1. Reputation Risk Management
building reputation resilience
Justin Doherty
September 2017
We set up Hemington Consulting 7 years ago to help clients deal with complex issues
In particular in relation to crises and managing reputation risk.
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2. ISSUES MANAGEMENT
CRISIS
REPUTATION
I’m going to do 3 things today.
(1) introduce a new approach for managing reputation risk
(2) take you through a couple of quick case studies
(3) leave you with a couple of tools/frameworks to help all of you manage reputation
risk better.
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3. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
S U M M A R Y – T H E N E W M O D E L F O R R E P U T A T I O N
▪ The world had changed:
➢ in the ‘hyper-transparent world’ businesses and organisations face
intense scrutiny
➢ crisis is a fact of life for all
▪ Reputations are built through actions, and behaviour, explained well; not
spin or aggressive messaging
▪ Reputation resilience must become an essential component of corporate
risk management
▪ There has been a decisive shift towards PREVENT not RESPOND
Hemington helps companies implement reputation resilience and respond to crises
Read slide
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4. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
T H E W O R L D H A S C H A N G E D
It is no longer possible to impact reputation meaningfully by means of old-fashioned
‘spin’ or PR.
A generation ago if you had a reputation crisis you would call in the spin doctors.
Aggressive messaging was a possible remedy for a reputation crisis because you only
had to change the minds of a select few – newspaper editors, a few politicians,
columnists, and opinion formers relevant to your sector.
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5. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
W E N O W L I V E I N A ‘ H Y P E R T R A N S P A R E N T ’ W O R L D
The revolution in access to information has transformed how people relate to and
scrutinise companies. 3.247 Billion internet users (and counting).
Nowadays that approach simply does not work.
We live in a ‘hyper-transparent world’ in which nearly 4 Billion people can scrutinise
your actions at the click of a mouse.
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6. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
R E P U T A T I O N S A R E B U I L T U P O N D E E D S A N D W O R D S
Without ‘reputation resilience’… your reputation becomes the crisis.
Because we live in this hyper-transparent world reputations are driven by actions not
spin.
So when VW was caught out programming defeat devices into their software to fool
regulators and the public into believing their cars were greener than they actually
were, no amount of spin could help them escape scrutiny for their actions.
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7. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
R E P U T A T I O N S A R E B U I L T U P O N D E E D S A N D W O R D S
Without ‘reputation resilience’… your reputation becomes the crisis.
When TalkTalk suffered a massive cyber breach two years ago they were judged on
the quality of their response not on the (rather shambolic) performance of their CEO.
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8. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
R E P U T A T I O N S A R E B U I L T U P O N D E E D S A N D W O R D S
Without ‘reputation resilience’… your reputation becomes the crisis.
When Bell Pottinger was caught out stirring up racial hatred in a campaign in South
Africa, not even (one of) the world’s top PR firms could save its own skin.
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9. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
Without ‘reputation resilience’… your reputation becomes the crisis.
R E P U T A T I O N S A R E B U I L T U P O N D E E D S A N D W O R D S
Destinations are particularly vulnerable to reputation damage and if a location is
deemed to be unsafe it can quickly lose vital tourism, inward investment and trade.
On the eve of the Arab uprisings I led a team helping to reassure the international
community that Aden, Yemen was capable of hosting the Gulf Cup, the regional
football tournament, despite specific intelligence that Al Qaeda was planning to
attack the event.
In the end it was the actions of the security services and their international advisers
which persuaded the visiting national football teams that the event was safe and
secure, not propaganda from the Yemen government.
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10. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
Without ‘reputation resilience’… your reputation becomes the crisis.
R E P U T A T I O N S A R E B U I L T U P O N D E E D S A N D W O R D S
We helped the artist Christo with his installation The Floating Piers in July 2016
It was the world’s most visited art event of 2016) – the international art community,
and the visiting public were interested in the quality of the artwork, and the quality of
the experience.
And this could be assessed directly, in real time, via social media.
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11. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
Without ‘reputation resilience’… your reputation becomes the crisis.
R E P U T A T I O N S A R E B U I L T U P O N D E E D S A N D W O R D S
Recently we hosted the Mayor of Denver in London.
