Community & Global Relations: The strategic development of mutually beneficial relationships with communities, helping those less fortunate so that entire communities can thrive. Long-term objective: To build trust, the future equity of a good reputation.

7.1 Community and Global Affairs

Today, organizations are increasingly viewing local community and global affairs as embroidered by the same principles. How can organizations ensure that the knitting not only looks good but is also strong—that the quilt, with various colors and fabrics, conveys a single, unifying message? Research published over the last several years illustrates how those needs are being met.¹

The research and successes did not just happen over the last three years. In his seminal 1996 text, Reputation, Charles Fombrun, emeritus professor of the Stern School of Business at New York University, wrote:

Back then, communicators often thought of community relations, local or international, as corporate social responsibility (CSR). Charles Fombrun went on to co-found with Cees van Riel The Reputation Institute, the most successful reputation research, measurement and monitoring firm. He continues his work as a reputation scholar.

Doorley and Garcia’s perspective on reputation evolved over the years, and beginning with the publication of the third edition of this book, changed the title of Chapter 12 from “Corporate Social Responsibility” to “Corporate Responsibility.” If a company does not make a profit, among other imperatives, it will go out of business. Its employees will lose their livelihoods and there will be no CSR.

We do not have to write what are now mostly truisms about how the world has shrunk, how it is “interconnected.” People in neighborhoods connect with their roots and with their offspring and friends easier than folks did by walking a few blocks or taking a Sunday drive back in the day. Like most evolutions, it has been incremental—from print, to the telephone, to broadcast, to the fax machine, to cable, to the world wide web, the internet and social media. It is hard to imagine how much more interconnected we will all become, but we know that is happening day by day.

Therefore, in this chapter we have combined community relations and global relations. We have included history, research and lessons from professional practice, because leaders and organizations ignore any of those three at their peril.

We have included history, research and lessons from professional practice, because leaders and organizations ignore any of those three at their peril.

The world has changed but that does not mean basic principles have. The definition of strategic communications is to address specific audiences with specific messages, and with specific objectives in view. Messages can and usually should be distinct, for example, securities analysts may care about different things than employees do. But the messages must never be in conflict, which would always be unethical and shortsighted from a business or organizational perspective. The principle is clear: consistent messaging. It applies to local and international communications. That principle has not changed.

A company or other organization must speak with one voice, especially on material and other important matters, adapting messages for various audiences or stakeholders; that has always been a core part of the definition of corporate communications. Just because communications has become more complicated, with more communications channels and platforms, does not mean an organization can speak with more than one voice. Messages have to be relayed so there are no translation problems. And although the need for precise translation— made clear so often in the breach—may be more difficult to meet today, that is still just a tactical challenge. The principle is to speak with one voice; that has not changed.

A survey of human resource executives by The Conference Board in 1999—by which time organizations were beginning to realize the importance of reputation—showed that a company’s reputation was the third most important factor influencing people to become employees of particular organizations. (Only career development opportunities and compensation outranked reputation.) A study by the University of Missouri showed that a company’s corporate social performance is positively related to its reputation and attractiveness as an employer.³ Research since then shows an increasing importance of reputation to employees and other stakeholders.

With the interconnectedness has come greater diversity. That has produced a need to embrace it or flounder … and eventually founder. This is an enormous change.

7.2 Diversity: A Social Justice and Reputation Imperative

by Anthony P. Carter, Former Chief Diversity Officer, Johnson & Johnson

As a former chief diversity officer at Johnson & Johnson, I often had conversations with business leaders who were uncertain about how diversity and inclusion could increase business outcomes. Their doubts were based on a notion that diversity and inclusion are immeasurable by any reasonable economic calculation. Some business leaders would suggest that applying the concept of diversity and inclusion is like nailing jelly to a tree. In business terminology it simply means there is no return on the investment.

In my view, this perspective was shortsighted on the parts of smart businessmen and businesswomen. Instead of wallowing in astonishment, my team was determined to drive diversity as a business imperative.

Our response was to build a strong team, create a solid strategy with realistic goals and objectives, and increase our knowledge of marketplace dynamics and customer needs.

Getting business leaders to fully understand how diversity impacts growth and reputation requires a shift in thinking—from viewing diversity as a “nice to have” to a “must have.” Or, simply put, managing diversity in concert with other business functions must be viewed as an imperative.

Moreover, astute business leaders understand that building a culture that connects diversity and social justice with the overall business strategy is a winning formula and could add a tremendous boost to their corporate reputation. At Johnson & Johnson, we had a competitive advantage called “Our Credo.”

In 2018, Laurence D. Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, a company that manages more than $6 trillion in assets, issued a letter, which sounded more like a mandate or as some suggested an ultimatum, to CEOs of major corporations to develop a social conscience if BlackRock was to continue investing in their businesses.

The letter stated that businesses that don’t serve communities could lose what he calls their “social license to operate.” According to Investopedia, the social license to operate refers to “ongoing acceptance of a company or industry’s standard business practices and operating procedures by its employees, stakeholders, and the general public.” Social license places a deliberate emphasis on social, environmental and financial sustainability.

More and more, stakeholders are looking to corporations to follow a higher calling of social responsibility. If companies don’t operate as good corporate citizens, taking care of their employees and other stakeholders, they are at risk of losing their social license.

Fink believes that following the principles of the social license means companies must deliver financial performance and make a positive contribution to communities in which they do business. Doing well and doing good become the modus operandi.

Many of Fink’s industry peers called him a socialist and said a corporation’s only obligation is to make money. Fink’s response was simply businesses can do both.

Jamie Diamond who serves as chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Company also chairs the Business Roundtable (BRT), a consortium of 181 influential business leaders representing many industries. In the September 2019 issue of Fortune magazine, he says: “The American dream is alive, but fraying. Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term. These modernized principles reflect the business community’s unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all Americans.”

What Diamond is espousing in no uncertain terms is the notion that corporations must create a renewed sense of urgency in responding to human need, which is tantamount to driving corporate profit and addressing social justice issues.

The BRT’s 2019 statement of purpose issues a loud and clear call for delivering value to customers, investing in employees, enhancing diversity and inclusion efforts, building fair and ethical relationships with suppliers, supporting employees and their communities, and creating long-term shareholder value.

Alex Gorsky, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, who chaired the BRT governance committee, says the credo, which is the company’s holy grail, guides organizational decision-making in four critical areas: customers, employees, communities and shareholders, in that order.

Gorsky believes that CEOs who are committed to meeting the needs of all stakeholders will create a better society. Whenever Johnson & Johnson employees are in doubt about the integrity of their decisions, Gorsky urges them, as his predecessors did, to default to the credo.

In the early 1990s, about 25 years before the BRT’s reinvigorated focus on social responsibility, two authors, Herman Bryant Maynard, Jr. and Susan E. Mehrtens, identified the architecture for integrating corporate accountability into a company’s culture. Their thesis was built on operationalizing diversity as a social justice and business imperative.

In their book The Fourth Wave: Business in the 21st Century, Maynard and Mehrtens offered a compelling argument for corporations to engage in a new way of doing business by heightening social leadership and focusing on global well-being. They present a dramatically different future in which business success will be more than solely achieving huge profit margins.

The authors articulate a vision of a new type of stakeholder engagement. Stakeholders will hold big corporations more accountable for their behaviors around social responsibility, in addition to manufacturing and marketing exceptional products and services.

The authors believed then, as is playing out now, that a social justice imperative will drive greater accountability, higher levels of innovation, deeper market penetration, highly productive workforces, competitive business outcomes and enhanced brand equity. And, if done right, will create a more favorable corporate identity.

Business values, like those written in the famous Johnson & Johnson credo, must evoke a concern for people and communities, underscore personal integrity, and increase the focus on environmental sustainability, citizenship, diversity and inclusion, social justice and race relations. These essential elements of a corporation’s principles must become integrated into the fabric of their culture, which can create a meaningful corporate social responsibility image in the minds of stakeholders.

Maynard and Mehrtens suggest that our future will be more promising when corporations are exemplars for other institutions; world citizens serving both local and global communities; advocates of economic equity and redefinition of wealth; innovators in improving the health and well-being of employees and their families; pioneers in the appropriate use of technologies; committed to continuous learning; and led by men and women who are fully aware of their responsibility to realize the destiny of humankind.

