As we move into the New Year, who will be 2012’s biggest winners and losers in the reputation game?  Here are a few on my “watch list”:

1. Tim Tebow – College and professional sports have had a rough year, and we are looking for some new heroes.  Enter Tim Tebow – athletic uber-achiever, seemingly authentic advocate for faith, Tim Tebow has the stuff that heroes are made of…so much so that he was voted the most desirable celebrity neighbor in a recent poll.  Is this sustainable?   Or is he a one hit wonder?
2. President Obama – this one is self explanatory – people don’t think of our President as the CEO, but he is the CEO of America, Inc.  As Washington’s gridlock continues and the Republican nominees become more of a known quantity, will President Obama be the reputation winner?
3. Target – still a beloved brand for its budget-chic sensibility, Target is a reputation at a crossroads.  Last year brought negative attention for support of anti LGBT candidates to the red bulls eye, and a series of workplace issues threatens the store where the First Lady loves to shop.
4. Johnson & Johnson – The iconic trusted “baby company” is taking a lot of punches due to a series of recalls.  How long before that reputation goodwill bank runs out?
5. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook – The young billionaire took a few punches with release of The Social Network, punched back with a mega-donation to the Newark Schools.  If Facebook IPOs in 2012, all eyes will be on this company.
6. London and the 2012 Olympic Committee – an event of this magnitude is a make or break proposition.  But no pressure…
7. Sears & Kmart – my personal view is that the Kmart acquisition gave Sears a big black eye.  After weak holiday sales, they announced this week that they are shutting stores.
8. North Korea and Kim Jong Un – will a new supreme leader change the nation’s reputation, and its economy?
9. Meg Whitman and HP – distractions in leadership and strategy shifts put HP on the reputation roller coaster at a time when it was still reeling from the scandalous resignation of Mark Hurd.  Whitman seems to be bringing focus back to HP – and this may be the year they get their reputation mojo back.
10. Warren Buffet – 2010 was the year of asking billionaire’s to give away their wealth.  2011 brought the Buffet “tax me please” message to Washington.  What will the Oracle of Omaha do in 2012?

cwinters General Corporate Barack Obama, Facebook, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Meg Whitman, Tim Tebow

If you are planning to rob a bank, don’t ask anyone from HP to drive your getaway car…that company leaks live a sieve.  In what may be the worst kept secret in America (including no fewer than three articles in the New York Times about the rumor yesterday), HP has named Meg Whitman as its 4^th CEO in six years.   Thanks to those articles, they already know what the concerns are about Whitman – she has no turnaround experience, her background is in consumer tech, she’s built a company – not fixed a company, eBay was a simple, straightforward business – HP is a complex, multi-business company.

All three of her predecessors have been fired.  How can Whitman avoid that fate? Give the communications leadership a seat at the strategy table.   Sources say the board supported the company’s strategy, but didn’t have confidence that leadership could communicate it effectively (aka “sell it” to stakeholders).  It doesn’t get clearer than that.  

Whitman’s first communication to employees was a miss.  In that e-mail, HP failed to define any specific course of action, the board didn’t address the perceived shortcomings of Whitman or provide a compelling rationale for her selection, and contradicted themselves calling Leo Apokother’s “resignation” his decision, then later classifying it as a difficult decision for the board.

How can effective communications help Whitman, and HP succeed?  

1. Building Internal trust — HP needs a culture change.  Reportedly each business is a fiefdom, jockeying for control.  This is one explanation for the leak du jour (or multiple leaks du jour) at HP.  When confidential information is constantly reported in the news, that’s a clear indicator of a trust problem…employees don’t trust leadership to tell them what they need to know – which is only exacerbated when they’ve read about something all day and then get communication from the Company.
2. Creating external relevance — HP’s needs to be more relevant.  They’ve got no real skin in the game in the tablet wars (even though they had one of the first tablet PCs out there, albeit a different take on tablet than the wildly popular touchpad tablets like the iPad and the Galaxy).  The reputational boost they enjoyed from the photo printer wave is long gone. Right now, the most interesting thing about them is the board level drama and the leadership revolving door. 
3. Establishing credibility – stakeholders need to see HP define a course, establish interim benchmarks of success and then deliver.  It’s simple and old fashioned, but it works.  Thus far, Whitman has defined her course as “stay the course” – including proceeding with an acquisition that reportedly played a role in Apotheker’s ouster.   It’s hard to say if that is a meaningful validation of the strategy, or a belief that the same old thing, with some Celebrity CEO pixie dust thrown in, will make it more palatable to stakeholders.
4. Re-define success, at least for the short term.  Specifically, stop defining success solely by share price.  The turbulence and tumultuousness of the capital markets, especially these days, can hardly be considered the benchmark of success.  I’d start with the ability to preserve confidential information as a sign of confidence in leadership and the company’s direction internally.  Build customer relationships…and ultimately sales.  Innovate and bring the right products to market – and grow market share.  Provide stability and predictability for your stakeholders.   The share price will follow.

