What has the SABC and a Fish Bowl got in common?

The dramas and changes unfolding at the SABC in South Africa can serve as an interesting case study about how leaders destroy the reputation, faith and trust in organisations. Not only has there been negative publicity about the organisation, but now even their nomination process for selecting new candidates for the Board has come under fire.

Prof Kupe, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Wits University and a member of the Save Our SABC Coalition has written an interesting opinion piece about this http://bit.ly/Wdg6r, to which I would like to add a slightly different take.

I believe that serious questions will have to be asked by those involved in changing the organisation around. It goes beyond just selecting new candidates for a Board.

I would ask: ‘’ What must be done to radically transform the SABC?’’. Obviously the quickest way to turn around any organisation is to get rid of senior management. In this case not only do they need new CEO, but even the Board has been dissolved.

But what about the people in the institution? Did they have no role to play in the fiasco? What did they contribute to the problem of decay and why should they get away with no action been taken?

Perhaps the best way for me, an outsider based on what I read to describe the SABC, is to use the fish bowl metaphor.

The fish bowl metaphor begins with a question. The question is this; "If the fish is sick what would you do, treat the fish or change the water?"

The logical answer is, you would change the water. Why? Because the fish is only as healthy as the water it swims in. The fish is the human cell and the water is the fluids around the cell(s). The ocean has a delicate pH balance of 8.3 and is maintain by alkaline mineral salts. Our internal fluids are like the ocean and are maintained by the same alkaline mineral salts – sodium, chloride, magnesium, potassium and calcium. At the present the ocean pH because of global warming has gone from 8.3 to 8.2. This huge decrease in the ocean pH has caused potential health risks to all sea life including the loss of the coral reefs.

The same thing is happening to many of us with body warming, as our bodies are affected by our lifestyles. In the same way I believe that the SBDC is also suffering from the same ailment – body warming. It is not going to help to just change the top fish, even if one author did write a book called Fishes rot from the head.

What is needed at the SABC is a multi-faceted large system scale change intervention. The culture (the fluids) and communication patterns of the organisation will have to be changed.

Culture is often defined as it’s how we do things around here, but the other day I heard an even better definition – It’s how we intuitively do things around here. In other words it’s the way things get done without really thinking about how we’re going to do it. A Stage of Unconscious Incompetence or Competence?.

So, can the culture at the SABC be dissected? Edgar Schein (among others) points out that culture exists in layers. It is often compared to an iceberg. The level that is visible above the surface is the level of behavior. This is the easiest layer to observe and change but it is affected by invisible layers underneath. The first invisible layer of culture below the surface, according to Schein, is the layer of values: what we care about and what we think is important. You can’t observe values directly the same way you observe behavior but you can certainly infer what they are from the way people act. The deepest layer of culture – and the hardest one to observe, measure, or change – is the layer of fundamental beliefs.

What is the driving beliefs at the SABC? It is not enough to make structural changes, intangibles like morale will need to be tackled.

In my opinion, the only way the SABC can be changed around is if we radically change the way people think, act, communicate and participate at the organisation.

Joyce Wycoff wrote in her book “TRANSFORMATION THINKING” that thinking within an organisation is defined as the mental activity of every member of the organisation…all the idea generation, learning and skill development, exchange of information, communication and problem solving that make up the intellectual capacity of an organisation. (Intellectual capital is the sum total of what everyone knows in the organisation).

I just hope that the decision-makers at the SABC will not suffer from the monkey’s dilemma – the unwillingness to let go of something even when holding on, but will effect real changes.

When a monkey reaches into a jar and grabs a fistful of nuts, he’s delighted because he’s got what he wants in his hand. When he can’t get his enlarged fist out of the jar, he winds up not getting the nuts in the jar or the ones that he could get by going outside and climbing the nut tree. If he would just let go of the nuts in the jar, he also might stumble onto the idea of turning the jar upside down and pouring the nuts out!

The "fistful of nuts" syndrome is one of the main reasons that breakthroughs seldom come from the most logical place. Microcomputers were not invented by a major computer manufacturer; cellular phones didn’t come from AT&T; railroads, the major transportation system of yesterday, didn’t invent airplanes, the major transportation system of today. It’s very difficult to let go of something tangible to look for new possibilities.

The late Harry S. Truman said “We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries”. To which can be added, “organisations will never be as successful at transformation unless it does the same to its communication and thinking processes”.

Technorati Tags: OD,Reputation Risk,Systemic Change,SABC,Transformation

Why I am in the Office this morning

I feel sick. I am sick. I can hardly breathe, but I am in the office.

Why?

Well this is why.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle awakens. It knows that it must outrun the fastest lion that day, or be eaten. Every morning in Africa, a lion also awakens. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or starve to death.

The moral of the story is this: Whether you are a gazelle or a lion, when you wake up, you had better be running (Anonymous)

Sick or not sick, I better be running.

