Leadership Magazine: Rebuilding our continent’s reputation

Leadership Magazine article on page 124

Burson Cohn & Wolfe is one of those companies that I have a huge amount of admiration and respect for, not only because of their consistently excellent campaigns that they annually win globally, but also the incredible work that they are doing across the continent to rebuild its reputation and giving Africa back its voice. At the helm for the past 25 years, Robyn de Villiers chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) for Africa, has taken the company from strength to strength and into 52 of the 54 countries. There are many positive changes afoot, and I caught up with her to discuss some of the changes and trends she has seen over the last couple of years.  

Robyn shares that some of the most noticeable changes started around the end of 2016 and have been continuing in 2018.

What has been the biggest change that your agencies across Africa have had to contend with this year?

The biggest thing that has happened over the past two years is the enormous rise in the level of activism from all stakeholder groups.  There is a high level of emotion and a strong feeling that people have taken back or recognised their power and their rights and are proactive in making their voices heard.  Women’s rights, consumers’ rights and employees’ rights are no longer taboo; citizens are no longer standing by and just watching, corrupt governments and executives are being brought to book and held accountable for their actions.

It is strengthened by the power of social media but it is also in traditional media, in direct interactions like strikes and protests. 

There have been considerably more calls for boycotting products, calls for shutting down businesses, class action law suits, so crisis communication has become a much greater focus area for our agencies. 

The number of reputation damaging situations has increased not just in Africa, but globally as well over the past two years.

 What is the biggest communication management challenge facing organisations in Africa?

There is a lack of proper risk assessment, especially when it comes to reputational issues, which results in a lack of proper crisis preparation. This results in extraordinarily large damage to reputation when something goes wrong because no-one is well positioned to handle the fallout.  The need for effective crisis management is also, of course, intensified because of social media. A large percentage of those companies that are well-prepared for crisis management have not updated their plans to include social media which leaves a large hole in their level or readiness.

When a company wants to invest in the services of an agency to help them manage their reputation, what three questions should they ask the agency to help them make a decision?

I believe that companies should do a solid due diligence on any agency they are considering appointing. They should assess the status of the agency’s reputation, their governance procedures, their value system, their client base etc. I believe there is nothing more damaging than appointing an agency to help you manage your reputation and then having their bad reputation impact your reputation.  Second thing would be to check the credentials of the people from the agency who would be working on your reputation management to assess their competence but also their personal reputations so that there is no potential for negative impact from this area either. Third thing would be whether the chemistry is good between the C-suite of the company and the agency’s senior advisors since reputation management has to happen at a very senior level and you need to know there is mutual respect and you will be able to create a good partnership.

What is the one thing you wish your clients knew or did when it comes to investing in their reputations?

Benchmark research at the beginning of their reputation effort to ensure that they really do understand their current reputation and their stakeholders’ perceptions rather than assuming they know the starting point.

My experience with executives is that what they think the reputation is, is most often too extreme.  Either they think the reputation is trashed/terrible or they think it is fantastic when actually it is normally somewhere in between.

What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to reputation management?

A few thoughts here.  Many companies think that it is not critical because ‘nothing will go wrong for them’ and that it is therefore not worth the investment.  What they don’t realise is that it is absolutely critical because the potential loss of value when something does go wrong is many multiple times the investment in effective reputation management.  And the loss of value is more than financial (which is often huge).  It is the loss of trust of critical stakeholders that is actually the longest term damage and the one that is sometimes irreparable and always very slow to rebuild.

What does Africa need to do to get its reputation back on track?

Africa will only change its reputation if it takes responsibility for it and takes the power away from all those outsiders who continue to tell her story.  The first critical step is the realisation that something needs to be done, then a decision on who has to own responsibility for it, and then a commitment to a properly staged plan.  As long as we let others tell our story, they will tell the story that suits them and we will almost definitely not like it!

Which of the African countries is getting their reputation right? Why do you say this?

In my opinion Ethiopia and Rwanda are doing well on their reputation over the past few years.  Ethiopia has taken full advantage of the fact that it is the permanent home of the African Union (AU) Commission headquarters and you can see that if you travel to Addis Ababa.  Construction is everywhere, Ethiopian Airlines just won the African Business of the Year award at the CNBC Africa All African Business Leaders Association (AABLA) Awards and your airline is the first experience a visitor has of your country.

Rwanda is doing brilliantly on gender equality, this year they had the highest number of women ministers in any government in the world. They have changed the official business language from French to English to make it more relevant on the global stage. They offer excellent education opportunities to children and adults alike and it is a leader in Africa on connectivity, as a result of this they hosted the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa meeting in 2016 and will host the Africa CEO Forum in 2019.  They are definitely attracting global interest.

What do you think is going to be the biggest communication changes on the continent over the next five years?

I think Africans are going to take responsibility for communicating about Africa, for focussing on the many success stories rather than letting the rest of the world have no opposition to their telling of all the negative stories.  I think connectivity will be increased all over the continent and costs will come down so that everyone will have the opportunity to benefit from being online: financial services, health services, education opportunities and work opportunities to name a few.