cwinters General Corporate eBay, HP, Leo Apotheker, Meg Whitman

If you are planning to rob a bank, don’t have anyone from HP driving the getaway car…this company leaks like a sieve. If the volume of news reports today is at all indicative of truth, HP is poised to fire its third consecutive CEO and name a new one, reportedly Meg Whitman. I’ll leave the opining about whether she is a good choice to the experts, but regardless of the choice, HP’s new CEO has a tough road ahead.

What can the board do to enable this 4th CEO to be successful?

1. Choose a great communicator. Sources say the board supported the strategy currently in place, but didn’t have confidence that it would be “sold” properly to the stakeholders. That’s a problem. Great leaders tend to be effective, even inspiring, communicators. 

2. Take control of the story…name your CEO, emphasize the reasons for the choice (hopefully someone with turnaround experience) in a first step to restore trust and confidence in the board. Make sure to highlight relevant skills and experience…one of the big criticisms of Whitman is that eBay is a consumer tech company, and built a company but never fixed one. 

3. Align third party support for the new CEO, and balance all of the negative quotes with some positive or at least neutral ones.

4. Make the new CEO’s first priority to fix the culture at HP. Many describe HP as multiple fiefdoms fighting for control…which explains frequency and volume of leaks that’s high even for tech companies. Build trust internally first, and external perception and performance will follow. 

5. Give your Corporate Communications leadership a seat at the table. A great PR strategist would likely have predicted most of these issues, and offered guidance on preemptive strategies, and remedies.

cwinters General Corporate eBay, HP, Meg Whitman

I read this piece about the great unveiling of HP’s strategy with anticipation – and it turned out to be a pretty big yawn. In a nutshell, they plan to sell new services to their existing clients, enter the Cloud arena and create apps and websites to buy them.

Many have expected HP to move into software and services, based on the selection of a new CEO with that background, and driven by a need to improve margins. And the app store concept is a bit of an unexpected twist. But none of these things scream innovation, the way we expect a technology giant to scream innovation.

Which begs the question – can a reputational leader be a “fast follower” (or in this case, not so fast follower) and still be a leader? If they are comfortable with being “A” leader versus “THE” leader and they are relevant enough, the answer is yes. When I think about the heyday of HP, I think about relevance – not innovation. The world was rapidly migrating to digital photography, and HP printers were there. Were they the best photo printers? Who knows….but I associate them with photo printing…at a time when that was a super-relevant topic.

Dunkin’ Donuts let Starbucks innovate and build a market – and now they are selling lots of coffee. Barnes & Noble’s Nook sold 2 million units and has secured a 25 percent market share of e-readers. Aviation, automotive and beverage manufacturers are always following each other. These companies have built extremely successful businesses on the strategy of following the leader because they have made themselves highly relevant to their constituencies.

It’s great to be the leader. But the key to being a successful challenger is relevance.

cwinters General Corporate Barnes & Noble, Dunkin Donuts, HP, Nook

For Johnson & Johnson CEO William Weldon, 2010 was, as Queen Elizabeth put it a few years back, an “annus horribilus.” The Company’s various divisions issued a seeming never ending string of recall notices from pain relievers to cold remedies to contact lens solution to antacids. J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare division, makers of Tylenol, Sudafed and Benadryl captured headlines throughout the year with a series of problems at its facilities.

Through a series of public relations fumbles, belated mea culpas and operational gaffes, J&J, a consumer healthcare icon, whose 1980s Tylenol tampering response was widely seen as the crisis communication gold standard, has seen its reputation significantly tarnished and its sales plummet. Generics and store brands from CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid have never had it so good.

This track record garnered for Mr. Weldon a place next to the likes of BP’s Tony Hayward and HP’s Mark Hurd a place on list of the worst CEOs of 2010 by Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth as reported by CNBC.