When business leaders employ Fourth Wave thinking into their companies, they will become magnets for attracting a highly skilled and educated workforce, resulting in increased levels of productivity and innovation.

One example of how Johnson & Johnson applied Fourth Wave thinking in solving a major healthcare issue was through the creation of “Gateway to a Healthy Community–Healthier Kids.”

The Gateway program was designed as a partnership between two Johnson & Johnson business units, the pharmaceutical business, and the office of diversity and inclusion. The goal was to help children live happier, healthier, longer lives by applying a school-based physical activity program developed by the office of diversity and inclusion. The mission was to address healthcare disparities and the problems associated with childhood obesity and diabetes through physical activity and learning in classrooms K through 3.

When this project was launched in 2011, the data revealed that childhood obesity posed an enormous threat to children’s health. At that time, about 29.1 million Americans were living with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). About 5% of those had type 1 diabetes.

In 2015, the CDC reported 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the U.S. population, have diabetes. More than 100 million U.S. adults are now living with diabetes or prediabetes, according to a 2017 CDC report.

In just three years, the Gateway program was successful in stimulating diabetes prevention and awareness in five targeted cities: Atlanta; Houston; Philadelphia; Newark, NJ; and New York City. Through external collaboration with policy makers, district leaders, teachers and curriculum advisers, significant outcomes were achieved.

The results: Gateway operated in over 3,000 classrooms, engaged nearly 240,000 students, clocked 2.5 million hours of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and enabled students to shred 130,000 pounds and burn 5.3 million calories. And there were noticeable increases in the children’s learning and listening abilities.

The prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. among children offered an opportunity for a diversity and inclusion business unit to address healthcare disparities and unmet medical needs for an at-risk population. Ultimately, this was one of the key factors that led to Johnson & Johnson launching a diabetes drug.

This example underscores how the power of diversity aligned with a company’s strong commitment to serving patient needs is clearly Fourth Wave thinking and behavior. Richard L. Gelb, a former chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, once said: “Since disease does not discriminate between the haves and have nots, neither should a healthcare company whose principal concern is to extend and enhance human life.”

Companies that incorporate diversity and inclusion into their business practices achieve higher returns and are recognized as industry leaders.

Diversity promotes behaviors that evoke empathy, which is a feeling that is not typically on display in corporate boardrooms. Both social justice and diversity create a sense of caring, respect, kindheartedness, benevolence and compassion.

The inability on the part of some companies to align social justice, diversity and inclusion with achieving solid business outcomes will likely hamper growth and tarnish corporate reputation. Most employees want to work for companies that are aligned with their own personal values. People intuitively want to “like” rather than “hate” the companies they work for.

Has there been progress on the diversity front? Should we be optimistic? Yes but cautiously optimistic. Here’s why.

Let’s start with colleges and universities. About four years ago, I served on a university task force on diversity. The experience led me to believe students and faculty exist in environments that are not conducive for having honest dialogue on issues such as diversity, inclusion and race. These topics make people uncomfortable.

Zachary Wood, a 2018 graduate of Williams College and former Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Wall Street Journal, has written extensively on the topic of “uncomfortable learning.” He believes it is important to engage in conversations with people who take you out of your comfort zone. He suggests that uncomfortable learning broadens the range of dialogue across a host of controversial topics that stimulates intellectual curiosity.

While we all want to believe these types of conversations will create a sense of openness, the reality is diversity is an emotionally charged subject that makes us uncomfortable. Uncomfortable environments restrict honest dialogue.

At many colleges and universities, there is political and social discourse. These discussions are designed to foster critical reasoning and create courageous conversations. However, in many institutions of higher learning, there are value systems and cultures that blunt attempts to address the topics of diversity and inclusion as important elements of pedagogy.

How can companies and universities become part of the solution? How can they be a positive force for change?

Colleges and universities are the feeder pool for companies. Within this feeder pool is rich and diverse talent. Companies must take advantage of this opportunity. Colleges and universities must embrace their collective accountability to prepare their culturally diverse students to bring their authentic selves to the classrooms and, ultimately, to the workforce.

According to the Pew Research Center, the U.S. racial profile in 2055 will be 48% white, 24% Hispanic, 14% Asian and 13% black. The U.S. Department of Commerce projects nonwhite ethnic groups will represent 85% of the U.S. population growth between 2011 and 2050.

As these changes transform colleges and universities, they also impact the workplace. Therefore, embracing diversity and inclusion and social justice will become increasingly important.

Companies that truly want to reach a diverse customer base must find ways to increase diversity in the workplace. In doing so, they increase their competitiveness.

Courage is an attribute companies should look for when recruiting and building strong leaders. When bold and courageous leaders are in positions of influence they are more likely to address difficult issues that may potentially impact business growth, issues like diversity, inclusion and race, for example. There needs to be more honest discussions about these topics in meeting rooms and lecture halls across America.

If these discussions are not had in the classroom, they can become an impediment to academic excellence. If they are not addressed in meeting rooms, a company’s reputational value is at risk.

7.3 People and Organizations Ignore History, Research and Theory at Their Peril

In 1954, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower encouraged business leaders to become more involved in politics and government, and that led to the formation of the Public Affairs Council, a Washington, D.C.-based association of corporate government relations and public affairs executives who lobby for various legislative and regulatory initiatives. Beginning in 1980, when he was elected to his first term, President Ronald Reagan made sharp cuts in federal funding for social programs. The initial cuts amounted to over $11 billion and they affected, in the first year, about 57% of voluntary agencies. President Reagan urged the business community to make up for the cuts by getting involved, not only with philanthropic contributions but with social service programs. Specifically, he urged businesses to double their contributions and to provide social services previously provided by federal funds.⁴

“Corporate contributions soared,” wrote Edmund M. Burke in Corporate Community Relations: The Principle of the Neighbor of Choice. ⁵ Burke, the founding director in 1985 of the Boston College Center for Corporate Community Relations, explained that although corporate gifts to charity rose to $4.4 billion in 1985, they could not compensate for President Reagan‘s $33 billion cuts. Some argue that the corporate community relations programs that ensued were more productive than the federal give-away programs. In any case, the transition to a more privately funded community support system caused tremendous changes in corporate community relations philosophies, staffing and funding. At the same time, the pressures on companies to increase their community support initiatives were compounded by rapid increases in the number of applications community service programs made to corporations.

Companies hired community relations specialists or redeployed staff. According to Burke, similar pressures in other countries in the 1980s resulted in major community relations initiatives by corporations in the United Kingdom, Japan, the Philippines, Australia and elsewhere.⁶

7.3.1 Neighbor of Choice

The community relations model that evolved—planned involvement that meets the needs of the community and company or organization—was a response to the realization that companies and other organizations situated in a community must obtain what Burke called a “license to operate.”⁷ That metaphorical license is more difficult to obtain and retain than the licenses companies actually obtain from government or other regulatory agencies. It is issued based on the written and unwritten set of expectations between the organization and the community. For example, the community will provide certain services, such as roads and other infrastructure, and the organization will work within certain rules, abiding by standards that protect the overall community and its people.

Burke writes that the best way for an organization to obtain and retain a license to operate is to become a “neighbor of choice.” Much like companies that try to become an employer of choice or a supplier of choice, companies that want to achieve favored status in the community can establish programs and practices that will tend to make them, over time, neighbors of choice. In other words, the organization will adopt community relations strategies geared toward establishing not just acceptance but real trust, which the authors of this book explain is the “future equity of a good reputation.” (See Chapter 1.)

The involvement of companies in communities have changed significantly since the 1970s. As Burke pointed out, involvement shifted in response to changing community expectations from checkbook philanthropy to a principle about the way a company should behave in a community.

7.3.2 Three Reputation-Building Strategies

More specifically, Edmund Burke writes that there are three strategies organizations employ to build their reputations in the community into that of a neighbor of choice:

1. Build sustainable and ongoing relationships with key individuals, groups, and organizations.
2. Institute practices and procedures that anticipate and respond to community expectations, concerns, and issues.
3. Focus the community support programs to build relationships, respond to community concerns, and strengthen the community’s quality of life.⁸

Those three strategies are responsive to the needs of both the community and the organization.

They help build the organization’s reputation so that the organization can get along in the community day to day (as neighbors must). Also, the strategies build reputational capital that can be drawn upon during the inevitable tough times, such as those accompanying plant accidents or layoffs.

