is like that. Something that happens locally can affect a companies reputation in far flung places.

The public is increasingly important and this affects reputation management. With so much changing, there is a lot to understand before addressing reputation management issues.

When she began researching the issue, she found that global media coverage of reputation risk began exploding in the 80’s and has increased exponentially since that time.

She continued researching this issue and has authored two books on the topic. The most recent is Corporate Reputation: 12 Steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation. Here are a few of the points:

Reputation Loss – The Stumble Rate. Research showed that 8 out of 10 companies lost their number 1 status within 5 years. This underscored for her the need for companies to protect their reputation.

Questions arose:
What triggered this loss of reputation: whether they came from executive misbehavior or unethical practices, she viewed this as self-inflicted damage. Security breeches, which she noted are becoming a global nightmare, made the company appear lax. How could a company have allowed such a severe problem with safety, security or environmental threat to occur?

One thing which concerns her is the increasing online attacks on companies.

How can you restore your reputation after it has been lost:
It’s not just what happens in the emergency room. You need to get them out of crisis mode and then develop long range plans. Her book suggests these steps:

RESCUE - get the client out of crisis mode. The leader needs to face the music and make an apology. When the CEO of Citigroup apologized to Japan, he personally made a 7-second bow, acknowledging accountablility. She contrasted this with Sony which sent two top executives who gave a cursory apology over a battery malfunction – the CEO remained silent. She also pointed to the actions of JetBlue, when the CEO apologized for the delays and multiple inconveniences passengers experienced during severe weather. This helped minimize the damage to their reputation.

She also suggests not to underestimate your critics and competitors. Companies are not always turning the other cheek, they are fighting back.

REWIND is the next phase.
Find out what the problem is. Look for the warning signs that were overlooked. For example, global warning was not discovered by Al Gore – it’s been around since the 30’s. Avian flu is not new; when you look back, it’s been here and it’s been on the move.

RESTORE is the next phase.
Toyota saw the future of the oil industry and came out with the Prius back in 2000. It wasn’t comfortable but they continued working on it. Today, they are the leaders of the energy efficient vehicle and they have produced a comfortable car. They appeared to be in the right place at the right time but they had been targeting this for several years.

When you are restoring reputation, how do you work with the media?
In the recovery process, it’s important to build the relationship and take some chances.

52 of the Fortune 500 companies are blogging. General Motors has a Fast Lane blog. They can get their opinion and point of view across. They have a sustainability director who is an easy to read blogger. Braving the new media is critical to restoring reputation.

There are onlinie sites that measure reputation and some that do it not so nicely. One criticized Target for the “target” logo. Target replied they couldn’t respond. It went all over the news and Target retracted and apologized. They now blog.

She was talking to a reporter from Women’s Wear Daily who said no one from Target would answer calls. Dr. Gaines Ross was surprised that Target would risk it’s reputation with a publication that represented a target audience.

RECOVER:
Commit to a marathon, not a sprint.
Build a drumbeat of good news.
A company is a strategy of small gestures.

A company’s CEO went to jail and the new CEO fired everyone. He replaced everyone and introduced the new board as a team. They put up an ad with everyone’s name on it. The small gesture demonstrated their commitment and belief in their company.

Sustainability is important to reputation – a company needs to avoid being accused of greenwashing.

Minimize reputation risk.
Coca-cola has a page on their website that addressed the rumors about coca cola. Starbucks has done the same thing. She now sees it being done in politics as Obama has a smears page – where false accusations are dealt with.

ABC’s of reputation management:
Reputation recovery is 24/7. Everyone will have a stumble and every crisis has its own rhythm and narrative. The CEO uses the R word – recovery – with a small r.
Second chances are rarely a matter of luck. You have to make it happen.
Don’t leave reputation up to the roll of the dice. There are many things you can do.

What can companies do to safeguard their reputation?
Make sure your customers are satisfied.
Communicate effectively.
Communications are critical to building reputation internally and externally.
Your reputation is as good as your industry reputation.
Welcome the messenger. Being in a leadership position, you want to hear the bad news.
There are a lot of near misses – keep your eye on them – they can come back to bite you.
Go back to your company values as your blueprint.
Avoid telling reporters No Comment.

She closed with the famous quote from Warren Buffet –
“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.”

She invites you to visit her website:
www.reputationRx.com and her blog www.reputationXchange.com.

Q: You said that 52 out of Fortune 500 companies are posting a blog. Please comment.
A: Most of them are technology companies.

It allows for conversations and transparences. There are also dangers. WalMart started an internal blog – it seemed like a great idea but someone sent it to the NYTimes and it generated negative coverage.

Q: How do government type agencies recover their reputation? ....Congressmen who have damaged the reputation of Congress through their behavior, for example.
A: They could hire a PR professional like yourself! Actually, a lot of military organizations and governmental bodies have beefed up their PR departments. Congress may need a committee to change their reputation.