Comments

Reputation Is Built on Behavior — 3 Comments

  1. Great post. I think the same can be said from a corporate governance standpoint – policies are one thing, practices are quite another (and the activist investor is keenly aware how to exploit even the smallest of discrepancies between the two). I wish I felt more confident that communications folks would step forward and help manage this component of enterprise risk management. I’d welcome any thoughts you may have on what’s holding them back from doing so?

  2. Rob, thanks for your comment. I couldn’t agree more.

    You, apparently, are in investor relations, which is one of the few PR disciplines in which its practitioners do tend to understand how businesses operate; IR targets investment analysts, who intimately understand business.

    For PR practitioners to step forward and help “manage this component of enterprise risk management,” they would need to be trusted advisors of senior management. In my mind, they have virtually no likelihood of being trusted advisors if they do not understand business and work to harness communications to help achieve business goals.

    The PR people I have known who have been trusted advisors to senior management, for example Al Golin, Harold Burson and Peter Chadlington (founder of Shandwick) have not only understood business but have created thriving businesses as well.

    IR is actually in a particularly strong position to take this role, because IR sees the impact poor reputation can have on share value. Moreover, if IR doesn’t have the ear of the CEO, it hopefully has the ear of the CFO, who does. Perhaps this is a big opportunity for IR.