Moreover, a good reputation benefits the company brand in immeasurable ways, including the ability to attract and retain business clients. One of the most popular (and respected) surveys of corporate reputation is Fortune magazine’s annual Most Admired Companies survey and cover story. Inaugurated in 1984, one of the nine criteria is “social responsibility.”

7.4 Revitalizing a Community, One of the Poorest in Pennsylvania

Uniontown, Pennsylvania, may eventually be transformed from a place where many who drove down Main Street would roll up their windows to what may someday be a showplace, a catalyst for the renewal of Fayette County, among the poorest of Pennsylvania’s 67. Starting in 2005, the town, 25 miles from the West Virginia border that almost died in the 1950s and 1960s with the closing of the coal mines and the birth of the strip malls, received a makeover of dramatic proportion: The State Theatre has been renovated and there are now cultural events held there, more than 20 store fronts have been repaired and reopened, churches have been whitewashed, and the derelicts seem fewer.⁹

One man, with the All-American name of Joe Hardy, has been the major force. He is the founder of 84 Lumber, the nation’s largest privately held building-materials supplier. Named after the town of Eighty Four, some 20 miles from Uniontown, the company has about 250 stores. Hardy and the company he founded provide significant financial and other support to several local and national charities. He believes that the principles he followed in building 84 Lumber apply to his charitable and community affairs. Hardy is a billionaire.

Hardy talked extensively about community involvement with John Doorley, author of this book, who grew up in Uniontown, watching it thrive, almost die, and now being reborn. By the time Joe Hardy is finished remodeling Uniontown, he said, he will have spent at least $20 million of his own money.

The story of why Joe Hardy is trying to help rebuild Uniontown, which is the Fayette County seat, is clearly an exceptional one in scope and dramatic effect. But it illustrates how and why organizations and their leaders should get involved in the community, for the benefit of both. His six principles of relationship building have made 84 Lumber the country’s largest privately held building materials supplier to professional contractors; directed the way he built and runs Nemacolin Woodlands, one of America’s best resorts, in the mountains overlooking Uniontown; and made him a very wealthy man. Hardy said that his principles “guide his philanthropy and community relations, just as they guide my personal and business relationships.”¹⁰

In 2013, after years of lobbying, Joe Hardy, in partnership with Isle of Capri Inc., was finally able to realize one of his biggest dreams since opening Nemacolin in 1987: the opening of Lady Luck Casino. The $60 million resort casino opened on July 1, immediately bringing a new wave of excitement to Uniontown.

Fast forward to 2020 and the fourth edition of this book, the town and county are still struggling. It is not easy to rebound from unemployment and poverty. “We are now the largest employer in Fayette County,” said Maggie Hardy-Magerko, Joe Hardy’s daughter, and president and CEO of Nemacolin. There is hope, despite constant setbacks.

7.5 Hardy’s Reputation Management Principles

7.5.1 Hardy’s Relationship-Building Principle #1: Be Involved, Be Committed

Joe Hardy: “When it became clear to me that the three county commissioners could be of tremendous help in getting things done in Uniontown and Fayette County, I campaigned for and became a commissioner in 2004—the first time I ran for public office, and I was eighty-one. A few years ago, I participated in a policy conference at Carnegie Mellon University and was asked how one makes community programs work. I tried to tell them that it is not so complicated. It is just a matter of making up your mind to do something the community needs, something you have the ability to do, and then doing it as well as possible by working with people you trust.”

And isn’t it true that a person’s or an organization’s reputation is simply the sum of the relationships that person or organization has built?

7.5.2 Hardy’s Relationship-Building Principle #2: Building Reputation, One Relationship at a Time, Is Good Business

A few years ago, I participated in a policy conference at Carnegie Mellon University and was asked how one makes community programs work.

Joe Hardy: “I realize that reputation is a popular buzzword today in business, because of the scandals, I guess. But it’s strange that companies and other organizations had to be shocked into realizing that everything in life is about relationships. And isn’t it true that a person’s or an organization’s reputation is simply the sum of the relationships that person or organization has built? I am not going to make money off our renovation of Uniontown; I could not sell that to our accountants, because we could not prove there will be adequate financial returns. But helping the people of Fayette County get back on their feet will help everybody (individuals and businesses) over the long term. And besides, heck, if this was Montgomery County (one of Pennsylvania’s wealthiest) it wouldn’t be any fun.”

7.5.3 Hardy’s Relationship-Building Principle #3: Choose the Right Projects, Be Strategic

Joe Hardy: “Nemacolin, which I purchased in 1987 and began renovating in 1988, is now a world-class resort. Guests from all over the world would often want to go down into the valley and visit what they pictured as typical small-town America. Then they would be surprised at how rundown Uniontown was. I realized that much of the problem was physical, with dilapidated buildings and so on, and it became clear to me that I could make a difference in Uniontown by doing what had made me successful: Building. I had built a successful business in building materials, and, over the years, I have cultivated many relationships with builders and contractors.”

To guide companies and other organizations in planning and implementing their community relations programs, Burke suggested an audit of the community’s needs, strengths, and weaknesses, and an assessment of the organization with respect to its community relations plans and programs. Taking those two steps can make the difference between a community relations program that, however well intentioned, fails to meet the needs of the organization and the community, and a program that helps both.¹¹

7.5.3.1 Community Audit

The community audit should be geared toward producing, first, factual information including a quantification, where possible, of the community’s needs, along with an examination of the community’s own resources. Other companies’ community resources should also be identified in order to avoid duplication. Second, the audit should include qualitative information on such things as community attitudes toward the organization as well as the kinds of relationships people in the organization have already established in the community. Third, strategic information should be included in the audit concerning opportunities and threats to the organization in the community. For instance, is there a zoning restriction that could interfere with growth plans, or a pending environmental regulation that sets unrealistic goals?

Joe Hardy: “What can the organization do about the threats and opportunities? So we renovated one building after another and tore down the ones that couldn’t be fixed.”

7.5.3.2 Company Assessment

The company assessment is meant to give information that can guide its philanthropic, employee volunteerism and community partnership programs. This information is just as important as the community audit in determining an organization’s ad hoc and long-term community relations strategies and programs.

7.5.3.3 Identify the Communities

Another important aspect of strategic community relations is identifying the communities important to the organization. They include the fence line and site communities, as well as the employee community, the common-interest community and the cybercommunity. Of course organizations can only do so much, and must prioritize their community relations efforts, just as they do their business initiatives. But the point of a communities identification effort is to be sure that important communities are not being overlooked, which is to say that the communities that are the most proximal, the largest or the loudest are not necessarily the most important.

The relationship between an organization and a community will be only as good as the two-way communication. A communication theory called general systems theory (see Chapter 1 sidebar) provides a framework for understanding that no constituency is an island, that communication flows between constituencies, whether it is orchestrated or accidental, and that there is no such thing as not communicating.

7.5.3.4 The Strategic Use of Corporate Philanthropy

Books have proliferated over recent years advocating the strategic use of corporate philanthropy: The targeted use of corporate philanthropy that takes advantage of the company’s strengths and business interests for the benefit of certain social causes and charities. Two philanthropic marketing strategies have been employed with special effectiveness.

The American Express Company coined the term cause-related marketing to describe its 1983 program that encouraged use of the American Express credit card by having the company make contributions (one penny for each use of the card and one dollar for each new card issued) to the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation.¹²

A second term, social marketing, describes the adoption by a company of a program that clearly benefits society, while, over the long term, possibly benefiting the company. When First Alert was about to introduce its carbon monoxide detector for the home in 1992, the company learned that only 2% of potential customers knew that carbon monoxide leaks in the home could be a problem. The company held up on the introduction of the product and the paid advertising, while the PR people introduced a national (unpaid) carbon monoxide awareness program, consisting of briefings to health and science reporters in print and broadcast. Society benefited, with consumer awareness of the carbon monoxide threat soaring within months to 75%, as did the company from a timely, successful introduction of its product.¹³

7.5.4 Hardy’s Relationship-Building Principle #4: Keep Moving Ahead

Joe Hardy: “Well, in the community, I think, just as in business, once you decide to do something you have to move ahead in a committed, planned fashion. You also have to realize that just about everything you want to do has been done, so why not take advantage of that?”

