Reputation permeates everything a Company does

What is the purpose of Corporate Governance? Compliance? Enterprise Wide Risk Management? Corporate Responsibility? Positive Company Actions and Behaviours?

In the book, the 7 Habits of Highly Successful people http://bit.ly/2gOas, Stephen Covey writes that a person should always start with the end purpose in mind.

So what is the end purpose of the questions that I just asked?

The end purpose is to be well regarded in the mind of the stakeholder, so that we can do business and achieve our goals.

If an Investor regards us in a positive manner, they will invest in our company.

If employees regard as a preferred employer, they will want to work for us. And in a business to business relationship, people will want to do business with you.

Ralph Larsen CEO Johnson & Johnson said: “Reputations reflect behavior you exhibit day in and day out through a hundred small things. The way you manage your reputation is by always thinking and trying to do the right thing every day”

So next time that you engage in your normal responsibilities as an employee, remember that the same principles applies to you. No matter the type or size of the task, always start it with the end purpose in mind.

The next time that you engage with a stakeholder, remember the end purpose.

Technorati Tags: Reputation,Governance,Compliance,Corporate Reputation,Corporate Responsibility

ICASA Postmortem – a Lesson in Reputation Risk Management

The story today that ICASA will hold a postmortem after the regulator admitted that it made a “mistake” in trying to block Vodacom ’s R80bn listing, is a lesson in Reputation Risk management.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=73764

To think that they could have prevented this negative publicity.

How?

By ensuring that senior management were trained in the strategic management of reputation and stakeholder relationships. If they were, they would have understood the interplay of contextual factors and issues, and they would have thought twice, before they made decisions, that left them embarrassed.

Now they have to go and do reputation risk root cause analysis, which is a technique that I taught last week in my Reputation Defence Master Class. Interestingly, most reputation damage incidents in companies can be prevented through training and simulation exposure.

The patterns of decision making at meeting time can have a material impact on an organization’s reputation. If you study the Ford-Firestone Tire withdrawal case, there seems to be an uncanny similarity between these two events.

In both meetings, key people were not there. This in itself should be a lesson. Who attends or does not attend a meeting should be a point of concern!

I just hope that the Regulator will address the root causes and not just superficial symptoms.

When last did you inspect your Company’s Bathrooms?

When last did you inspect your Company’s Bathrooms?

Oh, it is not my function!

Isn’t it? Do you think that something as important as that can really be outsourced to a cleaning company?

Reputation Risk is not something you can outsource, and the visual images that visitors see, can influence their impression of the company.

Very often next to the Reception area, the bathroom facilities is the first thing a visitor will go to. And, let me tell you, not all bathrooms are a place where you even want to take a child to. A Few weeks ago I made the mistake (or did the right thing) by going to the wrong bathroom facility. I went to the shop floor bathroom instead, and what I saw there was shocking.

No toilet seats, a blocked toilet, toilets in need of a desperate deep clean, broken window panes. Plan & simple, it was disgusting!

What do you think my opinion was of the management team? What do you think, I think about the company’s reputation?

In the Bible, there is a verse that basically says :’’If God cannot trust you in the small things, how on earth can he trust you in the big things’’

If reputation is about what you see, hear, feel and experience, then you’ve got it! I do not think much of them. How can I trust them in the big things, if I cannot even trust them not to violate a basic human right, i.e. The Right to Safety?

The other day I took two old-age pensioners to a Public Hospital in Roodepoort. They asked me to stop on the way at a Quick shop, because they had to buy their own toilet paper. I mean , here is two old-age pensioners, going to see the Doctor and the medical facility cannot even provide toilet paper. Is that what they think of their customers?

Worldwide companies are instituting hand washing campaigns as an initial protection measure against the spreading of swine flu (South Africa has just had its first confirmed case). How on earth is companies going to influence this, when they cannot even provide a clean and hygienic bathroom facility for employees and visitors.

Take a look at the worst example I had ever seen in my life. This is from a factory floor.

PriceWaterHouseCoopers found in one of their studies that Compliance failure is one of the leading causes of Reputation Risk. In South Africa, companies are not paying enough attention to complying with the Occupational Health & Safety Act , which contains a detailed section on Health & Hygiene.

So what can you do about this:

1. Be kind. Use your mobile phone, take pictures and send it to management and not the Media or The Department of Labour.

2. Call your Health & Safety representative and point out the conditions, so that they can report it to the Health & Safety Committee.

3. Take a good look next time when you go to the loo. Ask yourself, is this a place where a visitor can take his kid to?

To those in management, it is a time to realise that the responsibility for basic cleanliness and hygiene cannot be outsourced. Today staff and customers have camera equipped mobile phones, with which they can do damage.

After all, who wants their reputation ruined, because of a shabby loo.

Technorati Tags: Safety,Hygiene,Reputation,Visual Images,Cleanliness