Reputation management has become a necessity since the sweeping uptake of social computing. Reputation management criteria facilitate and automate the process of determining trustworthiness, a central component to all meaningful human interaction, especially interpersonal relationships.

Reputation is generally an outworking of character or behaviour, i.e., what an individual or organization is reknowned and is different from image or branding for the fact that the earlier can be created and the former is an identity that evolves. Reputation management is customarily executed in the monitoring of commentary, often derogatory, around dissatisfaction. However, true relationship management should seek to leverage the good testimonials to augment the standing and perception of a brand, person or service.

Reputation is either:

Excellent

This mean that the organization have obtain the highest position on the spectrum that makes its reputation to be impeccable and this mean that all the indices that ensure the best corporate governance are present; high quality of service/product, strong corporate compliance, strong brand values and communication, anticipate and manage risk properly, relate well with all stakeholders (internal and external) without any major friction, fulfills contractual agreements, communicate effectively, learn from others mistake and above all have clear and transparent vision, strategy, plan and be trustworthy.

Good

Organizations that belong to this category have almost everything that were mention in the excellent category but one or two of them may be missing, this is where some of the companies belong to and example are Johnson & Johnson.

Bad

Organizations that belong to this section are numerous in number this is primarily because they continuously break people trust in them and they e.g. the insurance industry.

Ugly

This is the lowest depth of reputation, it always happen as a result of a high level of deception by an organization or an individual it either ruin the organization or the individuals that surround it e.g. Enron in U.S.A.

It is possible for organization to be boxed into any of the categories that they do not necessarily belong to because of being misunderstood or the fact that they are not transparent enough in their dealings with the stakeholders and this can be disastrous for the organization, proper management is needed for a company to be properly align with its reputation and justify where and how the intervention should take place.

Identifying the state of your reputation Either excellent, good, bad or ugly every reputation requires attention, the attention require are however different from each other and in other to identify the position of an organization on the reputation spectrum there are things that can serve as pointer, here are some of them; 1. High or low employee turnover 2. Reduction or increase in market share 3. Waning or increasing shareholders confidence 4. Quality of product/service 5. Customer retention is high or low 6. Media report good or bad 7. Third party rating and award is high or non existence 8. Competitors perception of your organization 9. Host community perception

All these and other pointers that contribute to indices such as corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, organization ethics/culture and the society norm are what an organization will be measured with in other to situate its reputation. With all these it should be now be clear that reputation deals with three things and they are:

1. What you do or do not do

2. What do you stand for

3. What you say, do not say or perceive to have said

This are what the stakeholders will use in judging the pointers earlier mention in order to situate your reputation, so question such as; how do you treat your staff? How does the organization respond to crisis? What is your rating like? How much confidence do your shareholder/ bank have in you? How well do the consumers accept your product/service? It is now left for your organization to know what is being said of you and align it with your brand. Reputation management is therefore cyclic and the one to be use must fit the stage in which an organization is in.

The cost of managing the reputation of an organization will adequately reduce if your preparatory reputation level is very high, reputation management could therefore take place at any of the stages of the development of an organization.How then do we manage reputation whether excellent, good, bad or ugly or in different stages of the cycle? The organization must identify all the issue that affects its reputation (reputation audit)

It must analyses each one of the issues properly to ascertain the past, manage the present and protect the future.

A company’s true character is expressed by its people. The strongest opinions, good, bad and indifferent (yes, apathy is equally considered as an indicator), about a company are shaped by the conversations and actions of all employees. A task force of the Arthur W. Page Society, a select membership organization for senior public relations and corporate communications executives, set out to examine the evolving role of the senior communications executive in 21st century business. The white paper examined the theme called “The Authentic Enterprise,” specifically, the drivers and implications of a rapidly changing context for 21st century business and reported on the results of a survey of chief executive officers on the evolving role of the CCO in light of dramatic changes.

‘Authenticity will be the coin of the realm for successful corporations and for those who lead them’ heralds the report.  Equally, it proclaims that ‘the actions and reputation, which used to be safe-guarded by a cadre of professionalized functions, are now the responsibility of everyone in the enterprise. What used to be controlled within the company’s “four walls” is now spread across multiple partners, communities and individuals aroundthe globe. This implies that companies must think in different ways about the roles of senior management and the responsibilities of all employees.’

According to the report, CEOs believe that the general public has increasingly become a part of the corporate ecosystem and that their top communications executives (who were the sample poll for the study) must effectively engage and incorporate the public into the fold of values-based messaging. They  look for new thinking along two key dimensions:

1. How to collaborate with the public and internal audiences
2. How to clarify and disseminate the company’s values

Personal Credibility
CEOs emphasized personal qualities more than training in describing what it takes for managers and key personnel to succeed at the highest levels,  identifying the following as elements for building credibility:

• Intimate and detailed knowledge of the company
• Strong business knowledge
• Leadership characteristics or experience
• Breadth and depth of internal and external relationships

The CEOs of direct-to-consumer companies not only feel that consumers have taken a new and more in-depth interest in corporations, but that this has substantially increased the importance of reputation and strategic reputation management for their companies. They therefore have a  greater receptivity to communications as a driver of strategy, attributing the need for cohesive communications due to the complicated elements of foreign operations and cultural issues.

There is a strong push among CEOs for communications chiefs to bridge the perceived gap between the “soft skills” of communications and the numbers-based performance idioms of the boardroom. Strategic planning requires unique, fact-based perspectives including:

• Internal and external reputation tracking
• Analyses of company performance before and after events that impact reputation
• Reputation comparables or case studies

The most relevant piece in the article to me articulated that the converging forces of technology, global integration, multiplying stakeholders and the resulting greater need for transparency are the most important communications challenges facing 21st century companies: ‘We are no longer in control of our traditional spheres of professional activity. Indeed, all business functions are at the dawn of an era of radical de-professionalization. Communicators are uniquely positioned to become experts on the new art and science of organizational trust.’

The mandate of The Relationship Capital Institute is to aid and abett the necessary evolution exhibited in the findings so elegantly defined by the Arthur W. Page Society survey.