7.5.5 Hardy’s Relationship-Building Principle #5: Embrace Diversity

Joe Hardy: “I know that diversity is also a buzzword today and it can be used in a forced kind of way, as if government regulations and so forth are involved. But I mean it in a very positive way. On the global front, it is good business to embrace diversity. If something can be made in India for a fraction of the cost, businesses are going to do that. But the market that evolves in India can then be good for businesses and people in this country. In any case, globalization is here to stay. In the local community, just as is the case internationally, diversity means to me that we can respect people who may look, speak, or think in a different way. People in Western Pennsylvania have certain expressions, such as ‘youns’ (plural of you), but don’t let that fool you. They are as smart as anyone.”

7.5.6 Hardy’s Relationship-Building Principle #6: When Things Go Wrong, Make Them Right As Fast As You Can

Joe Hardy: “Things will sometimes go wrong. It is a fact of life, business, and community relations. Successful people make lots of mistakes. They just know how to admit and fix them fast.”

7.6 CEOs and Other Ambassadors to the Community

The success of any community relations program will in the long run depend on buy-in and support from people throughout the organization. “People in communities do not make relationships with companies,” Edmund Burke wrote, “but with people in companies and organizations.” He identifies CEOs, facilities managers and employees as all being important in an organization’s community relations program. It is they who know the culture, the unique needs and capabilities of the community in which they live and work. Employees are the bulk users of community services and programs, he continues. Consequently, employee evaluations of needs and services in a community constitute valuable information for planning. They are also excellent sources of information on community attitudes toward the company.¹¹

7.7 The Role of CEOs As Chief Reputation Managers

by Wylie Rogers, CEO, The Tantalus Group

Europe’s most admired company. A skyrocketing share price. Harvard Business Review profiles. The lead story the Wall Street Journal, glowing headlines in the Financial Times, producers begging you to appear on the BBC and CNBC. Positive coverage in Caijing Magazine and the Times of India. Employee engagement surveys that shine.

Suddenly you’re a LinkedIn influencer, a Twitter darling, a thought leader.

All these things come to CEOs at the top of their game.

Based on experience in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, in the energy, aerospace, engineering, chemicals, and finance sectors, there are three things a CEO must do to positively manage the reputation of his or her company:

1. Deliver exceptional performance
2. Create the right culture and behaviors for sustained success
3. Communicate transparently with all audiences unless that would violate regulatory or legal proscriptions, such as materiality or proprietary protections

Unfortunately, many fail to keep these three things in balance. Following are three examples to bring these things to life, as well as a summary of why the CEO needs to be the chief reputation manager of any company worth its salt.

7.7.1 Engineering Sector Case Study

Our first example starts with a successful Swedish CEO who delivered exceptional performance for a long time. This was the era of iconic CEOs like Steve Jobs, Lee Iacocca, Jack Welch and P. Roy Vagelos. Year after year of profitable acquisitions, quarter after quarter of hitting targets. This CEO communicated openly with employees, inspiring them to build a juggernaut of a global company in hundreds of countries and admired by many. There was a palpable pride in working for the company. The CEO was charming, funny and adventurous, so the media loved him. He could also be serious and analytical, which investors appreciated. Customers wanted to be around him, so infectious was his energy.

But there was one area he overlooked. Perhaps it was the Greek Achilles heel of hubris. Perhaps it was something else. Behind the scenes, this CEO didn’t behave the way people expected him to. Details of a secret pension package came to light after an inquiry by an activist investor. And the bubble soon burst. Acquisitions unraveled, lawsuits flew. The share price collapsed from a high in the 200s to a low in single digits. Analysts and investors panicked. The media fed the beast, and the CEO was soon gone. So began a long process of reputation repair, led by a more modest CEO of German heritage. This CEO was less charismatic, more pragmatic. And from crisis came opportunity. The new CEO slowly, methodically, put the three things back in balance.

7.7.2 Energy Sector Case Study

The second example looks at another CEO, head of a national energy company headquartered in Asia, who delivered good results for his company, which was in turn a major contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP) of his home country. His behavior was generally in line with what was expected of him, and he was an effective communicator, sometimes prone to bursts of emotion, but generally serious with investors and analysts, tough with partners and suppliers, and authoritative with employees looking for leadership. Communications appeared to be in order.

However, the sands were shifting beneath his feet. A major project in Canada was in trouble due to a failure to properly consult First Nations, engage communities, and align the expectations of provincial and federal governments. A clash of Western and Asian cultures seemed to be at work as less consultation would take place in his home country. In parallel, questionable behavior by employees of his company in parts of Africa came under scrutiny, as did the company’s safety performance in environmentally sensitive areas of his home country. A final nail in the coffin, it appeared that the company was failing to modernize and prepare its bloated workforce for future competition due to low energy prices.

The CEO had failed to deliver on the performance and behavioral aspects of reputation. In business, good communication cannot make up for poor performance or bad behavior. The three things were no longer in balance, and the CEO was quietly replaced by a more stable set of hands. One could argue he was made the scapegoat for what the Harvard Business Review calls a “white knight” savior of a replacement (“The Curse of the Superstar CEO,” by Rakesh Khurana, September 2002). But one could also say he should have better managed the company’s reputation as an asset.

7.7.3 Lifestyle Case Study

One final story brings us to the Emirates, a fast-growing, volatile and dynamic part of the world at the time of writing. A young, charismatic Lebanese CEO at the helm of a successful lifestyle company. He pushes a relentless pace, moving the company from a slow-moving ship liner to a data analytics and innovation-fueled speedboat. Consultants from McKinsey abound. Performance takes off, making the company’s founders very happy indeed. Employees too—they love working for a recognized brand that is expanding across the region. Invites to the World Economic Forum in Davos arrive. “Finally a clear and eloquent voice of business from the Middle East,” they say.

But all is not well. The pace is perhaps too fast for the CEO’s closest allies. While he was earlier perceived as visionary, he now sounds somewhat removed from reality. His speeches become sermons, running much longer than scheduled. Office politics start and burnout sets in. Teams lose focus. The company’s narrative grows muddled. “Who are we and what do we stand for?” employees ask. “Are we a collection of brands or do we have a greater purpose?”

Increased economic volatility in the Emirates disrupts new business lines, especially property development. An observer says, “You can talk all you want about AI, sustainability and innovation, but if performance falters, you’ve got big problems.”

The CEO has suffered from perhaps the biggest reputation challenge of all: He can’t articulate a strategy that his people can understand. His communications is weak and unfocused. To this day, he is still employed, but for how long?

7.7.4 The Cultural Component to Leadership

There is one more element to these three stories and the balance of performance, behavior and communications.

Culture is the way in which we solve problems (Riding the Waves of Culture, by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, New York: McGraw Hill, 1997). The first company is of Swiss and Swedish heritage and was initially run by a Swede, known for shunning conflict and their egalitarian management style. This worked well in times of growth, not so well when things turned for the worse. It was finally rescued by a German, a business culture known for many years of technical training, leadership and clear-eyed execution (Swedishness, by Bengt Anderson, Stockholm: Positive Sweden, 1995).

Dinesh Paliwal, president and CEO, Harman Inc., says, “In the end, reputation is all about culture. The CEO needs to set the bar for behavior, ethics, how transparent you are, especially in a sometimes stressful environment.”

The second company is Malaysian, a culture known for strongly hierarchical management styles and an interesting dynamic between Muslim and Chinese culture. Business environments are overly polite and those who show too much emotion are frowned upon. The country’s culture at times appears to be moving backward, becoming more traditional, rather than more modern.

And the third company is based in the United Arab Emirates, a culture known for trust and personal relationships in business, much of which is run in family-owned structures. Decisions are made by the CEO and the CEO alone in many cases (if not by the patriarch passed down through the CEO).

Building on Geert Hofstede’s work on cultural dimensions theory, Erin Meyer of INSEAD argues that business success is often the result of navigating complexities of cultural differences in a multicultural environment (The Culture Map, Erin Meyer, New York: PublicAffairs, 2014).

As demonstrated here, reputation is sometimes more than a simple equation. There is a cultural component overlaid on all global companies that cannot be overlooked.

Three CEOs, three attempts at keeping the balance of performance, behavior and communication, while navigating the sometimes choppy waves of culture.

