Today is a bright new day. Today is different. No more beating through the rush-hour crowds, the swirl and the bustle of busy London. Instead a welcome and refreshing change of habitat, driving through the early-morning mists and rural autumnal backwaters to the illustrious Henley Management College (
www.henleymc.ac.uk), impressive in its fine white buildings, its calm serenity and green, green lawns rolling down to the river’s edge.
For today’s seminar is all about reputation, that elusive but much sought –after, that vital and all-important quality, that which takes years to build and seconds to lose. That which too many business leaders dismiss because they feel they can’t control it, that they’re not quite sure what it is, and that the bottom-line says it all anyway. “No, lad,” I remember being told once when urging a CEO to engage in some serious communication , “I let the facts speak for themselves”
But not so them all. Step forward, Paul Walsh, CEO of Diageo (
www.diageo.com), the world’s largest drinks business who, in a few short keynote sentences, cut a swathe through the undergrowth and made it bluntly clear that reputation is a key long-term driver to financial success… and not an inconsequential tick-box along the way to some kind of politically correct irrelevance.
Never mind the text-books he might have said, “reputation is everything we say, everything we do and everything others say about us”. And there were more gems to follow. A better reputation gives you “a better operating environment, the benefit of the doubt from investors, a lighter touch in regulation, more balanced media coverage…in short it pays a Trust Dividend.” But it gets better still. Building a commitment to and careful management of your corporate reputation is not “a soft touch, it’s not about being nice to people”, it’s about positioning the company to do more and better business more easily, it’s about expanding the intangibles on the balance sheet and it’s about securing a better return for shareholders on any disposals.
Wow! So, there you have it in a nutshell. But, “how do you get started on all this?” he was asked by one, who was impressed but a little overwhelmed, and how do you deal with the sceptics? “Start!” came the blunt, but not unsympathetic reply. Find the one key issue, make a small plan, set targets, make your heros when they succeed, reward them. And then ultimately, if people don’t buy in to the new culture where reputation is so important, and everything they do is so important…you fire them!
This was one of the clearest expositions I’ve heard for the need for business to engage very thoroughly with all its audiences, and that’s where the strategic thinking necessary comes into play. And the distinction looms large between those who merely play at PR and those who know what they’re doing and why. Often that distinction is easily seen in those who systematically set their targets, and then review and revise. “If you don’t measure it, you shouldn’t be doing it” said one FTSE100 CEO rather provocatively a few years ago. Food for thought! No, that has to be a feast for thought…and all from the green and quiescent backwaters of rural Berkshire, too!