Unfortunately, it appears that 2011 is starting right where 2010 left off for J&J as the company issued its latest recall of 43 million bottles of Tylenol, Sudafed, Benadryl and Sinutab manufactured at McNeil’s now infamous Fort Washington, PA plant. Using a time-worn public relations ploy, the news of the recall was released on a Friday evening prior to a long holiday weekend. Mr. Weldon, once again spoke of action plans, quality reviews and commitment to consumer safety.

For those of us in crisis communications who know all too well how reputation is tied to a company’s proactive, transparent and thoughtful response, it is sad to see what has become of J&J. The blogosphere is once again full of chatter with reminiscences of J&J’s gloried past, recollections of its expert management or previous crises and calls for executive changes long overdue.

This past weekend also brought news of another medical leave to be taken by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The issues of Apple’s history of communications or non-communications about Mr. Jobs’ illness and succession planning at the Company are fodder for another blog post. This latest episode and the quick hit to Apple’s stock price shows the close relationship between corporate and executive reputation at Apple and what may happen with the Company’s visionary leader on the sideline. Conversely, for J&J and Mr. Weldon the reputational issue may be a CEO staying too long in a position.

rtauberman Crisis Communications Apple, BP, CVS, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Rite Aid, Steve Jobs, Tylenol, Walgreens

The HP Mark Hurd saga has provided a nice diversion to BP’s fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been interesting to follow the debate on whether HP’s Board of Directors did the right thing, the power of various advisors in the decision and whether the woman at the center of the controversy was merely an actress or an actress and Playboy model.

After all the stories and blogs on the incident and its aftermath along with the damage to HP’s share price and reputation, you’d think the company would do all it can to help the story fade away. Once it’s in the past, HP can get back to business, focus on its customers and enhance shareholder value.

When news broke earlier this week that Hurd is joining Oracle as co-president, many of us wondered how HP would react. After all, HP and Oracle are business partners in some areas and Hurd apparently was not subject to a non-compete clause. While California is reticent to impede employees from choosing a new employer, HP is pressing forward with a lawsuit challenging the hiring on trade secret and other concerns.

Legal pundits say the HP case has little chance of success in the courtroom. But in the court of public opinion (shareholders, customers, partners, employees and the Silicon Valley wags), HP is keeping the Hurd discussion alive. Whatever the motivation for the lawsuit (are there real business reasons or just revenge), HP may not have thought through the communications and reputational consequences of its actions.

As a start, Larry Ellison issued a statement that seemingly brings the future of the HP-Oracle partnership into play. More importantly, the lawsuit provides another opportunity for reporters, bloggers, financial analysts and others to rehash the details of the story up to now and speculate anew on HP’s future.

Stoking the controversy and prolonging the story may not be the best thing for HP in terms of reputation and relations with some key constituencies but it does allow the publication of more fetching photos of Jodie Fisher and adds to her 15 minutes of fame.

rtauberman General Corporate BP, HP, Mark Hurd, Oracle

I am working with a client on a program to help celebrate their code of commitment, and bring it to life as a vibrant part of their culture. This is serious, important work….and I commend them for their desire to not just talk the talk, but to really walk the walk, and celebrate their colleagues who are living by their code, every day. Together, we are taking this project very seriously. Because living up to your Code of Commitment is serious business.

Lately, the discussion around CSR — which in its best embodiments begins with a code of commitment — has been very scholarly, serious and perhaps even a tad preachy. I’ve read pieces by smart people who admonish HP for not “living their code” and as a result, ousting their CEO who didn’t live up to the standards. I wrote recently about CSR being part of the 5 Commandments for brands. I’ve advocated that CSR should report to the CEO. And with 20 years in this business of reputation management, I suppose I’ve even been a tad preachy from time to time.

Last week, I visited a camp for children with cancer. Talk about finding perspective.

I went there with a client that is developing some new philanthropic programs as part of its commitment to CSR. They are not overly interested in how to get credit, generate publicity or engage their stakeholders. They want to help. It isn’t about being responsible…it is about being real.

As I entered the camp, I read a sign that said “Some people care too much; I think they call it LOVE.” I watched these kids “Sing You In” to camp, get a lanyard and race off to swim lessons. I forgot all about criteria for CSR, reputation management and employee engagement. And I remembered the many moments in these two decades when my company, and my clients, have provided me the opportunity to simply do something good…just because we can.