7.8 Communities across the World

The formula for managing reputation is the same for a global company as for a local one:

Reputation = (Performance + Behavior + Communication) \times Authenticity factor

R = (P + B + C) \times Af

(See Chapter 1.)

If the organization is true to what it stands for, the sum of performance, behavior and communication is undiminished. Always important takeaways:

Communication alone cannot build a reputation.
If communication did not cause the reputation problem, it cannot fix it.

7.8.1 It’s about Consumers—and a Lot More Today

In his 13th edition of The Practice of Public Relations, Fraser Seitel reports that there are 1.7 billion members of the worldwide consumer class, and that number keeps increasing. Lifestyle purchases, pretty much confined to Europe, North America, Japan and a few other places in the world in the 20th century, are growing fast in other countries in the 21st century. China is now the world’s second largest economy (with the United States first).¹⁴

“The spread of consumerism has placed fresh pressures on multinational companies to act ethically, in the best interest of their global consumers,” Seitel writes. “Globalization and the spread of social media and the Internet mandate that such companies walk a fine line between behaving responsibly and promoting their products. Often it is public relations techniques and societal sensitivities that help distinguish a company and its products from the competition.”

He cites:

The Walt Disney Company curtailed the use of its name and Disney characters with food items that did not meet acceptable nutrition standards.¹⁵
The Mattel Company fought to do the right thing for consumers and its reputation by revamping safety measures at a Chinese factory responsible for lead in the paint of Mattel toys. The company’s CEO issued an online video apology to parents.¹⁶
Burger King announced it would not buy eggs or pork from suppliers that confined the animals in cages or crates. Animal rights activists praised this as a “historic advance.”¹⁷
McDonald’s and KFC faced an international reputation scandal when it was discovered that some of its Chinese suppliers were processing expired meat.¹⁸

In Chapter 1 of this book, Kathryn Metcalfe, CCO of CVS Health, discusses why the CVS chain decided to forgo $1 billion in annual sales of tobacco products. Its retail competitors, such as Walgreens, have not followed suit. The CVS decision is one of the clearest examples of a company doing something in the interest of consumers, despite the financial risks. How has that decision by CVS worked out for consumers and for the company? In this case, the answer is clear: Doing good for customers has helped the company do very well. (See Chapter 1, Section 1.4.)

7.9 Managing Global Reputation: Incorporating Theory and Cultural Dimensions

by Denise Hill, Ph.D.

In an infamous branding failure, HSBC’s global private banking business slogan “Assume Nothing,” translated to “Do Nothing” in a number of countries. As a result, in 2009 the company spent millions to rebrand with a new tagline: “The World’s Private Bank.” While there are many examples of branding failures due to translation problems, some global and multinational organizations have faced challenges due to some aspect of marketing communications that demonstrated a lack of cultural awareness.

For example, Starbucks opened a store in 2000 in Beijing’s Forbidden City, a palace complex that served as the home for Chinese emperors for hundreds of years. Today, the Forbidden City is a UNESCO World Heritage site that attracts millions of visitors each year. In 2006, a Chinese news anchor and journalist began criticizing Starbucks in his blog. He believed Starbucks showed a lack of respect for Chinese culture and that its coffee shop “undermined the Forbidden City’s solemnity.” Although Starbucks opened its Forbidden City location at the invitation of Forbidden City managers, it faced criticism for doing so. The journalist’s first blog post demanding that Starbucks decamp from the Forbidden City generated significant public and media response, resulting in a web-based activist campaign. Starbucks responded that it “appreciates the deep history and culture of the Forbidden City and has operated in a respectful manner that fits within the environment. We have provided a welcome place of rest for thousands of tourists, both Chinese and foreign, for more than six years.”¹⁹ –²⁷

Amid intense negative scrutiny and ongoing public pressure spurred by the blogger’s campaign, Starbucks closed the shop in 2007. In its statement, Starbucks noted a new policy that the palace complex would now operate all stores in the Forbidden City. “We fully respect the decision of Forbidden City to transition to a new mode of concessions service to its museum visitors.” However, Starbucks had other stores in China and the company’s actions may also have been a move to protect its reputation among Chinese consumers in the wake of concerns about Western culture and maintaining national identity.²⁸, ²⁹

In contrast to its experience in China, when Starbucks opened its first shop in Italy, it did so with an Italian partner that owned and operated the Starbucks coffee shop. In its press release, which was distributed in English and Italian, this partnership was highlighted in the first paragraph. Further, a key message in the press release and internal memo was that Starbucks was opening in Italy with “humility and respect.” Starbucks made it clear that it was not attempting to change Italian coffee culture, but instead wanted “to create an experience that would honor the Italian culture, its history of coffee excellence, and its commitment to craftsmanship, (while) demonstrating our great respect to the country and culture that inspired Starbucks.” The Milan store opened in September 2018. Since then, Starbucks has opened other stores in Italy, indicating that its extensive research, partnerships, humble approach, and awareness and respect for culture paid off.

When managing corporate reputation, communicators for multinational corporations must recognize the global aspects of their work. In addition to reputation management within the context of a particular country, communicators must be aware of possible conflicts that may arise due to clashes between the country culture of the parent company and the culture of countries in which that company does business, as seen with the Starbucks Forbidden City situation.

In addition to the 10 precepts of reputation management outlined in this chapter, communicators must obtain knowledge of their audience’s culture and communication within that culture, as well as preferred communications channels. Further, communication plans should be developed and implemented by or with local partners or colleagues. One should not assume that communication strategies, tactics and channels can be universally applied. For example, if a step in managing a particular crisis involves apology, assuming that an apology, even the concept of apology, is the same in each country could result in a response that worsens the reputational problem.

In researching culture, a communicator can use Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as a starting point. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions are:

Power distance–Examines inequality and power; acceptance by the less powerful of those in power and of unequal distribution of power and hierarchy.
Individualism vs. collectivism—Examines if societies value personal independence versus group membership; can be summarized as “I versus we.”
Uncertainty avoidance—How people cope with ambiguity and their tolerance of risk and the unexpected.
Masculinity vs. femininity—In masculine societies, members, regardless of gender, display a preference for achievement, assertiveness and competition. In contrast, members in feminine societies, regardless of gender, prefer cooperation, modesty and caring for others.
Long-term vs. short-term orientation—How society sees links to its past in relation to the present and future; asks if a society is focused more on immediate gratification or if it is willing to wait for results.
Indulgence vs. restraint—Indulgent societies give members freedom to fulfill their desires while having fun, whereas restrained societies expect members to exhibit greater control of their desires and curtail a focus on fun.

An analysis of Toyota’s 2010 recall found that its crisis response was exacerbated by the company culture, which reflected a hierarchical management style with limited two-way communication. In such cultures, junior-level employees who may see early signs of problems are afraid to raise issues to those in power positions. A communicator managing such a situation would take into account not only the corporate culture, but the cultural dimensions of the parent company’s country, as well as those of other countries impacted.

An application of Hofstede’s dimensions to global communications and reputation management can be seen with Coca-Cola’s management of a tainted product crisis in 1999 that affected three Western European countries (Belgium, France and Spain) and three Northwestern European countries (Denmark, Sweden and Norway). The three Western European countries immediately banned the sale of Coke products, reflecting their high uncertainty avoidance (UA) and power distance (PD) cultures versus the low UA and PD of the other three countries, which did not ban Coke products. Citizens in high UA cultures react more strongly to threats. According to Maureen Taylor, Ph.D., one of the most published and respected public relations researchers, people in these countries “seek rules, rituals, and laws to guide behaviors” and when combined with high PD, citizens hold those in power accountable. A comparison of the UA and PD values between the three Western European countries and the United States and the three Northwestern European countries and the United States can be found on the Hofstede Insights website.³⁰ –³²

Coke executives did not immediately respond to the crisis and while it later removed products from stores, it denied responsibility and took more than a week to apologize. Coca-Cola is headquartered in the United States and reflecting that country’s culture, it “reacted to these claims as a low power distance and low uncertainty avoidance organization.” Citizens in Denmark, Sweden and Norway were more tolerant of Coca-Cola’s response versus those in the other three nations. As a result, the company’s reputation in Belgium, France and Spain was damaged. Coca-Cola failed to take cultural variance into account and instead managed the crisis through a U.S. cultural lens. A first step for global communicators is awareness that cultural and societal norms differ, often significantly, among countries. Reputation management practices in one country may not work in another. Working with local and national communication partners, global communicators must seek understanding of cultural dimensions and incorporate them into their reputation management strategies.