I also believe that in the next few years business and government and other organisations will all have Chief Reputation Officers in their C-Suite teams and I hope that Africa will be ahead of the pack in this area.  I believe that as an industry, we can help to train these people to play a critical role in their organisations and I hope we will!

For more information about Burson Cohn & Wolfe visit www.bwc-global.com

Continue the reputation management discussion with us at www.reputationmatters.co.za or call +27 (0)11 317 3861. We are also on Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters and Twitter @ReputationIsKey

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Leadership Magazine article: Would you share your reputation score?

Here's my latest Leadership Magazine article, it's on page 104 

The reputation management conundrum.

The average corporate reputation score of last year’s reputation research studies conducted by Reputation Matters, a proudly African reputation research company, was 78.4%, a 2.2% decline from 2017 (80.6%). This score is based on ten reputation studies conducted amongst internal and external stakeholder groups across different industries in South Africa during the course of 2018, compared to nine studies in 2017.

However, before we start patting ourselves on the back that the average corporate reputation score for 2018 is a distinction, we do appreciate that the sample of ten is most certainly not representative of all businesses in South Africa. It does however highlight the conundrum that many who work within the reputation management space are faced with; not everyone wants their reputation measured or managed.

Decision makers of reputation studies either believe that things are so dire within the organisation that there would first need to be drastic changes before investing in a reputation research study, or on the other side of the specrum, they believe that their reputation is perfect.

We have definitely seen an increase in corporate South Africa taking an interest in their reputations, unfortunately those who really need to, aren’t. We are definitely of the opinion that it should become common practice for organisations to know and share their reputation scores.

Reputation research will assist business owners and CEO’s who believe that things aren’t as pristine as it should be in their organisations what exactly to prioritise and to focus on. The data helps form a base to work from, especially when recovering from a crisis situation. For those on the other side of the spectrum with a spotless reputation, the results will provide bragging rights based on scientific research, and also help the business to be proactive and navigate any uncertaintly that could result in a crisis scenario that could catapult them quite quickly into the disaster zone.

The year that was, 2018

Reputation Matters’ robust measurement tool, the Repudometer®, measures ten dimensions of an organisation that statistically works out what your organisation’s reputation is. A reputation is not just about clever marketing and public relations, it is taking a serious look inside the organisation first before engaging in any type of communication with stakeholders.

The main reason for the decline in the research results from 2017 to 2018 is related to the purpose of the business. There was a substantial drop of 3.4% around this aspect.

Stakeholders require a lot more information in terms of an organisation’s purpose, both in terms of their strategic intent, for example, where the organisation is going and how they are going to get there, as well as corporate governance practices. It is equally important to align the business’ strategic intent to purpose driven activities. In other words, making sustainable social contributions; people want to know that the companies that they are supporting are socially responsible. Stakeholders also want a lot more transparency when it comes to understanding which companies and individuals the business is aligned with. 

2019, the year to be proud of your reputation

Companies will need to be a lot more transparent about their reputation scores. Understanding your reputation and pain points will help you to build your business so that people will want to be associated with you and conduct business with you. It will help with making better business decisions.

We believe that sharing Repudometer® scores should and will become part of due diligence processes in the future. The Institute of Directors in Southern Africa (IoDSA), are already doing this; they annualy measure their reputations and share their results with all their members. Areas performing well within the organisation are celebrated, and challenges highlighted with action points shared.

Here are three P’s to proactively manage your corporate reputation this year:

1.     Purpose: Ask yourself: What is the main purpose of the business and is it still relevant? Do your stakeholders know what you are offering? Do a quick test and ask a few of your key stakeholders to verbalise in eight words what it is that they think your organisation does, this will help you to ascertain whether you are on track.

2.     Principles: Can you fluently answer what your business’ values are and whether it is entrenched in your organisation? Ethics, reputation and values are all interlinked. Organisations need to operate from an ethical, stakeholder inclusive perspective and influence not only the sector in which they operate, but the larger environment. This also includes who you align yourself with; do your alliances make business sense and are you partnered with likeminded organisations who have similar values?

3.     Partnerships: An incredibly important aspect this year is to focus on stakeholder value. What value do you provide your stakeholders, and how does this affect their wellbeing? Stakeholder relationships, both internally and externally, should be maintained equally and fairly by organisations. What has also been confirmed from the research, is the importance of having updated stakeholder databases in order to  effectively communicate with your audience.

Leaders will be under even more scrutiny and society’s magnifying glass this year. Leaders need to be focussed on purpose driven leadership; they should be the voice of the organisation and build principled partnerships both internally and externally. What better way to show their success by sharing their reputation scores?

To find out how your reputation measures up and how to become a business that people want to do business with visit www.reputationmatters.co.za  email: research@reputationmatters.co.za or call +27 21 790 0208. Reputation Matters is also on Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters and Twitter @ReputationIsKey.