Reputation Resolutions Every Company Should Make, Pt. 2: Modernizing Crisis and Issues Management

Today’s reputation resolutions will focus on the critical aspect of crisis communications and issues management in preserving and protecting corporate reputation, and the power of advocacy and third-party influence for building reputation or aiding in its recovery:

4. Replace crisis communications with “always-on” issues management – What the very smartest companies are doing is replacing fire-fighting functions with fire mitigation specialists. That doesn’t mean crises don’t occur and specialists aren’t needed. But investing more and earlier in an “always-on” issues management approach keeps challenging situations from growing into reputationally damaging crises whose effects can be felt for years afterward. This is one of those things that can be tricky to pitch upwards (communicators rarely get a pat on the back for things that *don’t* happen), but the reputational benefits are felt well into the future. With the scale and rat of change ad challenge in 2020, many organizations have found it difficult to conduct any kind of long-range planning. This is a good time to conduct a vulnerability assessment and evaluate your issues management function. 

5. Widen your advocacy aperture – One of the most durable changes of recent years has been the expectation of companies to embrace advocacy as part of the CSR, HR, and communications framework. What once seemed radical – like Nike’s unapologetic embrace of Colin Kaepernick – is now almost table stakes after 2020. It’s not good enough to just participate in advocacy efforts that specifically relate to your industry. Companies need to expand their universe of advocacy and causes, using their values as a guide to being a corporate citizen in good standing. And it’s not just your customers that pay the most attention; it’s your Millennial and Gen Z employees who are likely to cause the biggest challenges if you don’t step up to the plate.

6. Stakeholder mapping for our new ecosystem – With a new administration in the White House–there’s a new map of stakeholders for almost every industry. If you haven’t looked at stakeholder mapping in the last 90 days, you are out of date. It’s not just government officials—there’s a universe of different NGOs, think tanks, academia, and media who take priority in a new Administration. No matter your sector, you need to rethink engagement.

7. Embrace influencers and re-evaluate your approach – One of the best aspects of pandemic recovery is an opportunity to make the structural changes we’ve been kicking-the-can on. For most companies, that means reorganizing how we operate, shifting towards relationships-based approach, prioritizing authenticity, and focusing on creating value for your stakeholders, not just cheerleading predictable company-centric messages that turn into white noise. Whether your brand has been “watching and waiting” on influencers or you were an early adopter, this is one of the most quickly changing areas of public relations that presents opportunity in every sector, and not an area where a “status quo” will suffice.