7.10 Kiewit: Building a Multinational Reputation

by Bob Kula, Vice President, Corporate Communication, Kiewit Corporation

Community impact hits close to home in the construction industry. That’s why it’s been top of mind at Kiewit Corporation since 1884, when the company began building hotels, warehouses and other vertical construction as a masonry contractor in Omaha, Nebraska. Today, as one of the largest and most diverse construction and engineering firms in North America, Kiewit builds work that impacts millions. In communities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the projects it builds provide communities with essentials like safe transportation, clean water and efficient power.

However, with the progress and development that comes with engineering and construction, so too does impact and interruption in communities. Construction, by nature, is disruptive. In the energy sector, license to operate has become part of the nomenclature for any group operating power plants, liquified natural gas facilities, wind turbine farms and more. Global energy producers use this term regularly to describe the “social license” they need from local stakeholders to operate in their communities. That license now extends to contractors constructing projects not just in the energy sector, but infrastructure, vertical building, industrial and mining. The goal: Assure communities that as a contractor, it is responsible, compliant and a steward to the neighboring public.

Being a good partner to communities is not only a part of Kiewit’s longstanding core values, it’s also the right way to do business. That includes philanthropy and corporate giving, but the foundation of Kiewit’s community relations in the places where its work focuses on:

Understanding local communities and stakeholders
Helping communities prepare for and adapt to construction
Lifting the community

7.10.1 Understanding Local Communities and Stakeholders

In 2013, Kiewit and its joint venture partner kicked off construction of Cove Point, the first liquified natural gas export facility in the eastern United States. Complexities were at every turn, but one of the most significant was the project’s location: Lusby, Maryland, a quaint community of nearly 2,000 people near Chesapeake Bay. To build this mega-project, Kiewit would peak at 3,600 workers on the job. The impact on the community would be large, from home-buying and other living accommodations for employees, to additional road congestion and public attention on the huge project. Kiewit worked closely with and took guidance from the client, which was very familiar with the area, to fully understand the town and region. Kiewit needed to be gracious guests in the community, and sensitive to those living and vacationing in the area.

Employees were retrained on safe driving practices. Routes to and from the project site were strategically mapped. Shift times were carefully managed to account for busy drive times. Kiewit also purchased and, with the city’s help, installed a new stoplight at a busy intersection to help traffic flow. Kiewit built relationships with nonprofit and community organizations that employees could rally around to improve the community. This included providing high-school vocational programs access to the construction site for hands-on learning about careers in construction, and donating laptops and other technology equipment near the end of the project to local schools.

Whether it’s a multibillion-dollar energy project in southern Maryland or small road project in a remote area in the Great Plains, understanding affected communities and stakeholders is key to any construction project success.

7.10.2 Helping Communities Prepare for and Adapt to Construction

Phone hotlines. Community meetings. Mobile apps. Websites. Flyers. Door-to-door visits to residents and businesses. Town halls. These are just a few of the ways Kiewit and its clients share information and create an open dialogue with local communities before and during construction. The reason: Virtually every project under construction impacts the public—in some way. With these impacts come potential challenges and inconveniences, which only reinforces the importance of ensuring those affected are informed and prepared.

Project Neon in Las Vegas was the largest and most expensive transportation public works project in Nevada’s history. This complicated, nearly $1 billion, design-build project improves mobility and safety for drivers within the city’s I-15 and US-95 corridors, one of the most tangled, busy roadways in the region. Kiewit and the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) were committed to being the best stewards and neighbors possible to minimize disruptions to local commuters, starting with actively communicating road changes, detours and construction alerts to the traveling public. This included developing and managing an innovative public information mobile app for NDOT, which provided those living in the area hour-to-hour road impacts, interactive maps and project milestones.

Another key strategy included branding the three Project Neon work phases to help ensure the public knew firsthand what was coming and how best to handle the different construction impacts. Starting with “Car-nado,” then “The Big Squeeze” and finally “The Main Event,” the branding was key in grabbing the public’s attention for each specific phase for when to stay off the road and to identify alternative routes to reduce congestion or major delays.

Communicating impacts is one thing. Mitigating them is another. Kiewit routinely takes steps to lessen noise and vibration issues; use monitoring tools for communities to easily access online information about noise levels in their area; reduce excessive dust and dirt; and consistently hire locally to learn from those who best know the communities where Kiewit is building work. Creativity also helps. On one recent infrastructure project, despite taking active measures to avoid it, Kiewit knew it would track excess dirt and mud on local roads due to an influx of construction trucks during one phase of the job. Kiewit offered the community car wash coupons to show it understood the concerns.

7.10.3 Lifting the Community

The second-largest public transportation system in the U.S., the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) provides a combined 1.6 million bus and rail rides to commuters any given weekday. Over time, though, the trains take a toll on stretches of the Red Line that serve the south side of Chicago. In 2012, Kiewit was awarded a $220 million contract for the CTA Dan Ryan Track Renewal project. The project involved replacing 10.2 miles of double track between nine station stops.

A long-time contractor for the CTA, Kiewit understood the rail system well. But for this contract, there were unprecedented factors to consider. First, the job would need to be completed in 154 days to limit the impact on commuters and nearby communities. That meant working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For CTA, shutting down half of its busiest rail line for five months was a public and political perception risk. For Kiewit, it was crucial to build strong relationships with local neighborhoods. In accordance with the federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA), CTA included specific hiring goals for WIA-eligible employees on the project. Kiewit had to fill part of its craft labor positions with qualified, economically disadvantaged and/or dislocated worker applicants. Together with the Chicago Cook County Workforce Partnership and the Chicago Urban League, Kiewit led an interview process for more than 800 applicants to fill key roles.

Kiewit went beyond federal and contractual requirements by creating its own training program for minority candidates. Kiewit, along with the Chicago Urban League, introduced the Building Tomorrow’s Workforce program. The project jobsite was the perfect setting for participants—many working in construction for the first time—to get a taste of on-the-job training for rail and transit construction. Nearly 200 people participated in the two-day training and finished with a certificate of completion and a stipend. This program netted 99 hires to work on the project. While the contractual minority workforce participation goal was 19.6%, Kiewit reached nearly 50%.

7.11 “Most Reputable Companies in the World”

According to Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, chief reputation officer, Reputation Institute, “There is profound evidence that reputation is at the heart of what’s driving the world economy. The data indicates that a new era is emerging in which the intangibles of reputation are underscoring political, social and economic changes.”

In Tony Langham’s 2019 book on reputation management, Hahn-Griffiths goes on to explain that the value of global reputations, on the rise for several years, began to decline in 2018. There is a decline in trust of companies, with only 38.5% of the world’s population trusting “companies to do the right thing.”³³

He lists five things, “based on statistical analysis and causal empirical evidence,” the most successful global companies are doing today to achieve “most reputable” status:

1. Focus on product and enterprise: The most important global dimensions in driving reputation are associated with perceptions of products/services, governance and citizenship.
2. Be purposefully genuine: Purpose-driven companies that are underscored by depth of brand strength, heritage and a deeper sense of emotional connection earn a stronger reputation.
3. Overcome messaging white noise: Social media can make a significant difference and yield reputation lift when it is highly targeted to engage global influencers who can generate a major impact.
4. Identify with millennials: Global companies that generate strong levels of support among millennials (especially individuals between 20 and 34 years of age) outperform the competition.
5. Unleash a new voice of leadership. Companies that are shaped by CEOs who think beyond profit and who align themselves with societal contribution and highly ethical behavior do better.

The 2018 Global RepTrak 100 survey lists the companies in the top 10, according to reputation drivers or attributes. Rolex (Switzerland) was first, as Hahn-Griffiths writes, based on its “timeless commitment to product quality, innovation and sustainability.” The companies ranked 2 through 10 are Lego (Denmark); Google (United States); Canon (Japan); The Walt Disney Company (United States); Sony (Japan); Adidas (Germany); Bosch (Germany); BMW Group (Germany); Microsoft (United States).³⁴

7.12 An International Communications Industry Working in a Transformative World

by Nitin Mantri, President, International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO)

Reputation has been and will always be a valuable, strategic asset for every business and that is why managing it is vital to a company’s success.

