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. 

YoastCon 2019 ~ next level

The Yoast Conference (YoastCon 2019), was like no other conference I have ever attended. The level of detail that went into everything was absolutely next level. The branding was brilliant and made me realise I definitely need to up our branding game!

I am incredibly grateful for their #YoastDiversityFund, for sponsoring my trip and making it possible for me to attend and be a speaker at the conference. 

I am by no means a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) expert, I do however know that if you don't have your reputation management building blocks in place, you'll be wasting your money on fancy websites and SEO. I stuck to what I know best, and talked about building reputations. 

Some of the super quirky things, that I particularly loved:

Instead of someone dashing around with a mic for audience members to ask questions, they had this fun take on a roving mic; you throw this foam block to the person wanting to ask a question, a whole heap of fun!

During the breaks we got to build our own Lego person. I love the synchronicity of the building blocks of Lego and the building blocks of reputations. The little block that the character is holding says: "Don't postpone anything to tomorrow that you could start building today." 

How cool is this! Guest speaker Rand Fishkin and Geraldine De Ruiter's books!

Funky Yoast socks

Flirting with Yoasie! Love that Joost (Founder of Yoast, photo bombed us!)

The networking was excellent, met incredible people

From left to right: Kate Toon, me, James Brockbank, Jason Barnard

Ines from EasyJet

After my podcast recording with Jason Barnard

With Marieke van de Rakt, Yaost CEO

The conference was ended off with the whole Yoast team taking to the stage and doing a synchronised dance to Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop the Feeling", very impressive! (When I was walking in a shopping centre the next day and heard the song playing I almost broke out in a dance! Isn't is wonderful how music can transport you immediately to a time and place and have the ability to immediately sky rocket your mood).

I will always treasure the memories and friendships made at this very special conference. 

Made it to Nijmegen | YoastCon 2019 | 06 February 2019

Normally quite a boring and ignored procedure, British Airways has taken a new spin on the in flight security procedure, a fresh take on something quite banal. [For a giggle, take a look]: 

The flight from London to Amsterdam was choc ‘n block and people took their time to get to their seats; there was an announcement asking passengers to please rather take their bags with them to their seas as the overhead lockers were full.  I nestled into my window seat; my hand luggage on my lap, as it was just a bit too big to fit under the seat. Fueled on only a couple of hours’ sleep I nodded off as the last passengers dribbled on. An agitated air hostess woke me up rather abruptly, terribly annoyed that I had not put my bag under the seat. I explained to her that it didn’t fit and that I was following the announcer’s request of keeping my bag with me. She was hugely frustrated, so I passed my bag to her to make a plan with it. She then shoved my bag under the seat along the aisle seat just in front of me, and started kicking it in! I asked her to please not kick my bag, to which she snapped that she was just pushing it in with her foot! Seriously uncool British Airways!

Within an hour we were in Amsterdam and I made my way to the train station; got my ticket and directions to the platform number and was told that it was a direct route. Checked the signage and saw Nijmegen, got on and engrossed myself in my book for the next hour or so; I knew it was about an hour and a half journey, so didn’t really look at the train station stops. Then there was an announcement saying that we all had to disembark due to an accident on the tracks (from conversations on the platform, I heard that someone had apparently committed suicide!). I asked the security on the terminal what train I should take to get to Nijmegen, they looked a bit confused, was rather unhelpful so I went to find a ticket office. The lady was very confused, and said that I was on the wrong train! It was going in totally the wrong direction! [I realise what had happened, when I had looked at the signage earlier at Schipol on the platform, I saw Nijmegen at the bottom of the screen, assuming that it was the final destination of that particular train, not that that was the next train. Aaaanyway finally got onto the right train; a double decker one! [There is free wifi on the trains and most public places. Thank goodness, there is no longer a real need for international roaming; my MTN bill racked up in Dubai years ago, still sends me into a cold panic (R50 000!)].

I have no idea where I was travelling from, but I knew that I had to change trains at Utrecht, then all the way through to Nijmegen. I was meant to arrive in Nijmegen early on Wednesday morning, with the visa / wrong train debacle, I arrived in an already dark, wet Nijmegen at 19:00. 

I forgot how much I enjoyed the European winters, the crispiness in the air, and the wonderful warmth that envelopes you when you go inside buildings.

Boutique Hotel Straelman where I was booked in was about a kilometer away from the train station, I initially thought that I would walk, but after what felt like the longest journey ever, I hailed a cab. Got very excited when we drove past the venue, and I saw the YoastCon banner. 