Responsibility. Trust. Transparency. All big concepts today….but not bigger or more important than REAL.

cwinters CSR Code of Commitment, corporate responsibility, CSR, HP, trust

And now, for a break from our usual commentary about CEO resignations….

They say that things happen in three’s – and the resignation of GM’s CEO makes the third this week – HP, Sara Lee and now GM. And in the words of Forest Gump, that’s all I am going to say about that – because I feel like I’ve written enough about the role of CEO’s in building trust this week.

Instead, I thought I’d share this really interesting item on the MSNBC video “Top Tens.”

• 4 out of our last 5 President’s have this in common…
• It is what ties Bill Gates to Michaelangelo; Oprah Winfrey to Fidel Castro….
• It is more likely to happen if your mother is over 40 when you are born…
• And more likely to come with an IQ of 140 or higher…
• And it only occurs in 10% of the population.

Left handedness.

According to this piece, lefties are also more likely to use counterintuitive solutions to problems – making them trailblazers, leaders and game changers.

I’ve also heard that lefties were often twins at conception – which means I would have two of my 10-year son, Jack…..which is too mind boggling to even consider.

They say that people in PR make great dinner party guests because they are always full of interesting or unusual factoids. And they have something to say about just about everything.

Call me the queen of useless information…but I think I just lived up to that reputation.

cwinters General Corporate Bill Gates, GM, HP, Lefties, Oprah, Sara Lee

At what point does the reputational fallout from Mark Hurd’s resignation rain down on Hewlett-Packard’s PR advisors?

The New York Times reported today that APCO, a well-respected PR firm, advised HP’s board to get ahead of potential leaks associated with the investigation into allegations of sexual harassment by then-CEO Hurd.

The board took the advice, disclosing the unsupported allegations. Hurd resigned later that week – not due to the sexual allegations, but because he admitted to falsifying travel expense reports.

But I digress. Let’s look at APCO’s role here. APCO seemed to follow the crisis playbook – be proactive, be open and provide full disclosure. So far, so good. But if they made a mistake – and you could make a strong argument that they didn’t – perhaps it was to counsel their client to move quickly without all the facts in hand.

Now APCO’s reputation is getting bruised by a variety of media outlets, including the Times, which concluded its story today by reporting that APCO “does not have a particularly strong reputation for crisis management or technology expertise” despite advising corporate icons such as Microsoft, Intel and yes, HP, on such matters.

Ouch!

bsilver General Corporate APCO, HP, Intel, Microsoft, reputation

Over the past 20 years, I’ve done countless crisis audits and managed more crisis issues than I care to count, and I’m still fascinated how clients define a crisis. Traditional scenarios – manufacturing issues, product recalls, and physical events such as explosions, fires and crashes – have been in sharp focus during our summer of automobile recalls and oil spills.

Terrorism and natural disasters joined the list following 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina, and occasionally I hear about investigative journalism or Attorney General activism. One client even listed CEO kidnapping as his biggest fear.

But events of this past week should give us all pause and remind us that a crisis is anything that threatens a company’s reputation or undermines the trust and confidence of your stakeholders.

At Hewlett-Packard, allegations of sexual harassment forced the resignation of CEO Mark Hurd despite solid company performance during his tenure. Now some news reports suggest the claim was baseless, citing a “breach of trust” related to improper expense reporting to conceal the Hurd’s relationship with a company contractor. (In some circles, that would be called fraud, or theft – but that, along with Larry Ellison’s comments about the HP Board, may be another post for another day). And at Sara Lee, Brenda Barnes voluntarily stepped down after a medical leave of absence.

CEO illness, litigation, investigative journalism, and sometimes corporate or executive malfeasance – all of these things can generate a crisis. And all of them warrant a response, regardless of whether a company and its leaders decide on the response or whether it is decided for them.

My advice to clients: As you think about your own organization’s crisis protocols, are you prepared for the kinds of Crisis 2.0 issues that are making headlines? Is your crisis response team prepared to deal with the multitude of issues that could trigger a breach of confidence, and are they prepared to do it in the lightning speed now necessary due to social media?

If the answer is no, it’s time to refresh, reboot or otherwise re-align your crisis plan. Someone’s job may depend on it.

cwinters Crisis Communications, Executive Visibility CEO communications, Crisis Communications, HP