7.12.1 Reputation in a World in Motion

Building a good reputation in this interconnected world is not easy. With nearly three billion people active on social media channels, news spreads at an incredibly rapid pace. Social media has made it almost impossible to separate fact from fiction, and brands are more at risk of being criticized or judged for their actions. In countries such as India, social media channels like WhatsApp and Facebook are being used by a lot of first-time users who do not know much about verified news/information. Though Facebook has introduced warnings on potential fake news stories and WhatsApp has started a label for messages forwarded five times or more, these measures have done little to combat the menace of fake news.

Consumer expectations are also increasing exponentially. Consumers want more than a great product. They want brands to take a stand on important social, economic and environmental issues, and provide stability in these uncertain times. WE Communications’ 2018 proprietary Brands in Motion study showed that 9 out of 10 people would not hesitate to publicly shame a brand they support if it steps out of line—and social media has given them the platform to do so.

A company’s reputation should therefore be a part of its business strategy; it cannot be visited only when a crisis rears its ugly head. Today’s discerning public can see through patchy damage control measures. So, ecompanies are increasingly turning to PR firms to help them make sense of this digital world. This comes as no surprise as PR professionals are the privileged few who know how to guide brands in a world where it’s hard to tell the truth from a lie.

But this honor comes with a huge responsibility.

7.12.2 Act with Purpose, and Purpose Only

Many companies are looking for quick communications programs to build a good reputation. They are commodifying social and environmental causes to show themselves as sensitive and human. This is dangerous for our industry as it threatens to destroy our credibility, which we have earned after decades of hard work. We must help companies understand that in this age of social media, consumers can see through stunts. Even though it is an intangible concept, reputation gauges the degree of trust that various publics hold for a brand. And this trust can be earned only if brands are real, authentic and purposeful.

As strategic advisers to clients, we must help companies define their purpose in a way that is meaningful to society. Companies must understand that exceptional products can be delivered while creating positive social impact; they are not mutually exclusive. Purpose must be the lens for every business decision, it must be in the DNA of every company.

More important, purpose means staying the course even when it’s hard. Since our profession comes with great powers of influence and with this influence comes responsibility to our clients, the public and society, we should live and promote principles such as honesty and transparency at all times. Ethics must remain the cornerstone of all our work.

7.12.3 Safeguarding Reputation

Fortunately, we have some very strong PR bodies such as the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO), the PR Council and the PRCA that keep a close watch on the way we serve our clients.

ICCO is raising the bar for agencies in markets around the world with the help of training and knowledge sharing. ICCO offers more than 70 online webinars and courses taught by qualified, vetted tutors. The ICCO Global Diploma in PR and Communications aims at using the organization’s worldwide knowledge and expertise to strengthen and sustain ethics within the industry, while equipping PR professionals with new skills to excel in a transformative industry.

ICCO meetings and events such as the ICCO Global Summit provide a forum for addressing industry issues, as well as sharing knowledge and best practice with peers from around the world. Our annual World PR Report provides agency heads with information on where the industry stands today, how it has been performing over the past year and what it predicts will happen over the next few years.

7.13 The Trait Employers Are Looking For

Employers are looking for specific skills today some of which, for example, analytics, are more important than ever. (See Chapter 4 for more on the role of analytics in managing reputation.)

Still, excellence in writing remains “the most important skill.” That is what the authors of this book would argue. We are not alone.

When asked which skills and qualities—beyond a strong GPA—they most wanted to see on students’ resumes, more than four out of five indicated written communication skills, making it the most sought-after attribute this year (in 2019).

A poll of employers participating in the National Association of Colleges and Employers Job Outlook 2019 survey showed that Fried is not alone. When asked which skills and qualities—beyond a strong GPA—they most wanted to see on students’ resumes, more than four out of five indicated written communication skills, making it the most sought-after attribute this year (in 2019). Writing skills surpassed even initiative and leadership, as well as the educational system’s vaunted STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics.³⁵

7.14 What Makes Writing the Most Important Skill—Company-Wide and Globally

by Martin D. Hirsch

During my 35-year career in corporate communication with the healthcare company Roche, the biggest threat to my strongest skill—writing— was the view that it could be easily outsourced. The rationale was that this would free department staff for more “strategic” work. Never mind that great external writers were scarce and expensive, and that they often lacked the in-depth knowledge of the company and its leaders necessary to capture the distinctive identity of the organization.

The words written on behalf of your company, and those spoken by your CEO, are critical to maintaining the support of your employees, community, customers, external talent, investors and government officials. In fact, the quality of words can affect performance company-wide. Take it from Jason Fried, co-founder of the Chicago-based web-application company Basecamp. When asked about his top hiring criteria on a popular podcast, Fried put writing at the top of his list.

“Most communication is written these days,” he explained. “One of the most costly and inefficient things is to repeat yourself or answer questions that should have been clear in the first place.” That’s why Fried’s company “always looked at clear writing as a prerequisite for every position.”³⁶

7.14.1 The Great Writing Conundrum

Yet employers seem not necessarily interested in hiring more writers per se, but rather more employees who possess top-notch writing skill to increase their value in whatever their field is.

The apparent elevation of writing skill as a general hiring criterion has not, it seems, ratcheted back the tendency of corporate communication departments, and even newsrooms, to seek ways to supplant writers on their staffs. Some of the new approaches would have been beyond imagination back when I was in school.

Selena Sheng, a student of mine in corporate communication and PR at New York University, recently competed her master’s paper on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field. Her research found that the Associated Press is one of the earliest adopters of AI-generated content, using the technology to transform raw earnings data into business news stories, and using National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball game stats to produce some of its sports news. The main advantage is speed.

Sheng found that big-time daily newspapers, including the Washington Post and the LA Times, have begun using robot reporting programs, too. She also found some corporations and PR agencies that have begun to follow suit.

7.14.2 Why Not Let the Robots Do It?

So, if robots can write with such speed and volume, why not relegate basic writing assignments to them? For now, Sheng learned from AI experts and PR professionals exploring the subject, the answer lies in certain human capabilities that robots lack, among them moral judgment and reasoning. They can turn numbers and statistical data into understandable, grammatically accurate prose, but they can’t analyze complex issues and explain decisions with nuance and sensitivity.³⁷

A former chairman and CEO of the company I worked for was once asked in a TV interview what the toughest part of his role was. He said it was “being able to function and make decisions in the gray areas.”

Early in my career I had a tendency to see things in black and white, as good or bad, right or wrong. It proved to be a liability in a world of complexity and nuance, where decisions often required difficult choices between imperfect outcomes. The ability to explain such challenges in clear and simple prose is a dying art. The New York Times expressed the dilemma in this headline: “What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence.”³⁸

7.14.3 In-House Writing Training to the Rescue

My team and I encountered this phenomenon at Roche. Too many employees whose jobs required them to communicate effectively in print and online media were simply not very good at it.

To address the problem, we created a course called “Writing Matters.” The eight-hour program included an introduction to common-sense good writing practices from godfathers of the craft like George Orwell (Why I Write), William Zinsser (On Writing Well), and Strunk and White (The Elements of Style). Other highly recommended reading included Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a clever treatise on punctuation by Lynne Truss; and Anne Lamott’s bird by bird, which offers insights into the writer’s mind and process.

We gave the participants a series of practical exercises, requiring them to write print and online news and feature articles, and to draft complicated announcements on organizational changes and scientific advances.

Boiled down to the essence, here’s what we taught:

George Orwell’s Six Elementary Rules
- Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do (e.g., don’t say “metropolis” when “city” works fine).
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use a passive when you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
William Zinsser on Simplicity
- Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.
- The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
- Clear thinking becomes clear writing: One can’t exist without the other. It is impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English.
William Strunk and E.B. White on Style
- Choose a suitable design and stick to it: A basic structural design underlies every kind of writing. It helps to have an outline with a logical flow of ideas.
- Do not overwrite: Rich ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome and sometimes nauseating.
- Do not overstate: When you overstate, the reader will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in his mind, because he has lost confidence in your judgment.
Also…
- Show, don’t tell. Don’t tell that the project team was excited; show it by describing what they did, what they said, how they acted.
- Be concrete, use examples that clarify and substantiate what you mean. Don’t just write, for example, that there were “instances of discrimination”; indicate approximately how many and briefly describe the types of infractions.
- Explain where explanation is necessary: If you need to use a scientific or technical word that readers might not be familiar with, provide a brief definition, even if only in parenthesis.
The Bottom Line: Writing With an Objective and Audience in Mind.
Everything that a corporate communicator writes is designed to achieve a purpose with the reader or target audience. The objective is for the audience to
- know something,
- do something, or
- feel something.