The hotel is in an old house and beautiful, if anyone ever visits Nijmegen, I highly recommend this hotel.

Obviously not taken late at night, but it gives you an idea of the beautiful architecture; absolute joy of safely walking at night and super early in the morning.  

I won’t lie, I was quite ready for bed but an evening dinner had been organised, and I thought, jeepers, I didn’t traipse half way across the globe to sleep. The restaurant was about a block away from where I was staying. The other thing that I really like about Europe, is that I feel perfectly safe to walk alone at night…late at night.

It was my first interaction with the Yoast crowd; this is what I absolutely love about conferences, meeting new people, making new friends. Exciting times!

Nijmegen, Netherlands ~ Travelling to YoastCon 2019 | 05 February 2019

“We need to leave promptly at 16:00, to be at the airport by 17:00, so that you are there two hours before your flight…” was pretty much Mark’s mantra for the past week, “do you have everything that you need?”.

“Ja ja ja…” was my chant back at him each time.

I was chuffed that everything had pretty much gone according to plan, collected my passport and visa from the Dutch consulate in the morning (admittedly this was cutting things a bit fine, important part, I had my visa).

Traffic was an absolute nightmare to the airport; bumper to bumper with the obligatory taxi cutting us off every now and again and the moustached Mitsubishi driver behind us, oblivious to any kind of safe following distance; fortunately, we made it all according to plan with time to spare.

Clocked in at British Airways and proudly presented my passport as part of the process before heading towards the check in counter. “Where is the transit visa for Heathrow?”  I was asked as my passport was being flicked through. I indicated that I was not going into London, just transferring. Apparently, even if you are only in transit, you need a visa, who knew? Bizarrely if you have a Canadian or USA visa, you’re good to go and allowed to transfer via London.  I renewed my passport in 2017, so I didn’t have any of my previous visas with me; the only one that I did have, Côte d’Ivoire, unfortunately wasn’t going to help in this instance.

I couldn’t remember when I was in Chicago, but I knew that the American visa is valid for quite some time, at least five years. I couldn’t be sure and there really wasn’t much I could do, other than wait until Mark got home to check it for me, about a 45 minute drive / wait.

Once he got home, I directed him to where he could find my old passports. He found it and then worked through all the visas, Canada ~ expired 2008; UK 2011, Canada 2011, USA… 2024 relief! The man then had to traipse all the way back to the airport through the traffic… another 45 odd minutes.

While I was waiting, I started chatting to a holiday maker from India, who had forgotten his mobile phone in a cab and together we waited in anticipation of getting our respective items before the boarding of the flight closed. He had some really good advice for me, staple all your passports together, in that way you have everything with you; am going to do that the minute I get hold of a stapler.

Mark made it back to the airport in record time! I am / was super impressed and so so incredibly grateful!

Old and new passports with all the necessary visas presented, everyone happy (possibly not Mark… or Bella and the cats who were apparently highly unimpressed to be fed their dinner late…)

What a palaver! Long and the short of it, you need a transit visa when travelling through the UK, and always take all your passports and visas with you.

After a 12 hour flight (direct flight from Cape Town to London), I’m ready for the next stretch.

Nijmegen, here I come!

What is your organisation’s reputation score?

Would you share your reputation management score? At Reputation Matters we believe that a Repudometer® score should become part of an organisation's due diligence requirement when deciding who to do business with. Here's our latest article:  

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.

“Before we start patting ourselves on the back that the average corporate reputation score for 2018 is a distinction, we 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,” says Regine le Roux, managaging director of Reputation Matters.

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 are definitely seeing an increase in corporate South Africa taking an interest in their reputations. Unfortunately those who really need to, aren’t. It should become common practice for organisations to know and share their reputation scores,” advises le Roux.

Le Roux mentions that reputation research will assist business owners and CEO’s who believe that things aren’t as pristine as it should be in their organisations. “The data helps form a base to work from and it identifies priority areas within the organisation that needs extra focus, 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,” says le Roux.

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,” adds le Roux.

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,” adds le Roux.

To proactively manage your corporate reputation this year, le Roux advises that organisations consider the following three P’s as a start:

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,” concludes le Roux.

Book: The Google Story, David A. Vise

A fascinating read about the beginnings of Google, and how Larry Page and Sergey Brin built their multi-billion dollar empire. I love how they push the boundaries, are quirky and do things differently. Even when listing on Wall Street they didn't follow the traditional way of doing things. 

What I don't like is that the book was not authorised or endorsed by the Google guys. The content comes from interviews and published articles.