Speaking
from (too much) personal and professional experience, I can testify that massive
amounts of information, data, and research exist on the subject of reputation –
corporate reputation, to be specific. Public relations and marketing firms have
practices devoted to reputation management. Book after book has been published on
the subject. And who can quantify how many billions of dollars have been spent
by companies seeking to improve their reputations?
It’s
not exactly comforting to know that, after all of this effort and expenditure,
people trust corporations (and CEOs) only marginally more than they trust
Congress.
Which
is the same thing as that they don’t trust corporations at all.
This
past week, I read three articles by Charles Green at Trust Advisor, a consulting
firm that focuses on the subject of trust. What caught my eye (and I have to
say, my heart), was this statement: “Most companies confuse trust with
reputation. They view it as a communications problem, something to be handled
by PR, especially in times of crisis. Trust problems are addressed by amping up
the messaging.”
That
first sentence bears repeating: Most
companies confuse trust with reputation.
Another
way of saying that: if you have a reputation problem, the problem is not your
reputation.
I went
back and reread the article. And then I read Part 2 the next day, and Part 3
the day after that.
After
40 years in the organizational communications business, I can say that I have
never read more common sense – and truth – than I did in these three articles.
It’s
not about reputation.