7.14.4 A Few Words on Intercultural Communication

Most of the communication practices I learned in my academic education and professional experience in the United States served me well when I took on a global role at my company’s headquarters in Switzerland midway through my career. Here are a few additional things I learned abroad:

Simple versus sophisticated use of English: All the rules previously cited about clear and simple language apply to an even greater degree in a foreign country.
Written versus interpersonal communication: Where I worked, colleagues, and especially bosses, preferred a personal conversation or phone call over an email or any other form of written communication. It’s more direct, simpler and less susceptible to misunderstanding.
Sensitivity to conflict: When it comes to conflict, whether intended or unintentional, emails can kill, especially when used to address disagreements between individuals of different native languages, cultures and levels of conflict aversion.

7.14.5 Don’t Denigrate Wordsmiths

If I had a nickel for every time I heard the term wordsmith used pejoratively over the course of my career I’d be a one-percenter. Adding insult to injury, one of the new AI software programs aimed at replacing writers is even named Wordsmith. You can read more about this in Chapter 14, Section 14.2.

Even if we acknowledge that no corporate employer expects anyone on the communication staff to write the Great American Novel, they do expect their corporate communication professionals to be able to explain company policies and decisions in an understandable and credible manner. This requires quality writing that informs, educates, inspires and persuades. It requires human wordsmiths.

7.14.6 Conclusion

This book is all about building, protecting and sustaining corporate reputation; it’s about how to shape perceptions through credible and compelling communication that convinces stakeholders to be loyal and supportive. That takes writing skill. Companies that lack it do so at their peril.

Adding insult to injury, one of the new AI software programs aimed at replacing writers is even named Wordsmith. You can read more about this in Chapter 14, Section 14.2.

7.15 Best Practices

Here are some of the things forward-thinking companies and other organizations do to build enduring community and global relationships.

1. Adhere to Hardy‘s six relationship-building principles.
2. Conduct a company assessment and community audit of the most important communities.
3. Learn from others: Celebrating major milestones, whether it is a centennial of service, a decade, or a year, is something that cuts across all industries and organizations. Research what has worked well for others before developing your plan.
4. Do a few things well: There are lots of ideas for special events and programs, and the challenge is always deciding what not to do. Focus on a few things rather than many.
5. It is about the customers—not us. Find ways to involve and honor customers.
6. Strengthen local partnerships. Explore the potential for new community opportunities, particularly where the needs of the customers, the community and the organization intersect.
7. Recognize and involve employees and retirees. Employees and retirees personify the organization‘s values through their accomplishments at work, at home and in their communities. Find ways to say thank you for their support and community involvement.
8. Gaining trust by building a good reputation can help avoid conflicts.
9. Capitalize on what other organizations have done well. Also, while it is good to learn from your own mistakes, it’s even better to learn from those others make. There are plenty to learn from.
10. Set aside a percentage of the funds for communication.

7.16 Questions for Further Discussion

1. Are there global implications to the Uniontown story?
2. How many companies base their community relations programs on community audits or company assessments? Does yours?
3. Can research and theory be more helpful to communication leaders day-to-day or over the long term? Both?
4. Are you convinced that, in organizations with good global reputations, the communication principles that guide community relations guide global relations?
5. Systems theory (end of Chapter 1) was devised by Aristotle with a prescient knowledge of our planet and with the application to global affairs in mind. Correct? Well, OK, he did not know he was living in a globe, let alone know its contents. Nevertheless, 2,400 years later, systems theory applies perfectly to community and global affairs. And nevertheless, Aristotle was the founder of rhetoric and therefore one of the founders of the art of public relations. Point being: We ignore even ancient history at our peril.
6. The moral of number 5, is Page Principle #7—to have a sense of humor—implies that we practitioners can have some fun, even with the truth.

7.17 Resources for Further Study

Arthur, W. Page Society website. https://page.org/.
Burke, Edmund M. Corporate community relations: The principle of the neighbor of choice. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999.
Burke, Edmund M. Managing a company in an activist world: The leadership challenge of corporate citizenship. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005.
The Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, http://www.bcccc.net.
Grayson, David, and Adrian Hodges . Everybody’s business: Managing risks and opportunities in today’s global society. New York: DK Publishing, 2002.
Sagawa, Shirley, and Eli Segal . Common interest, common good. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
Weeden, Curt. Corporate social investing: The breakthrough strategy for giving and getting corporate contributions. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 1998.

Notes

1 Arthur W. Page website. https://page.org/.

2 Charles J. Fombrun, Reputation: Realizing Value From the Corporate Brand (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), p. 376.

3 Edmund M. Burke, Corporate Community Relations: The Principle of the Neighbor of Choice (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), pp. 15–16.

4 Ibid., p. 16.

5 Ibid., pp. 17–18.

6 Ibid., p. 10.

7 Ibid., p.23

8 Ibid., p. 28.

9 Walter “Buzz” Storey, Another Look: Uniontown and Fayette County (Uniontown, PA: W. Storey, 2001).

10 John Doorley interviews with Joe Hardy on May 11 and May 25, 2005.

11 Burke, Corporate Community Relations, pp. 47–50.

12 Ibid., p. 25.

13 Ibid.

14 Fraser Seitel, The Practice of Public Relations, 13th ed. (New York: Pearson, 2017), pp. 292–293.

15 Ibid., 294.

16 Ibid., 294.

17 Ibid., 295.

18 Ibid., 295.

19 Matthew Vincent, “HSBC Bank Sent to Launch Private Rebrand,” Financial Times, February 9, 2009, www.ft.com/content/77b58214-f6e3-11dd-8a1f-0000779fd2ac.

20 Gang (Kevin) Han and Ai Zhang, “Starbucks Is Forbidden in the Forbidden City: Blog, Circuit of Culture and Informal Public Relations Campaign in China,” Public Relations Review 35 (2009): 395.

21 “Starbucks Closes Coffeehouse in Beijing’s Forbidden City,” New York Times, July 15, 2007.

22 “Debate Brewing Over Forbidden City Starbucks,” NBCNews.com, January 19, 2007, www.nbcnews.com/id/16692792/ns/business-world_business/t/debate-brewing-over-forbidden-city-starbucks/#.XZJmpFVKipo.

23 Melissa Allen, “Starbucks Exits the Forbidden City,” Seattle Times, July 14, 2007.

24 “With Humility and Respect, Starbucks Turns Its Eye Toward Italy,” Starbucks press release, February 29, 2016, www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160228005043/en/Humility-Respect-Starbucks-Turns-Eye-Italy.

25 Ibid.; and Howard Schulz, Memo to Starbucks partners, February 28, 2016, https://stories.starbucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Howards_Letter_to_Partners_-_Italy_2017.pdf.

26 Ibid.

27 Jonathan Hemus, “Accelerating Towards a Crisis: A PR view of Toyota’s Recall,” The Guardian, February 9, 2010, www.theguardian.com/business/2010/feb/09/pr-view-toyota-reputation-management.

28 Maureen Taylor, “Cultural Variance as a Challenge to Global Public Relations: A Case Study of the Coca-Cola Scare in Europe,” Public Relations Review 26, no. 3 (2000): 277–293.

29 Ibid., 282.

30 www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries/.

31 Taylor, “Cultural Variance,” 284.

32 Ibid., 289.

33 Tony Langham, Reputation Management: The Future of Corporate Communications and Public Relations (London: Emerald Publishing), pp. 48–51.

34 Ibid., p. 52.

35 NACE Staff, “Employers Want to See These Attributes on Students’ Resumes,” National Association of Colleges and Employers, naceweb.org, December 12, 2018.

36 Tim Ferris, “How to Live on Your Own Terms, an Interview with Jason Fried,” The Tim Ferris Show (podcast), Episode #329, July 23, 2018.

37 Nicole Martin, “Did a Robot Write This? How AI Is Impacting Journalism,” Forbes.com, February 7, 2019.

38 Sam Dillon, “What Corporate America Can’t Build: A Sentence,” nytimes.com, December 7, 2004.