Crisis Planning is Not Reputation Management

Whenever communications people talk about reputation management, the talk immediately turns to the subject of crisis management and how important it is to prepare the organization for a crisis.

Crisis managaement is to reputation management as fire fighting is to fire prevention. Crisis management is important and plans should be in place, but it is handling of an already existing problem. Reputation management should be a strategic process that gets everyone in management aligned on how to balance the needs and interests of all stakeholders so that reputation is enhanced and risk is minimized.

A good way to manage reputation in a complex organization is via the use of a Reputation Council. The Council brings together all of those in the organization responsible for "stakeholder relations". The membership would include communications, human resources, marketing, sales, government relations, investor affairs, and any other function that has responsibility for an important stakeholder of the company.

The Council would have as its objective the integration of the company's reputation efforts with regard to employees, customers, investors, media, government agencies, and all other stakeholders. The Council would all work from the same strategic guidelines and would share research, both that already on-hand, as well as that which is needed. It is amazing how often I have found that research done by one organization is not shared with other organizations.

Through such a Council, reputation can be managed as a holistic, strategic company-wide process. Crisis management would then take its rightful place as a tactic within the overall plan.