Like Lance Armstrong said. As long as I am moving, I am alive!

Technorati Tags: Marketing,Consultancy Marketing,Marketing in Tough times

Best Practices for Reputation Management – http://bit.ly/XdHQ3

Deon Binneman

Reputation Management Advisor . Speaker . Seminar Leader

REPUCOMM…….BECAUSE YOUR REPUTATION MATTERS……..!

Best Practices for Managing & Protecting Business Reputation

According to Wikipedia, “Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people.”

There are best practices for identifying and mitigating reputation risk in different types of companies as well as best practices for managing reputation as an asset. Please note that not every environment or every company is the same. Your unique environment may require different configurations in order to provide the best protection results.

If you have questions about your environment and would like some guidance on mitigating reputation risk, contact deonbin (at) icon.co.za

Like all of the intangible assets whose value has escalated in recent years (other examples are talent, knowledge, know- how and intellectual property), reputation has often been overlooked by organisations because it is so difficult to comprehend.

It is only when a reputation incident severely damages the credibility of an organisation or one of its brands, or its standing in the eyes of its stakeholders, that the potentially catastrophic consequences of not managing the crisis properly become apparent. Studies of organisations that have handled crises affecting their reputation badly have identified long term and irreparable damage to share price, market share and brand value.

The recent eye-gouging incident by the Springbok flanker, Schalk Burger is a classical example of this. Not only was he suspended for 8 weeks, but the incident itself has raised the ire of the rugby loving public and the matter was compounded by the inept handling of the media conference by the coach, Peter de Villiers about the matter.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/rugbynation/rugby-news/2009/07/03/i-m-no-thug-insists-banned-springbok-schalk-burger-91466-24062279/

Many organisations make the mistake of assuming that all that is needed is media training and crisis planning. However, a reputation crisis exposes to public and media scrutiny not only the organisation’s competence at crisis handling, but the values, standards and shortcomings that existed beforehand.

In this instance, The Schalk Burger affair was compounded when he only formally apologized about a week after the incident.

While crisis communications largely remains a case-by-case practice, the author Laurence Barton said there are two essential immediate steps both individuals and companies should always use to control the media storm during a scandal.

1. Come clean. Issue a statement admitting to wrongdoing and accepting full responsibility (assuming the allegations are true, of course).

2. Apologize. Sincere acts of contrition can go a long way in getting back into the good graces of the public and media.

 

Every crisis must be handled differently, but in every crisis there should be a party accepting blame, and that party should apologize as soon as possible for being the cause of that blame. The end result – The Company’s integrity and reputation must be maintained at all cost.

Who said so: Warren Buffett and David Glass, CEO of Wall- Mart!

 

The problem is that apologizing does not come easily. The starting point of any reputation recovery process is a believable apology.

According to Wharton marketing professor Lisa Bolton, three key components ensure that an apology will work:

1. The CEO must deliver the message,
2. A solution to a problem must be outlined (Like a product recall process) and
3. Some remuneration should be in place. The initial response is the most important," she says. "The general advice is to admit mistakes and try not to be defensive. Get out in front of the story. Get your admission and mitigation out there as well, and consider financial compensation. Also, customize your response in relation to the magnitude of the failure."

It is my belief that apology also goes hand in hand with the strategic communication process in any organization. For instance , if a company have not debated PRIOR to a crisis whether they are going to be open and transparent, do you think an apology will be forthcoming? (See the article Use this tool to improve transparency in your organisation in Powerlines Number 39 dated 20 November 2002).

The reputation best practice strategy should, therefore, have two simple objectives – to prevent the causes that could damage your reputation, and to minimise the impact if, despite your best endeavours, a reputation crisis should occur.

Here is a partial list of some of the best practices to consider:

1. Develop ways to understand the nature of your reputation
2. Design & develop a reputation risk management strategy that can act as a roadmap for strengthening risk management in particularly vulnerable areas
3. Work together with PR, Risk and Compliance departments to close gaps
4. Develop standards and controls for the action that the strategy places most importance on
5. Learn how to proactively manage elements of reputations
6. Provide reputation management training, education and communication to obtain the vital support and commitment of your employees and managers
7. Design analysis and monitoring mechanisms to provide early warning of problems or crises
8. Develop a process of continuous crisis assessment
9. Conduct regular crisis planning and testing
10. Ensure regular reporting and monitoring of reputation risk, including incident analysis, issue management, environmental forecasting and online reputation monitoring.

Some organisations have attempted part of this best practices process themselves, particularly the first few stages. In my experience, they are severely disadvantaged by being too close to the issues, or by risking avoiding taboo or politically difficult areas, or by not challenging assumptions vigorously or objectively enough.

If you would like to learn more about best practices in building, managing and protecting corporate reputation, why not attend one of our learning interventions?

Technorati Tags: Reputation,Reputation Risk,The Art of apologizing,Sport Reputation