Here in this photo he is opening the London Stock Exchange with Xavier Rolet, the
CEO of the LSE.
When investors are making a decision about investing in a country, a city, or a
business, they are only interested in actual verifiable data.
If you say our city has an educated workforce – what does that mean?
“How many, educated to what level, and show me the breakdown?”
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12. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
F O C U S O N R E P U T A T I O N ( N O T J U S T C O M M U N I C A T I O N S )
Start by asking ‘what is the reputation I am seeking to protect?’
▪ Reputations are multi-dimensional:
➢ You have a reputation for X,Y,Z
➢ Reputation cannot be measured on a simple binary scale (good/bad)
➢ Reputation defies easy analysis
▪ Communication is used to enhance and support reputation
▪ What do you have a reputation for – what do you want it to
be?
So finally I’d like to share some useful tools with you….
Firstly – please think of reputation as something that is ‘multi-dimensional.’
By this I mean that reputations aren’t just good/bad.
They are complex – you have a reputation FOR something.
And your reputation differs from group to group.
So you may have a reputation for being punctual, and diligent, and hard working at
work.
But amongst friends you may have be known as the life and soul of the party.
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13. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
P R E V E N T - M I T I G A T I N G R I S K A N D E N H A N C I N G A B I L I T Y T O
W I T H S T A N D A C R I S I S
Crisis
Event
Reputation
Resilience
building Crisis
response
planning
Early
warning
Crisis
response
Reputational
impact
time
Business
impact
Reputation resilience-building must become a core organisation-wide preventive
measure, alongside crisis response planning, and early warning.
Secondly – as the world changes and reputations are built and managed more
through actions than words, you need to have a timeline that encourages CEOs and
boards to devote more resources to resilience building.
Historically the focus has been on shutting the door after the horse has bolted.
This chart shows where more effort needs to be made in planning (to the left).
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14. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
R E S P O N D – T H E M A N A G E D I N F O R M A T I O N E N V I R O N M E N T
Media
Social media
INCIDENT/OP
MANAGEMENT
State Security
Ship owner
Cargo carrier
Government
Local police
Families
Friends
Employers Community
Insurers
Media likely to take interest in
‘story’ – need to retain control of
the narrative.
Significant risk of stakeholders
making unilateral use of media
➣Monitor - Respond
Social media represents one of
the biggest challenges to
managed information
environment.
➣Monitor - Respond
Thirdly – the aim in a crisis is always to manage information.
This has become more challenging with the rise of social media because it is harder
to control,
BUT a strong and compelling message should always cut through if it has authority
and relevance, and is managed.
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15. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 7
A M O D E L F O R R E P U T A T I O N R E S I L I E N C E B U I L D I N G
Thoughts Words Deeds
CEO
Intent
Purpose
Strategy
Plans
Principles
Values
Ambition
Culture
Brand
Marketing
Communications
Investor relations
Staff social media
Corp social media
Campaigns
Staff narrative
Content
Strategy
Operations
M&A
Partnerships
Leadership
Frontline staff
Behaviour
Supply chain
Reputation
Reputation resilience is built through integrity - consistency between an organisation’s
intentions (thoughts), communications (words), and actions (deeds).
Alignment
Finally – the BEST possible way to predict if your organisation has ‘reputation
resilience’ is to look at how well aligned its thoughts, words, and deeds.
Put simply is your organisation acting in the way it says it should?
Is behaviour consistent with the stated values?
Are you true to yourself?
Ryanair doesn’t pretend to be a premium brand and therefore cancelling flights or
imposing punitive fees for forgotten boarding passes does not cause reputation
problems.
But when VW continued to display web pages about its commitment to
environmental stewardship for two weeks after it was caught out fixing its NO2
emissions, it became clear the company was lacking in integrity and honesty.
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16. I S S U E S M A N A G E M E N T
C R I S I S
R E P U T A T I O N
To conclude – the world has changed dramatically in the past few years.
Reputations are no longer built and sustained by spin alone.
A good reputation can be earned by diligent application and alignment of what you
do, what your think, and what you say.
And for destinations this is vital
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