L12: Leading through Effective External Relations

A positive public image or reputation affects a company’s ability to achieve all other measures of success. Reputation Institute says that the companies with the best corporate reputations outperform all others in terms of market share and share value.

Effective external relations require a sound communication strategy. These are the following steps to create a strategy for external audiences:

Clarify your purpose and strategy objectives.
Identify your major audiences or stakeholders:
Community, customers, union groups, retirees, analysis, board, company, etc.
Create, refine, and test your major messages:
Honest, clear, consistent, meaningful
Select, limit, and coach your spokesperson(s):
Legitimate, referent, expert, knowledge, position, title, charisma, rank
Establish the most effective media or forum.
Determine the best timing.
Monitor the results.

Everything a company does influences public opinion and reputation, therefore, every company should look carefully at building, a positive reputation. In Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image, Charles Fombrun identifies six ways companies can build and maintain a positive corporate image:
Design campaigns to promote the company as a whole.
Carry out ambitions programs to champion product quality and customer service.
Maintain systems to screen employee activities for reputation side effects.
Demonstrate sensitivity to the environment.
Hire internal communication staff and retain public relations firms.
Demonstrate “corporate citizenship”

This list reveals the importance of being proactive and comprehensive in fostering corporate reputation. One mistake in any of these areas can cause repercussions from which a company may never recover.

The mistakes or missteps that tarnish a company’s reputation are most often uncovered and publicized by the news media. To increase chances for favorable treatment, it is important for a company to establish a positive relationship with the media and for every senior manager to know how to work effectively with them.

Since all major newspapers and most TV networks provide coverage of major corporations and are definitely interested in sensational news from smaller companies, every company needs to recognize the importance of the media and take the local media representatives and learn a little about their needs and interests. In addition, companies need to understand the value of positive public relations and realize that establishing a relationship with the media,, either directly or through a public relations firm, can open the door to a tremendous amount of “free” publicity.

Interactions with the media can allow a company to reach a large and globally dispersed audience, present their point of view proactively, and establish a positive public ethos.

Any leader or high-level manager should receive training and, ideally, specific coaching in preparation for an encounter with the media. The training should include the following at a minimum, preparation for the interview, performance during the interview, and steps to take afterward.
Preparation
Performance during the Interview
Steps Take after the Interview

Although establishing positive relationships with external audiences prior to a crisis will help in all but the most extreme situations, no amount of goodwill can guarantee the positive coverage that is necessary to avoid permanent damage to a company’s reputation.

The following guidelines will help companies respond appropriately in most crisis situations:
Develop a general crisis communication plan and communicate it.
Once the crisis occurs, respond quickly.
Make sure you have the right people ready to respond and that they all respond with the same message.
Put yourself in the shoes of your audience
Do not overlook the value of the Web.
Revisit your crisis communication plan frequently.
Build in a way to monitor the coverage.
Perform a post-crisis evaluation.